Punjabi Parmesan

In 2009 after several years in China journalist Pallavi Aiyar moved to Brussels the headquarters of the European Union to discover a Europe plagued by a financial crisis and unsure of its place in a world where new Asian challengers are eroding its old and comfortable certainties. With a lively mix of memoir reportage and analysis Aiyar takes the reader on a romp across the continent as she meets workaholic Indian diamond merchants in Antwerp upstart Chinese wine barons in Bordeaux Sikh farmhands in the Italian countryside and Indian engineers running offshore energy turbines in Belgium. In the Europe of today everything is in a flux as she discovers through conversations with Muslim immigrants struggling to define their identities the austere bosses of Germany's worldbeating companies and bewildered Eurocrats struggling to save the EU from splitting apart. Examining the diverse challenges the continent faces today-among them bloated welfare states the accommodation of Islam the European ambitions of Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs and the fissures that threaten to break up this union of diverse nations-Punjabi Parmesan takes a panoramic look at Europe's firstworld crisis from a unique India-China perspective. About the Author Award-winning foreign correspondent Pallavi Aiyar has reported fromChina and Europe for over a decade. Her China travelogue Smokeand Mirrors won the Vodafone-Crossword Popular Book Award for2008. Her novel Chinese Whiskers a modern fable set in China waspublished in America Italy Belgium and India. She is also the leadauthor of the Lonely Planet guide China For the Indian Traveller.Pallavi Aiyar is now based in Jakarta Indonesia.