Subaltern Saheb  (English, Paperback, Thakur Sankarshan)

Laloo Yadav has ruled Bihar, first as chief minister and, since a scam broke five years ago, from prison via his illiterate (and reluctant) wife who replaced him, for fifteen years. In the time he's been around, he has overhauled the landscape of Bihar, inverted the caste equation (he is what is known as `a backward caste') and put the state through a period of jungle law and unimaginable corruption. But he's a complex character, and the personality we receive through TV is jolly and amusing and stridently anti-right wing - actually, he's a master entertainer in only a way that a Bihari who plays to the gallery can be, witty, unapologetically rustic and willing to be risque on English news.