Latika Bourke always hated it when people asked her where she came from. As far as she was concerned she was Australian with a brown skin. The first eight months of her life in an Indian orphanage was something to be put aside as she made her way in the world, becoming a successful broadcaster and journalist.
The
reawakening began when she realised one of the characters in the Indian movie Slumdog Millionaire had her name, and
with the support of her partner, decided it was time to discover something of
her origins in the country of her birth.
What
follows is a story of discovery. Not so much of herself because Latika is
Australian to the core and nothing will change that, but of a country like no
other, whose fascination has captured and engulfed people (including this
writer) down the ages.
She also
discovers how incredibly lucky she has been, first to survive at all in a nation
where childbirth remains a dangerous exercise among the very poor and then to
have been one of the infinitesimal number of babies adopted into the relative
wealth and safety of Western countries.
I enjoyed
her description of travel in Bihar, a State off the tourist route but embedded
deep in the Indian consciousness, as anyone who has had experience of the
recent election there could testify.
If I have
one quibble, it is that Latika spends too long ‘setting the scene’ dwelling on
her average childhood and adolescence in regional New South Wales, but it is
her story and autobiographies should please the writer first and then hope to
please the reader second.
It pleased
this reader. I note that Latika is now visiting India regularly and hopes at
some stage to live there. This should be sufficient to spawn another book about
the country she has come to love.
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