How Long to Read How America's Transformed India

How Long Does it Take to Read How America's Transformed India?

It takes the average reader 2 hours and 40 minutes to read How America's Transformed India by Sunil Sharan

Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more

Description

In my third year at college in India, a rock band came to town. They held a concert in the center of the campus, at what were called the D-Lawns. I was painfully shy in college, and had just about one friend. I was a complete loner; everyone shunned me. I made my way to the concert alone and saw an empty piece of grass, looked at the guy behind me and asked him for permission to sit down when I had no need to, and then plonked myself down, embarrassed at all the fuss I had created.It was 1988. Since I was a loner, I was always philosophizing to myself. Why did India ape all of the evil of the West? Why didn't it imbibe some of the energy? These questions plagued me. Of course, I did not share my thoughts with anyone. An episode of bipolar depression the year before had dropped me from the perch of the straight topper in a batch of 700 students. No one in my college or at home or the doctors my dad showed me to knew what bipolar was. People in college just assumed that I had gone mad. My father started reading up on depression; I hated him for it.My father was born in 1931, a full 16 years before India gained independence from the British in 1947. My father belonged to a Delhi family of lineage; still he attended Sanskrit school. Over time he improved his English to the finest I have ever read. His formative years were spent in the Raj. Soon after college, he joined the Indian army in a world-famous cavalry regiment formerly known as the Royal Second Lancer's, now only as the Second Lancer's. The regiment strictly maintained its British customs; each new officer recruit had to do a head stand and while doing so, drink whiskey from a goblet on the floor. If you passed this initiation ceremony, you were accepted into the regiment; otherwise you kept trying until kingdom come.My father became what came to be known as the archetypal brown sahib: brown Indian masters that the British had left behind. My father was very Indian but could speak with an Anglicized accent, referred to Indians as kaalus (blackies), and did not allow any journal or book written in his mother tongue, Hindi, at home. He didn't like the British for what they had done to India or how they had treated Indians, but still lived like them. An ace shot, he was a master Western dancer, drank like a fish, and smoked like a chimney.My father was not very different from others of his ilk. 1993 saw my older brother getting married. A wedding reception was held in the lawns of the army club in Delhi. Assembled were my father's colleagues, many retired colonels and generals. My cousin, who was a civilian and a businessman, remarked: Oh, they should all go to good ole Blighty. Blighty of course meant England. It was a derivative of the Hindi word, bilayati, meaning foreign. All of us civilians present cracked up laughing.I was born in late 1968. My father made sure that I did not partake of traditional Indian sports like kabbadi, kite-flying, and gulli-danda (stick on stick). Lord Macaulay of England had tried in the first half of the nineteenth century to take out the Indian from every Indian; my father in my case was just as determined as Macaulay. I could play only western sports like cricket, soccer, field hockey, track or karate. My father taught me French. One of my earliest memories is of opening a British encyclopedia with a color picture of the Queen Elizabeth II. She looked beautiful. I remarked so. Since then I have always associated female beauty with pale skin; even though I now realize that the queen wasn't all that beautiful.From the same encyclopedia, my mother read me Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. We were a cavalry family after all; we had but to do or die. India under Nehru was practicing Fabian socialism. Nehru didn't like the US, although rumors abounded of an affair between him and Jackie Kennedy or her sister Lee Radziwill or both when they visited him when he was the prime minister of India in the early sixties.

How long is How America's Transformed India?

How America's Transformed India by Sunil Sharan is 160 pages long, and a total of 40,000 words.

This makes it 54% the length of the average book. It also has 49% more words than the average book.

How Long Does it Take to Read How America's Transformed India Aloud?

The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 3 hours and 38 minutes to read How America's Transformed India aloud.

What Reading Level is How America's Transformed India?

How America's Transformed India is suitable for students ages 10 and up.

Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.

When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.

Where Can I Buy How America's Transformed India?

How America's Transformed India by Sunil Sharan is sold by several retailers and bookshops. However, Read Time works with Amazon to provide an easier way to purchase books.

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