Tuesday, August 16, 2005
India is failing to seize our imagination!
Sometimes plans go kaput, I planned to get some Ph.D action going over the long weekend, but with guide shifting house it was difficult to have a meeting and rework on the proposal.
Over the weekend, I watched Flavors, the movie, about three guys on a bench from the IT slow down , aging parents, a marriage and a dull marriage. I also happened to read William Dalrymple's essay The lost sub-continent
It is a very interesting read and speaks a lot about "India". The article states that Indian writers do not have the edge to make it on the world scene, the second-generation writers from the diaspora are going to give the world so called "Indian Literature".
Somwhere deep down, I feel a twinge of disgust, I guess Western Publishers want tales of exotic India, India in the figments of imagination, India from the intellectual perspective of Amartya Sen and Salman Rushdie. These diasporic writers are fantastic their literary sword shines from an Oxford and Cambridge education or from being muddled in a suburb in the West. Writers from India are dull and bad story tellers.
Arundhati Roy was a freak debutante, it feels like India has seized to find expression in the imagination of Indians in the homeland. Look at the the movies, movie-goers world wide will only be looking at moves made by Diasopric directors.
We need a Satyajit Ray and another Arundhati Roy. We need to look at India without imagination, without nostalgia, without western lenses.We ALSO need stories of India told by one of us.
Over the weekend, I watched Flavors, the movie, about three guys on a bench from the IT slow down , aging parents, a marriage and a dull marriage. I also happened to read William Dalrymple's essay The lost sub-continent
Seven years ago, publishers descended on Delhi in search of the next Arundhati Roy. But, writes William Dalrymple, the future Anglophone Indian bestsellers are more likely to come from the west.
It is a very interesting read and speaks a lot about "India". The article states that Indian writers do not have the edge to make it on the world scene, the second-generation writers from the diaspora are going to give the world so called "Indian Literature".
Somwhere deep down, I feel a twinge of disgust, I guess Western Publishers want tales of exotic India, India in the figments of imagination, India from the intellectual perspective of Amartya Sen and Salman Rushdie. These diasporic writers are fantastic their literary sword shines from an Oxford and Cambridge education or from being muddled in a suburb in the West. Writers from India are dull and bad story tellers.
Arundhati Roy was a freak debutante, it feels like India has seized to find expression in the imagination of Indians in the homeland. Look at the the movies, movie-goers world wide will only be looking at moves made by Diasopric directors.
We need a Satyajit Ray and another Arundhati Roy. We need to look at India without imagination, without nostalgia, without western lenses.We ALSO need stories of India told by one of us.
Comments
"We need a Satyajit Ray and another Arundhati Roy. We need to look at India without imagination, without nostalgia, without western lenses.We ALSO need stories of India told by one of us."
I very much agree on that one. And not only because I love Satyajit Ray and Arundhati Roy and the way they saw/see India, but because I dislike how most of the world today still tends to be seen (and judged) from the perspective of European-based values. And this does not happen only to countries that have a colonial past...
The comment on Amartya Sen and Salman Rushdie seem to be a trifle unkind. Amartya Sen spent a good half of his life in India before moving abroad, and Salman Rushdie restored English to India, whatever may be his subsequent literary endeavours. This is certainly not to dispute your point though.
Post a Comment
<< Home