Fascinating! I now know Sardarji jokes are the sub-continent's answer to Irish jokes. And the Best of Forwarded Emails has a whole section of them. Better not tell the thought police.
Wikipedia has a longish entry about Sardar/Sardarji which slips in this line: "Sardar is often used to refer to an intellectual imbecile from northern Indian frontiers."
G. Ram Kumar's book looks fun but I'm going to return to the Isle of Enniskerry. I read into it a few months ago, thought the intro was a bit leaden, but the yarn ahead looked interesting.
I haven't finished Sand yet, but will try to speed-read to the end. Does anything actually happen? I must find out!
Meanwhile, I've read Janette Turner Hospital's new novel, Orpheus Lost, for my No 1 Ladies Book Club. What is it about intros? It seems to take a really skilled or innovative writer to get the yarn moving along from the start. Some of the women thought Orpheus Lost plodded at the start, although I appreciated its surreal mood.
There'll be no such complaint with next month's book. Alice Sebold begins The Almost Moon with this sentence: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." After that, the book becomes weird, but it's got a compelling quality and I'll read to the end.
Cheers.
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