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No Full Stops in India

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 289 ratings · 17 reviews

India's Westernized elite, cut off from local traditions, 'want to write a full stop in a land where there are no full stops'. From that striking insight Mark Tully has woven a superb series of 'stories' which explore Calcutta, from the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad (probably the biggest religious festival in the world) to the televising of a Hindu epic. Throughout, he combines...more

Paperback, 336 pages

Published June 1st 1991 by Penguin USA (P)

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May 29, 2012 Manu Prasad rated it 4 of 5 stars

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A book published in 1991, and so the best part about it is that it involves a fair amount of time travel. It's a collection of 10 essays with an introduction and epilogue that could pass off as mini essays too! While all of the essays are commentaries, what adds that little flavour is the author's own involvement in it, which he somehow manages to balance with a near objective view. The first essay, for instance, involves the marriage of his cook's daughter, and his experience at the village. Bu...more A book published in 1991, and so the best part about it is that it involves a fair amount of time travel. It's a collection of 10 essays with an introduction and epilogue that could pass off as mini essays too! While all of the essays are commentaries, what adds that little flavour is the author's own involvement in it, which he somehow manages to balance with a near objective view. The first essay, for instance, involves the marriage of his cook's daughter, and his experience at the village. But it also is about how communities in villages have been solving their own problems even better than the land's relatively new legal system. It thus serves as an example of how we, the 'educated elite' make a clamour for egalitarianism without understanding the positives of the caste system.
Cultural imperialism is the theme of the next essay and is brought out through the carvings at Mahabalipuram, and the interaction and friction between British artists (sculptors) and their Indian counterparts, whom they rate slightly lesser- as craftsmen. The essay also touches upon Dalit Christians and how they are discriminated against even within the Church.
The Kumbh Mela is what the third essay is about and is a vivid telling of the massive festival. The author spends time with VP Singh's brother, and meets the various people who ply their trade in this enormous festival - the pandas and later, the akharas who look to recruit people or get donations. In this, there is a note of sarcasm that creeps in occasionally, but Tully still manages to capture the faith driven fervour superbly. He has also correctly predicted the potential rise of communal parties towards the end of the essay.
One of the most interesting essays is the fourth one, especially for my generation which grew up watching Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan! The author reminded me of the impact of this mega serial long before we had reality TV and TRPs - taxi drivers who knocked on the author's door asking for permission to watch it in his house, cabinet swearing in postponed so everyone could watch it, and so on. He spends 2 days with the Sagars while they're shooting the Uttararamayan section (owing to public demand) and there Ramanand Sagar tells him how he has handled feminists and also the story of his own life. There is an amusing part about the filming of a scene - Lakshman having biscuits between takes, reusing marigolds for extra takes, and so on.
Operation Black Thunder is a more serious essay which involves covering the whole event live. This was an era before live TV and omnipresent crews and the author tries to delve deeper into how a section of the Sikhs and the Central and State governments reached this point, with interviews of civil servants and military, police personnel.
Colonialism in Calcutta is probably my favourite essay as Tully takes us through the city where Marxism, industries and religion co-exist side by side amidst bare remnants of an earlier era. In between are interesting anecdotes like the Oberoi Hotel's origins. This happens to be the author's birthplace and the affection does really come through.
The next one was a surprise since it dealt with a modern day case of Sati and it has never been proved whether it was suicide or murder. The author gets the varying perspectives of the villagers, politicians, civil servants, activists, the extended family, and it does bring out how laws at the end of day, should be made understanding the minds of the people they are made for.
Typhoon in Ahmedabad also surprised me but apparently that's the name they use for riots! This is an era before Narendra Modi left his indelible mark and does show that riots existed long before him. The poor - both Hindu and Muslim, seem the most affected in the politically motivated result of a nexus between politicians and the underworld. SEWA's activities also get some space as does Ahmedabad as a city.
A journey into Madhya Pradesh in what was the national vehicle of the time - the Ambassador, makes up the next essay. The destination is the village of an artist who has made it (relatively) big in Bhopal with the help of a government program. Jabalpur, the inconspicuous geographical centre of India, represents eminently the feel of a tier 3 city in the mid-late 80s. This essay also covers ground on tribals, their belief systems and I also found what could be the precursor to Arundhati Roy's essays
about the Narmada.
The last essay is about Digvijay Narain Singh, the politician from Bihar who also happens to be the author's close friend. He belongs to an era when politicians had a conscience, and while you could say that the author is biased, much of the perspective is reportage - opinions from others. The politician's relationships with Nehru, Indira Gandhi are well chronicled and throws light on the kind of politician who took the responsibility of being a public servant seriously.
The epilogue is a note on Rajiv Gandhi, and through this, the state of India as a nation. It ends with the news of Rajiv's death and the author's perspective on what this means for a nation.
In essence, a wonderful read that gave me insights about a time when I was too young to dwell on things happening around me and events that ultimately affected the present I live in. (less)

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Jan 18, 2010 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: india

The man I stayed with in Goa reccommended this book for me to read, I wanted something about Indian history/politics/culture -- and not some white upper-middle class woman's spiritual experience as a tourist or whatever. /No Full Stops In India/ was perfect for me, entertaining essays and insights by a former BBC journalist who truly loved the country. The book is comprised of 10 chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue.

"Ram Chander's Story" is about Tully's servant: his life, their relat...more The man I stayed with in Goa reccommended this book for me to read, I wanted something about Indian history/politics/culture -- and not some white upper-middle class woman's spiritual experience as a tourist or whatever. /No Full Stops In India/ was perfect for me, entertaining essays and insights by a former BBC journalist who truly loved the country. The book is comprised of 10 chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue.

"Ram Chander's Story" is about Tully's servant: his life, their relationship, attending his daughter's marriage. It is a fitting first chapter to the book, gives a taste of the humour, tales, thoughts and insights of a white man absorbing and living in Indian culture.
"The New Colonialism" deals with the lasting impact of the british raj and how the Indian elite, with their western values, are shaping the country and infiltrating every sector of the culture - sometimes misguidedly.
"The Kumbh Mela" is the description of a religious event that is thuroughly Indian. I read this chapter in Hampi in Northern Karnataka the day of a similar festival where I'd gotten so frustrated at the Indians lack of order and masses of humanity that prevented me from getting from one side of a river to another because every time people tried to board a boat, too many got on and it started sinking. Rather than organize the crowd into a queue, they stopped the boat shuttles altogether until the second boat was finished being built.... Enterprising Indians took advantage of the situation and offered to ferry people across in coricles (essentially wicker baskets) to make some easy money. The whole ordeal reminded me of this chapter of the book...
"The Rewriting of the Ramayan" is about he intersection of india's film industry, religion/mythologies, and general culture.
"Operation Black Thunder" is one of the more political-events focused piecies in the book, about Sikh extreamism and the sensitive way the Indian government police and army deals with religious fundamentalism.
"Communism in Calcutta" talks about the crazy politics of India and one groups attempt to revitalize India.
"The Deorala Sati" is about a country and caste coming to terms with questionable religious practices, as well as how feminists are seen in India.
"Typhoon in Ahmedabad" talks about the shady local politics surrounding riots and religious differences, and highlights the disconect between the politicans and the poor, and the press and the poor.
"The Return of the Artist" is a story quintecentially Indian, similar to the opening chapter it is funny but informative at the same time.
"The Defeat of a Congressman" is a sad last story about Indian politics and one mans attempt to make good for India despite the beurocracies qnd confusions.

Really interesting book, I think Mark Tully provides an interesting view od Indian culture and politics. My main problem I had was the fact that it was written in 1990, and I'm sure a ton has happened in India since them so I'm not sure how much of uis ideas are still totally relevant. (less)

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Mar 07, 2013 Bookguide rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you are interested in the culture of India in the sense of religion, temples, music and dance, this is not the book for you, although there is an interesting chapter on the religious festival the Kumbh Mela, which reminded me of the descriptions of the Egyptian Moulid in Tanta described in Abdel-Hakim Kassen's book The Seven Days of Man. I also enjoyed the chapter about the filming of the Indian soap series which is based on the Hindu Ramayan stories.

Each of the ten chapters in Mark Tully's b...more If you are interested in the culture of India in the sense of religion, temples, music and dance, this is not the book for you, although there is an interesting chapter on the religious festival the Kumbh Mela, which reminded me of the descriptions of the Egyptian Moulid in Tanta described in Abdel-Hakim Kassen's book The Seven Days of Man. I also enjoyed the chapter about the filming of the Indian soap series which is based on the Hindu Ramayan stories.

Each of the ten chapters in Mark Tully's book gives an insightful view into a particular time, place or trend in the India of the 1980s and 1990s including the background and history. Mark Tully was born in Calcutta, brought up in a post-colonial India, educated in Britain, but returned as a journalist who lived there, loved the country, and yet was aware of the fact that he remained an outsider. The essays are journalistic in style, and many of them deal with the politics of the region, but brought down to a human level. In his long career in India, Tully travelled extensively and made many personal contacts and friends whom he was able to interview to gain insight into the way the country ticks. He was often aware that the way India is portrayed in the Western press concentrates on the sensational, and that Western organisations often try to apply Western solutions to India's problems, without being sensitive to a culture which, though it might appear chaotic and inefficient to the sanitised West, has operated more or less successfully for thousands of years, and has never been static but has evolved. In recent years the problems of "cultural imperialism" and lack of sensitivity to other cultures have become more widely recognised, with charities concentrating more on small-scale self-sufficiency and local loans, but these essays were written at the time of top-down, Western-run initiatives such as "Feed the World" money-raising extravaganzas. So Mark Tully's visits to villages were refreshing, as he wrote about the benefits of traditional life, where families and castes looked after each other, and initiatives such as SEWA were helping women set up cooperatives. This sort of grass-roots local charity was not well-known in the West in those days.

As he visited various politicians, a "tribal" artist whose work had become popular and other men of standing all over the country, a picture emerged of how successful people financially helped the people surrounding them so that their relative wealth benefitted many others, either by giving money to individuals or building schools, etc. In traditional areas, people still lived in their extended families, and widows were taken in by their husband's extended families, although by Western standards women were not free and widows could not remarry. In the epilogue, written just after the assassination of Rajiv Ghandi, Tully concludes that it was Indira Ghandi's son's lack of understanding of his own country, his Westernised attitudes, even his lack of fluency in Hindi, which were his downfall. By trying to apply a foreign style of democracy instead of working within the age-old Indian methods of subtle diplomacy, backhanders, corrupt officials and personal favours, he was doomed to failure. This seemingly chaotic style and widespread poverty seem from the outside to be problems to be solved, but the real threats are consumerism, the greed of the middle classes which throw the poverty of the masses into stark relief and the demand for Western-style organisation and efficiency which will cause loss of work for the unskilled; the uneducated poor will be even more disadvantaged and less able to achieve their ambitions, however meagre they may seem. Traditional Indian society can be seen as communist with a small c in the way in which it has a place and an occupation for everyone, and it is questionable if a move to Western-style efficiency will solve anything. Can the West claim to know the answers when it is currently plagued by problems of unemployment, poverty and the debate about how far the social security network should go to support people? Perhaps traditional societies have much to teach us.

"The strength of India lies in the resilience of the poor. That night I, like so many outsiders, had forgotten that the pavement-dwellers of Patna do manage to make lives for themselves, they have families and friends, they have their hopes and their fears. They are to be admired, not pitied. The poor may be fatalists, but this does not mean they have despaired."

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Jan 31, 2011 Vaarun Dhingra rated it 5 of 5 stars

A brilliant book by Mark Tully who was working as a journalist for the BBC, this book was published in 1991 and therefore deals with a lot of the things that were making news back then. The chapters on the Sati and Operation Black Thunder were revelations to me as I had no idea they had happened. The other chapters that I loved were on the riots in ahmedabad, the death of a congressman, the kumbh mela and the artist. A must read.

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Aug 12, 2012 Manu rated it 3 of 5 stars

Did not hold me for long. Tried really hard to finish it but eventually gave up.

Gives good narration of various events. The good part of the book was that it did not go about the usual route of claiming caste, religion etc in India are outdated and in principle bad. Made me question about their relevance and why it could be good.

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May 17, 2009 niloy rated it 3 of 5 stars

One of those books which are hard to put down. Each chapter can be thought of as a view into a different world, a set of new characters with their own aspirations and measures of success/failures. A book that got me thinking. Learned a few things about India in 1980s, information which otherwise is a bit hard to track down.

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Apr 04, 2013 Sangeetha Kodithala rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've taken to reading books based on Indian history lately, and loved this book in that sense. Mark Tully puts some important events in post-independence Indian history in perspective with his stories around people and places involved in the events.

He has a strong pro-India, pro-Hindu perspective, so some of his ideas may not go down well with a lot of people. But read from the circumstances and a British journalist's point of view, I was quite impressed that he could relate to so many things In...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Satendra Kumar rated it 4 of 5 stars

Stories relevant to the contemporary events. The essays on the variety of topics ranging from Hindutva to deep south Indian politics. Criticism and comment on the decisions of the contemporary government are the one which got most of my attention.
Nice Book. Recommended.

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Apr 27, 2012 Mayur rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing book,it depicts different aspects of Indian culture,viewpoints through a set of different stories.

What to say about Sir Mark Tully now, he has always written realities about India in his books

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Jan 16, 2013 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Insightful and elegant. I read thi book so long ago, that all i can remember is that I did not get irritated with it..at that time I was easily annoyed by foreiners writing about India!

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Mar 22, 2013 Ruchita rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Time and again I have to run to Britishers to learn about my history or events in recent past. Michael Wood showed me some never seen before places in "Story of India". Mark Tully takes me to 60's and 70's when some of the major events in post-independent India happened and changed the course of history forever. Mark Tully is a journalist and hence his writing comes across as objective. Which is good in a sense you don't want to take any sides and just watch history as it is. Some of his comment...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars

As the BBC's head of their Delhi bureau, no non-Indian writes about India like Tully. Very clear and accessible.

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Nov 14, 2010 Deepak S rated it 3 of 5 stars

short stories......but a different viewpoint.......good for a train journey

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Jun 23, 2011 Pavan rated it 4 of 5 stars

A brilliant book on India.

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Jul 07, 2012 Dinesh singh rawat rated it 4 of 5 stars

According to me, one of the most knowledgeable person on India.Book is written in the from of stories of author's experience. As an urban Indian how little we know about my country. Book wrote more than 20 years earlier, but still it is in some sense true about india.

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Sep 21, 2011 Ayush Jain rated it 3 of 5 stars

I learned from the book that the problems of India are localised to India and they should be solved keeping in mind the social, political structure of this country rather than implementing the ready made solution which have been applied in west in past

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May 01, 2008 Will rated it 5 of 5 stars

Read it a long time ago but rememeber enjoying it a lot.

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Aug 30, 2012 Deepak added it

A must read for journalists!

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About Mark Tully

Sir Mark Tully (born 24 October 1935 in Calcutta, India) was the Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi for 22 years. Schooled in England, he stayed mostly in India covering all major incidents in South Asia during his tenure. He was made an Officer of The Order of the British Empire in 1985 and was awarded the Padma Shree in 1992, a rare distinction for a non-Indian. He was knighted in the 2002 New Year...more Sir Mark Tully (born 24 October 1935 in Calcutta, India) was the Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi for 22 years. Schooled in England, he stayed mostly in India covering all major incidents in South Asia during his tenure. He was made an Officer of The Order of the British Empire in 1985 and was awarded the Padma Shree in 1992, a rare distinction for a non-Indian. He was knighted in the 2002 New Year Honours. In 2005 he received the Padma Bhushan.His love for India is encapsulated in his books.His books have always portrayed India in the positive light.

Tully is the son of a wealthy accountant employed at the British Gillander Corporation in Kolkata. He was brought up by a strict European nanny and did not come to Britain until he was ten. "England struck me as a very miserable place", he later recalled, "dark and drab, without the bright skies of India".[citation needed] He was educated at the independent Marlborough College and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, where he read History and Theology.

After Cambridge, he considered becoming a priest in the Church of England but abandoned his vocation after just two terms at Lincoln Theological College admitting later that he had doubts about "trusting [his] sexuality to behave as a Christian priest".

Very soon after joining the BBC, Tully became India Correspondent in 1964. Whether it was dodging the bullets on the India-Pakistan border, describing the poverty of Kolkata's street beggars or detailing the horrific aftermath of the Bhopal chemical disaster, he gave a unique insight into the life of the subcontinent. He has had much criticism from many quarters for allegedly biased reporting in events leading up to and subsequent operations after Operation Blue Star (the Indian army's operation to flush out terrorists from the Golden Temple, Amritsar in 1984).[citation needed] He spoke in favour of the Indian government's statements and his thoughts on Hinduism (eg "But I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride, 'Yes, our civilization has a Hindu base to it.'")[1] He left the BBC in 1997 following public criticism of the then Director General (Sir John Birt)'s approach to management in general and to the changes proposed for the BBC World Service in particular.

Sir Mark divides his time between India and London. When in India he lives with his girlfriend Gillian Wright: whilst in London he shares a house with Margaret, his ex-wife and the mother of their four children.
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