Accidental Blogger

For many readers, familiarity with south Asian writers may go only as far as the works of Salman Rushdie and perhaps a bit of V.S. Naipaul. Naipaul is West Indian by birth and British by choice and his literary output encompasses subjects far beyond the Indian subcontinent. But because of his Indian heritage and several works about India, he is often included in this list. There is a robust crop of south Asian literature in English worth exploring beyond these two well known writers. Rather than review just one book at a time, I am posting  a few thumb nail reviews here. The featured books (except two) are of relatively recent vintage and the authors (except two) are of south Asian origin – from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. All the books are in original English – not translations from the veranacular. I have assiduously avoided the "curry" literature which caters to the "snake charmer – yogi – spiritual mumbo jumbo" commonly and somewhat mistakenly associated with south Asia. First I had decided also to leave out the Raj period of British India but on second thoughts included two books from that era, both by British authors – the "two exceptions" I refer to above.

Amitav Ghosh :  "Circle of Reason", "The Glass Palace", "The Hungry Tide", "In An Antique Land" (I have not yet read The Hungry Tide but I own a copy and will embark upon it soon – sooner if I don't blog so much) :  Amitav  Ghosh is a brilliant writer of well researched historical fiction whose style is reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marqez and E.L. Doctorow -the magical whimsy of the former and the historical precision of the latter.  The first three books are novels set in India, Burma and vicinity. They are intricately woven stories of families, political events and local lores which take you back and forth in time and place.  "In An Antique Land" is non fiction and is set in Egypt. It chronicles the ancient trade practices between India and the middle east – this book resulted from Ghosh's doctoral work in history.  (Stay away from The Calcutta Chromosome which is a bizarre book).                                                                                                                                                      
Rohinton Mistry:  "Swimming Lessons and other stories from Firozsha Baag", "Such A Long Journey" : Mistry belongs to India's Parsee (Zoroastrian) community.  He is a gentle but astute observer of the lives, aspirations and eccentricities of this educated, wealthy and somewhat insular Indian community (rapidly dwindling in numbers) living  mostly in Bombay (Mumbai) and other western Indian cities. His eye for details – the mundane and the unusual, is keen and he writes with a laconic mixture of humor and pathos. (Avoid his better known book, A Fine Balance which became a big hit on the US market a few years ago, after Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club.  Apparently, Oprah loved it but I thought the book was unnecessarily long and very depressing).

Jhumpa Lahiri:  "Interpreter of Maladies": (short stories) : I am including Jhumpa Lahiri in this list only because she is the first south Asian woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. Despite a Pulitzer for this book, her very first, I am lukewarm about the collection. She is one of those writers described as possessing a "quiet, gentle and observant" style of writing (often compared to fine embroidery) ascribed most often to women writers.  The stories are mediocre with a few good insights but lacking  the kind of snap and crackle that make a good book really unforgettable.

Bapsi Sidhwa:  "Cracking India".  A funny, yet terrifying story of the partition of India as told by a little girl recounting the  metamorphosis of one nation into two and its repercussions on her friends, family and neighbors.  The story is unique in that it is one of the few partition tales narrated in a child's voice and also because the little girl belongs to the Parsee community (Zoroastrian like Mistry above) whose civic minded members were not "uncomfortable" with the British rule. The Parsees did not for the most part, subscribe to the nationalistic aspirations of either the Hindus or the Muslims and they mostly escaped the mutual carnage that these two communities brought upon each other during the political partition of India in 1947. Although the book very cleverly depicts a precocious child observing the devastation around her, it suffers somewhat from an unrelenting lightheartedness which starts to grate towards the end, when the traumatic Hindu – Muslim communal violence turns grisly.  Sidhwa was born in what is now Pakistan and currently lives in Houston. 

Mohsin Hamid: "Moth Smoke": Set in present day Pakistan, the novel describes the indolent and reckless pastimes of the self indulgent, decadent and amoral "hard as flint", super rich.  This contemporary tale is interesting, stylish and edgy. While the overwhelming majority of S. Asian writers in English are of Indian origin, Hamid, a Pakistani, compares very favorably with the best of them.

Shyam Selvadurai: "Funny Boy": An unusual book by a South Asian author who does not treat homosexuality in the dismissive and casual context of eunuchs and debauchery. It is a touching and confusing  coming of age story of a sensitive young gay boy. The author is Sri Lankan Tamil, who at a young age, watched his country come apart at the cultural /religious seams during the 1980's, when hostilities between the Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka led to a prolonged civil war. The author astutely observes the underlying suspicions and snobbery that color the outwardly civil intercourse between two communities who have lived together for centuries but remain divided by religious and ethnic differences. The simmering  tensions erupt and give rise to bloody conflicts and terrorism – a common and tragic occurrence ravaging much of post-colonial India and surrounding regions.

Arundhati Roy:  "God of Small Things": Winner of the 1997 Booker Prize . The book and the author, a peace activist, have been widely publicized in the western media. A beautiful, wrenching story of a pair of  boy -girl twins growing up in the patriarchal Syrian Christian community of Kerala in southern India.

J.G.  Farrell: "The Siege of Krishnapur": I am indebted to my cousin, Sudip Bose (a book lover and literary critic) who alerted me to this obscure literary gem. J. G. Farrell, a British author, won the Booker Prize for this book in the early seventies. The novel is set in 1857, during the Sepoy Mutiny (soldiers' mutiny) – the first serious but poorly organized uprising against British rule in India. The story is essentially about the Brits – the Indian natives are in the background – shadowy figures, dying, fighting and occasionally striking terror in English hearts. It is a sharp analysis of the mindsets of conquerors and occupiers – each English man had a personal vision of what colonialism was all about.  The book is brilliant – a humorous and humane story, with the unlikely back drop of a desperate and bloody rebellion. The book goes well beyond the idea and ideals of the Raj.  It is more about man's understanding of man, machine, religion, science, politicial power, infectious disease and other age old conundrums. 

George Orwell: "Burmese Days": An unusual work of Geroge Orwell – a far cry from Animal Farm. Although I was aware that Orwell was born in India, before I read this book I did not know that he had worked for the Indian Imperial Police for five years and was posted in Burma (Myanmar). Burmese Days is somewhat similar in its scope as Farrell's book above, except Orwell's tone is somber as opposed to Farell's irreverent humor. Both books are biting commentaries on colonialism's degrading effects on the occupier and the occupied. Unlike the ferocious mutiny in Farrell's story, the back drop of Orwell's book is a failed love story that unfolds in the langurous and stunted milieu of a colonial society trying to keep up its proper European stiff upper lip in the tropical jungle heat of the east.

Most of the books are available on Amazon.com.  If you are interested, look them up, read the detailed reviews and pick up one or more for a change of flavor.