The Twice-Born

Life and Death on the Ganges

By: Aatish Taseer

Narrated by: Neil Shah

When Aatish Taseer first came to Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism, he was 18, the Westernized child of an Indian journalist and a Pakistani politician, raised among the intellectual and cultural elite of New Delhi. Nearly two decades later, Taseer leaves his life in Manhattan to go in search of the Brahmins, wanting to understand his own estrangement from India through their ties to tradition.

Known as the twice-born - first into the flesh and again when initiated into their vocation - the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity. At every turn, the seductive, homogenizing force of modernity collides with the insistent presence of the past. In a globalized world, to be modern is to renounce India - and yet the tide of nationalism is rising, heralded by cries of "Victory to Mother India!" and an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence.

From the narrow streets of the temple town to a Modi rally in Delhi, Taseer struggles to reconcile magic with reason, faith in tradition with hope for the future, and the brutalities of the caste system, all the while challenging his own myths about himself, his past, and his countries old and new.

©2019 Aatish Taseer (P)2019 HighBridge Company

Beautifully written book!

The author beautifully captures a personal soul searching journey against a very real political and economic landscape that exists currently. It depicts the caste system which exists even today very well. It captures the beauty of hinduism's pluralism, its age old traditions and also the disheartening direction it is going in, by being hijacked by a monogamous definition of hindutva.

Magnificent!

This book is sublime in every way. The narrative is fascinating. The prose is absolutely beautiful. The narrator is perfect. I come from a different culture, and yet there are so many parallels - people who cling to the past, to tradition, to the extent that in their eyes everything that is Western and modern must be dangerous and is not to be trusted, the result being that they hold themselves back and keep themselves impoverished in many ways. The book is profound and moving.