Its been long time. I have been writing here and there in scattered fashion but blog is totally overlooked. Anyway, finished reading English, August so thought of putting a book review for it.
Book is fictional account of a young elite class metro kid who lands into civil services through IAS examination. He recounts his experience of first on-the-job training in hinterlands of Madna.
The bengali boy with sanskritized name Augustya, born to hybrid culture of Goanese mother and Bengali father finds it difficult to adjust to small town life of officialdom and hierarchy. He meets interesting people each characterizing the mundanness of civil services.
The book is full of dark humor, sarcasm interlaced with cheap yet frank sexual fantasies. It describes the restlessness and frenzy of thoughts in the mind of convent educated, sexually deprived, drug addicted young and able officer who is struggling with job-person misfit. His experience with office etiquette and rules, interaction with seniors and colleagues, and secret life of officer is described beautifully with wit and sarcasm. The book is sort of a rebels account of services lampooning it as inefficient and waste of time.
The author used his literary skills to capture the randomness and flippant nature of young officers. It was more like a daily diary of field training days. The officer class culture of 2 meals a day, IAS vs the rest , junior-senior bonding are explained in detail.
This is a manageable read for fiction loving convent educated civil services candidate who have never seen a village or never traveled in buses. It can help correcting the misplaced expectations of Lal-batti aspiring individuals. One may read it for the love of literature as well.However, It would be waste of time for people who are discretely aware of differences between a 3rd tier and metro city and who knows the ground reality of the country.
Book is fictional account of a young elite class metro kid who lands into civil services through IAS examination. He recounts his experience of first on-the-job training in hinterlands of Madna.
The bengali boy with sanskritized name Augustya, born to hybrid culture of Goanese mother and Bengali father finds it difficult to adjust to small town life of officialdom and hierarchy. He meets interesting people each characterizing the mundanness of civil services.
The book is full of dark humor, sarcasm interlaced with cheap yet frank sexual fantasies. It describes the restlessness and frenzy of thoughts in the mind of convent educated, sexually deprived, drug addicted young and able officer who is struggling with job-person misfit. His experience with office etiquette and rules, interaction with seniors and colleagues, and secret life of officer is described beautifully with wit and sarcasm. The book is sort of a rebels account of services lampooning it as inefficient and waste of time.
The author used his literary skills to capture the randomness and flippant nature of young officers. It was more like a daily diary of field training days. The officer class culture of 2 meals a day, IAS vs the rest , junior-senior bonding are explained in detail.
This is a manageable read for fiction loving convent educated civil services candidate who have never seen a village or never traveled in buses. It can help correcting the misplaced expectations of Lal-batti aspiring individuals. One may read it for the love of literature as well.However, It would be waste of time for people who are discretely aware of differences between a 3rd tier and metro city and who knows the ground reality of the country.
