20B20W - 17th book, In Spite of the Gods by Edward Luce

Began reading this book long ago in India, having bought the book when I moved to Bombay in 2009! Since I have been bingeing on purchases and not doing them justice and also since I carried just 1 book on my trip to the USA, hadn't managed to get around to reading this. Since my bro had the same book, began reading it again.

Luce's book has been acclaimed quite a bit and hence I will only add my bit and do some nitpicking as well

1. The book is mostly written with affection & patience. So Mr. Luce, take a bow.
2. For a book that is priced at $15.95, it has at least 2 really awful proof reading errors - a missing fullstop and a "they" instead of "the". I am quite turned off by such errors anyways but when I have paid good money, I am more than pissed
3. He mentions dining with the Rajputana Rifles and having mulligatawny soup. Is that possible? Just a harmless question, ok?
4. One of the telling comments he makes is about an India-Pak match, where several 'VIPs' including Sonia's kin request and get passes while MMS' wife Gurusharan Kaur sends a cheque for the right amount for hers. Commendable. Shame on the rest
5. At some point, he says an apt description for Pakistan is "Not India." Tragic
6. He talks quite fearlessly about everyone from Modi to YSR and Ravishankar (the one with too many "Sri"s) and doesn't mince his words about them. Apparently Modi said even Indonesia, a Muslim nation has Ganesha on its currency. So Luce says perhaps India should have some Muslim symbol to showcase its secular nature. Modi may be being petty but does Luce have to be? (I checked the Rs.10, 20, 50 and 100 notes I had. There is no obvious Muslim symbol, but neither is there any Hindu one. Am I missing something?)  
7. Apparently NRN described Indian bureaucrats as MAFA for mistaking articulation for achievement. Maybe Nandan heard him!
8. One amusing/witty anecdote is about a group at Infy called "Good for Nothing" which works for social causes. Nice name I thought

Overall, it is a nice read but perhaps I should have read it when it came out as it feels a little dated now. However what is worrying is that one of the author's only pleas/prescriptions to India to pay attention to its HIV problem is still perhaps largely unheeded although the govt. did take a big step by sort of recognizing homosexuals.