Pure reading pleasure is how I would like to describe An Economist?s Miscellany. It is a collection of brilliant short stories where the Indian economy frequently figures as a charming character.
The anthology of essays dates from 2005 to 2010, and, as Kaushik Basu will candidly accept, run the risk of getting dated on some counts. It is inevitable, given the speed at which India is changing.
The reason I suspect readers will still choose this book over other authoritative tomes is because of Basu, the raconteur. He does not get caught in describing minutiae, but strings together a series of attractive short pieces, interspersed with even sharper observations of human beings.
The way he does it makes him a theatre buff?s delight, bringing ordinary events to life. Readers, I am sure, will have their personal list of the ones they loved, but it will be difficult to keep the mid-flight chat on Zen with a fellow German economist (Economics and Zen in Munich) out of any list. We must have all had similar experiences of linguistic goof ups in our lives, but the candour with which Basu tells his tale is amazing.
Of course, there are risks involved with such candour. The narrative of an Air India flight, The Maharajah Disappoints, could surface in the world that the government?s chief economic advisor inhabits. But shorn of such concerns, it is again a tale of a flight where nothing much happens, yet the way he brings the experience alive makes the tale worth plagiarising as our own.
There are exceptional moments, too. Right in the first chapter, Entering North Block, he narrates how his wife and he out-thought a pickpocket couple in Venice. The chapter has all the ingredients to develop into a thriller.
In fact, not only here, but through most of his books, Basu has never let go an opportunity to explain difficult theories with the help of illuminating tales. In his book Beyond Invisible Hand (Penguin, 2010), he has liberally interspersed his sharp analysis with a sense of humour that makes the book difficult to leave midway.
Explaining why he favours a sort of global inheritance tax, Basu talks about the possible escape routes. ?In deciding how much to give away while alive, one will therefore have to balance the risk of living long years after giving away ones wealth to loved ones, who may turn out to be not so loving in return, and being caught dead before being able to give away much.? Cogent. And irreverent.
It is this ability that made Basu?s lectures at the Delhi School of Economics in the 1980s and at Cornell University, rather popular.
Except for one paper presented at a seminar in Singapore, the rest of the pieces are articles written for newspapers or other media. What Basu does is adhere to a fundamental requirement that a large number of journalists cheat on. He remembers to tell a story, no matter what the context. In each of them, however, he brings in the perspective of a liberal, a reader of global history and a willingness to engage with the world where arts and just about all aspects of human life have a welcome presence, quite like his PhD guide, a certain Amartya Sen.
This avoids repetition, a frequent problem columnists wrestle with, and helps him retain the freshness of the tales. As I said before, it is easy to quibble with the conclusions of some of the columns, using Basu?s own annual Economic Survey, but that is not the point of this book at all.
To demonstrate he can actually tell a tale, the book has two unusual sections. He takes upon himself translation of two stories by Bengal?s classic humourist, Shibram Chakraborty, and rounds it of with a play Crossings at Benaras Junction. Basu describes the reason for his self given adjective ?Dramatic Incursions? as the urge to write a play, which is quotidian unlike the forte of Indian theatre where there is a lot of ?drama.?
Does one suspect the mental make up of the lead character in the play? Sidhharth has possibly a lot of similarity with the author?a brilliant professor who makes his class fall in love with him and who has a soft corner for classic Hindi film tunes!
An Economist?s Miscellany brings together the world of Basu, if such a thing is possible in a book, in much the same way that he has begun attempting in Chapter 2 of the Economic Survey, explaining in one place the rationale for the polices of the government of India.
An Economist’s Miscellany
Kaushik Basu
Oxford
Rs 395
Pp 200
Extract
As night descends and music spills out of the cafes and bars, I realize how Jerusalem is, simultaneously, romantic and sad. The city with its almond blossoms and rakefet flowers blooming in the cracks of stones is beautiful. The women?Jews, Arabs, and the dark-eyed Ethiopians?are reason enough to turn your head. There are tales of times gone by etched on virtually every stone. But all this is also enveloped in a sadness special to Jerusalem. There is insecurity everywhere?one has to have a pat down before one sits down in a cafe or enters a museum. The minorities, like the Arabs I spoke to in restaurants and taxis, feel marginalized and second-class in a hostile land. Standing on the slopes of Mount Scopes in Hebrew University, one can see the partitions in the distance. A cluster of white, gleaming houses belong to Jewish settlers, and next to that, the worn-out homes and streets, where one can see people going about their quotidian lives are all Palestinian homes, under the Palestinian Authority.
