A book that celebrates small town India.

“Country roads take me home to the place I belong…” John Denver immortalised West Virginia with this hit song in 1971. But he did more than that. His folk-pop song evoked nostalgia in the hearts of the many small town folks who had migrated to big cities in search of success. Rashmi Bansal whose book title uses part of Denver’s song, effectively strokes the same feeling of yearning for the country home in our hearts.

Take me Home on the surface is “the inspiring story of 20 entrepreneurs from small town India with big time dreams”. Scratch below it and you find layers of meaning hidden between the lines. Let’s start with Bansal’s note at the beginning of the book. How many of us who hail from Patna or Patan, Ratlam as in Bansal’s case or Ranchi, Koduvally or Kasganj and the many small towns and kasbas of India, have not felt a little ashamed of our roots among our polished metropolitan counterparts?

That was perhaps when we were shallow and young, fresh out of our cloying restrictive backgrounds, drunk on the heady freedom of a westernised culture and ready to deny our own reality. Today, as Bansal feels, many of us have come to realise the value of our suburban upbringing, and perhaps secretly love and yearn like Denver…for country roads, (to) take me home.

Bansal’s book is a reiteration of all the values that you find in the interiors of India—a celebration of our cultural heritage. Here there is no tinsel, no false show, only hard work, grit, passion and a hunger to do something meaningful. Bansal is also demonstrating an economic fact about India here, that the world is taking note of—real India resides in its countryside, its small towns and cities. The tide may be finally turning, as Bansal notes.

Impossible you may say, but read the book to find out how dreams are coming true in small towns of India. Bansal has kept the narrative simple with a liberal sprinkling of Hindi. The ploy adds an authentic touch to the stories, for small town India is not home to English speaking, blow-dried hair crowd, but the cousins, aunts and uncles, of whom Bansal speaks, oiled hair and Hindi or local dialect speaking.

Bansal has taken a revolutionary look at small town India and impels you to think and explore your nativity. Perhaps it’s time to go back home? Take me Home is a journey down memory lane, a book that tugs at your heart’s strings—an inspiration.