On the Grand Trunk Road

A Journey into South Asia

By: Steve Coll

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 14 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Available for the first time in audio, Steve Coll's trek across a socially and politically damaged South Asia.

Best-selling author Steve Coll is one of the preeminent journalists of the 21st century. His last two books, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and New York Times best-seller The Bin Ladens, have been praised for their creative insight and complex yet compelling narratives - and have put him on par with journalists such as the legendary Bob Woodward. Now, for the first time ever, the audio edition of On the Grand Trunk Road is finally available, revised and updated with new material. Focusing on Coll's journeys in conflict-ridden India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan as a bureau chief for The Washington Post, On the Grand Trunk Road reveals a little-seen area of the world where violence, corruption, and greed have had devastating effects on South Asians from all walks of life.

©1994, 2009 Steve Coll (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Some of the analysis is weak.

True, the story ends nearly 20 years ago. We cannot comment on the analysis as it applies to4 South Asian countries other than Ceylon (sri lanka). Here are the faults in the books as they apply to Ceylon.

What the author calls the 'Neruvian' model has no relevance in Ceylon for a long time. Unlike all the other countries he mentions, Ceylon was a part of the British Commonwealth until 1972 with H. M. the Queen as its head of state.

Until 1956, Royal Navy was stationed in Trincomalee; the government until then was conservative and its relationship with Neru was distant. In fact, during the so-called Bang Dung (unsure of the spelling) conference in Indonesia, prime ministers of Ceylon and India came to blows! An excellent way of resolving international crises without using any military force which we highly recommend to all the world leaders.

In 1972, the Ceylonese constitution was changed introducing a president to head the country. At the same time, the corrupt government try to become popular by playing a childish version of the nationalist card. It demanded that everybody should call the country by its vernacular name i.e. Shri Lanka; this is like the German government insisting that everybody should call Germany Deutschland! Well, this piece of priceless stupidity has ben accepted by all except a few.

There are three ethnic groups in Ceylong; the Singhalese, Tamils and the so-called Moors who are descended from the Arab spice and gem traders who settled in the country. Majority of the Tamils are Hindoos while the Moors are Mohommadans. Meanwhile, the majority of Singhalese are Buddists, hence their culture is very different from that in India. There is only one very small tribal group i.e., Veddas who are a stone-age ethnic group akin to those who live in Nicobar islands.

One of the fellows the author mentions bandara-naike began what might be called tepid and confused 'sosialisation' of the country. He also made Singhalese the official language which led to ethnic riots between the Singhalese and Tamils. His widow sirimawathie often wrongly called sirimavo was the PM in 1972 when English education was banished from the universities and technical schools. Hence, the monolingual youth. Of course, this did not affect the leaders' broods in anyway.

The author should have investigated the inflammatory speech mrs. gandi made in Fiji which led to the Fijian military taking over political power. He should also have checked on the 'sons of the land' laws in Malasia whose rationale cannot be dismissed lightly. Tamil insurrection was brewing long before 1977 as we know through personal communication, and it began with the Tamils killing their own main stream politicians so that they could claim that they are not represented! Their 'leaders' whose name I cannot spell or pronounce had the giant intellect of one who had successfully completed 5th grade. This is a fact that may be checked.

So, nationalist fervour, near total political incompetence coupled with world class hypocrisy and mendacity are the prime causes of the misery in the region. This can be easily seen in the gandi saga; until late he went in full morning dress in South Africa and became humble in dress when the fellow was old and business as a lawyer not too good. We don't know whether the man ever acknowledged his debt to Henry David of Walden. We doubt it. Perhaps, it would have been helpful if the author recalled what Reginald the Bishop of Calcuttas said more than a century ago, "if you should ask ten Indians the same question, you are sure to get ten different answers."

The reason we did not give 5 points to the reader is that we noticed a few mispronunciations. 'Nourish' was not pronounced as NUt-RISH and 'quixotic wasn't pronounced as QUICK-So-TIC. We would have happily given 4.5, but it seems to be impossible here.

Another good book ruined by appalling narration

The narrator's unpredictable invention of punctuation where none exists ruins the listener's experience of this book. His giggle-inducing mispronunciation of South Asian names and words makes matters even worse.

Politics of Southeast Asia

Excellent
Can learn a lot about south east Asia and how the democracies work there

Fascinating but out of date

Unfortunately I didn't realize that this was written in the early 1990's, and though much has not changed since then, it is still very out of date today.

Good story telling but irritating attempt at imitating Indian accent

I wish the narrator would just read the book and try not to imitate Indian accent. It was a distraction.

Narrator does an insulting South Asian accent...

...whenever a South Asian spoke. Publisher of audiobook needs to apologize for this. This was the most ridiculous way to read out an audiobook. Did the publisher think it was okay because the narrator has Iraqi roots (which have virtually nothing to do with South Asia)? What the hell is wrong with you ignorant western decision makers?