Ayya's Accounts A Ledger of Hope in Modern India [Paperback]

Ayyas Accounts explores the life of an ordinary manorphan, refugee, shopkeeper, and grandfatherduring a century of tremendous hope and upheaval. Born in colonial India into a despised caste of former tree climbers, Ayya lost his mother as a child and came of age in a small town in lowland Burma. Forced to flee at the outbreak of World War II, he made a treacherous 1,700-mile journey by foot, boat, bullock cart, and rail back to southern India. Becoming a successful fruit merchant, Ayya educated and eventually settled many of his descendants in the United States. Luck, nerve, subterfuge, and sorrow all have their place along the precarious route of his advancement. Emerging out of tales told to his American grandson, Ayyas Accounts embodies a simple faiththat the story of a place as large and complex as modern India can be told through the life of a single individual.

Pandians Ayya makes it possible to believe that the common can be uncommon. In the hands of this gifted writer, the eyes of this careful observer, and the ears of this persistent listener, an uncommon ordinariness itself becomes extraordinary. Indeed, Anand Pandians loving dialogue with his Ayya is inspiration to all of us to listen, observe, and take note of our family histories. The little stories of our parents and grandparents are very much a part of the grand narrative of tradition and modernity.Overall, this is a beautifully written, deeply engaging book. Theory  such as it is present at all  is worn lightly, insights emerging gently through an engagement with Ayyas stories, rather than imposed to make sense of the whole.

Preface

1. A Century of Experience
2. In Some Village, Somewhere
3. Taj Malabar Hotel, 2005
4. Things I Didn't Know I'd Lost
5. Pudur, 2012
6. A Decade in Burma
7. Okpo, 1940
8. When the War Came
9. Kovilpatti, 1946
10. A New Life at Home
11. Victoria Studio, 1949
12. Dealing Cloth in a Time of War
13. Dindigul, 1951
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