Topic started by sandihya on Mon Nov 22 08:35:19 .
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Indian writers in English generally write for international readers. Arundathi wanted to show through The God of all Small Things that there is untouchability even in Christianity. Untouchability is what by the way missionaries profess to remove through conversions. |
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- From: shakespeare (@ 202.88.232.67)
on: Mon Jun 18 06:37:08
Naveen, Sorry about the "we"! It was not meant to be regal, judicial or editorial. This is a common forum attended by other people (at least seven? on this thread anyway) and also "we" ( as opposed to "I")seems to alleviate any hint of personal affront. Hence "we"!! Yes, I'm Indian - deep south. Now to the point. You wrote that AR and co. do not write >>the kind of novel that a foreigner can read and instantly get a glimpse of what the typical Indian lives, thinks........<< Ironic indeed. This is exactly what some people accuse IndoAnglian writers like AR and V.Seth of! That they write with the western reader in mind, rather than an Indian audience. I second that accusation and I shall also defend AR and co. thus: Any writer is preoccupied,to a large extent, by language which is their only tool. The Indo Anglian author, precisely by virtue of their being fluent in that language, have also unconscviously imbibed a kind of western (nonIndian) sensibility. Therefore their writing seems more accessible, hospitable and relevant to a western reader. What, may I ask, is wrong with that? Now I come to your point. The sensibility may be western, but the viewpoint is totally Indian. I do not see the slightest suggestion of picturepostcard prettiness in any of these writers. Their preoccupations are Indian. I quote a reader from another thread, since I don't have the book (or the memory of it) with me right now - "slanting silver ropes slammed into the loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire." - any Keralite will tell you how this line evokes the first lashings of a June rain. With a little of visual images from hollywood. To an urban English educated Indian writer these are her own images. These are no views from behind a train window. All this goes for Rushdie too, to an extent, though his English ( England) background places him on a slightly different level. I think we need more writers to mine this peculiarly Indian sensibility - that alienation and that acuity of vision that plagues(!) IndoAnglian writers. Theirs is that schizophrenic world view that can offer new insight to the Indian reader ( since an Indian is vehemently protective of his country when any foreigner criticises India!) about his country and all that's good and bad in it. (re. your assumption, I shall leave you guessing!) Shakespeare
- From: Shakespeare (@ 202.88.232.67)
on: Mon Jun 18 06:44:59
Shard,
Thanks. Saw your post after composing the above. Coincidentally I was about to mention Shobha De ex Ed. Stardust for her novels which are Indo Anglian because they are written by an Indian and happen to be in English. Period! Any day, I'll go for a Ray than a De!
BetweenRKN and AR there is of course the age difference which we have to reckon with.
Shakespeare
- From: Shakespeare (@ 202.88.232.67)
on: Mon Jun 18 06:45:29
Shard,
Thanks. Saw your post after composing the above. Coincidentally I was about to mention Shobha De ex Ed. Stardust, for her novels which are Indo Anglian because they are written by an Indian and happen to be in English. Period! Any day, I'll go for a Ray than a De!
BetweenRKN and AR there is of course the age difference which we have to reckon with.
Shakespeare
- From: Siby Koodalloor (@ 61.11.12.9)
on: Mon Jun 18 08:38:02
I too could not feel that Arundhati Roy wrote her novel keeping the Western readers in mind. All I could feel was that she had kept the Syrian X'ian community of Kottayam-- of which incidentaly I'm also a member as she is (or was?)--while writing the book. And who can understand the background and the plot of the work better than these people?
In fact, my fear was that whether the Western or even non-Keralite readers would be able to appreciate the work well enough without some understanding of the Syrian X'ian community of Kerala.
- From: Vishvesh Obla (@ 63.65.68.246)
on: Mon Jun 18 12:27:35
I have nothing to comment on Shobha Dhe or Ms.Roy(who I know only as a brilliant journalist; I also know of Ms.Dhe only as a gossiping feminist columnist), but I would dare say that Ms.Dhe is/was one of the most beautiful women in India (Ms.Roy can't contend with her at least in physical aspects, in spite of herself being a good looking woman !)
Sorry guys, sometimes IT gets too much on your nerves and it relaxes to indulge in such asides !
- From: Shakespeare (@ 202.88.232.67)
on: Mon Jun 18 13:51:05
Vishvesh,
Shobha De was Shobha Khilachand back in those days when she appeared in the pages of women's magazines as a pretty face rather than a gritty writer. She was okay, I guess.
But to me Roy has an understated, unconsciously laidback approach to the camera's gaze. This, along with her translucent skin stretched so vulnerably over slender bones makes her a very appealing beauty. Not to talk of her very peculiarly husky nasal voice!
Tell me more about Roy as a journalist. I never knew she had been one.
Shakespeare
- From: Vishvesh Obla (@ 63.65.68.246)
on: Mon Jun 18 14:39:23
Hi Shakes,
Man, you do have a sense of feminine beauty ! A criticism of female artists should necessarily take into consideration their beauty too when they are beautiful, aint it? (just kidding...)
Ms.Roy is also a very controversial journalist (I don't like to use the word controversial, but then that is how she is defined by her leftist ideas !). She has written very sensible and insightful articles on Enron and the Narmada issue and a few of her articles were even banned or burned, if I am right. At some part of time there was even a minor discussion on one of her articles in this forum itself and if you dig it you can find it.
- From: Naveen (@ ac89c608.ipt.aol.com)
on: Mon Jun 18 23:09:15
Shard, I think you should be grateful that your expert didn't hold up snakes and ropes :-)
Personally, I agree with the idea that AR is just as Indian as RKN when you qualify it as you did: “an urban, anglo-educated, free thinking Indian...but Indian nonetheless”. The diversity of India…
I have reservations about your more fundamental idea that one is no more Indian than the other. I understand that they are two completely different authors writing of different things in different times. Still, there is some room for debate as to who is more successful in expressing the Indian soul (hey, if Russian literature has a soul, why not ours!).
I haven’t seen the film that you mentioned; I’ll look for it when I have the time. Thanks for the recommendation.
Bard, I knew that you meant the “we” in a friendly way, but I couldn’t resist taking a dig at it :-)
You may have misunderstood my earlier post a bit. I definitely do not think there is anything “wrong” in appealing to the Western reader, intentionally or otherwise. I do not think AR or Rushdie write the books they do, in order to attract a Western audience. As I said earlier, I did enjoy those books (well, not Satanic…) and I remember very well, that line you quoted.
I agree with most of the things you said. A minor quibble: I think there are others more in need of representation than the urban English-educated though I agree with your point that they provide a unique and useful perspective.
I don’t completely agree with the implied inevitability of Indian English writers “unconsciously imbibing” western sensibilities. RKN disproves that point. Naipaul, whatever else he has in addition, hasn’t lost his Indian sensibility. (At this point, I am sick of the word “sensibility”.) An urban Indian education might help one acquire an understanding of Western sensibilities without losing what one already has. There are always exceptions (the armchair philosopher), but I think that in most cases, one has to be educated outside India or very exclusively, to acquire the “peculiarly Indian sensibility” that you talk about.
- From: Shakespeare (@ 202.88.232.157)
on: Tue Jun 19 00:13:54
Hi Vish,
Thanks for the info. Though I doubt if Roy would want to be known more as a journalist rather than an as an environmental activist.
Regarding Roy's beauty, perhaps you did inject the right amount of diversion into a discussion that was becoming too academic and highbrow!
Hi Naveen,
You wrote >>A minor quibble: I think there are others more in need of representation than the urban English-educated though I agree with your point that they provide a unique and useful perspective. <<
By "others more in need of representation" I presume you mean vernacular writers and their readers. And I think they are more than well represented by the numerous vernacular book and journal publishers.
Roy and her readers belong to a miniscule section of the Indian public. Nevertheless, sad but true, this section it is that inherited the (philosophical, moral, political, literary, aesthetic) mantle of our anglosaxon conquerors. This is also the section of the populace which provides the majority of the elite administration that holds this nation together in its "steel frame" I do not revel in this state. I used the word schizophrenic to indicate the peculiar alienation of this minority.
The writers among this alienated lot are like writers everywhere. They have to write. They have to create. And what do they have as tools? A foreigner's language. But since their duty and raison de etre is to write, that is what they will do. What are we the readers to do? Give them a patient hearing since they are Indians writing about their India - only the language happens to be English. And if they can use the language with the cunning felicity of a Roy, then all the more praise to them, I say.
I would always welcome meaning outsiders. They may have something to tell us. Eg. Why do we bring in an external management expert to tell us what is wrong with our own company? Only because he brings a different perspective which we have lost owing to our proximity. The IndoAnglian writer performs much the same function for this country, I think.
Regarding your point that >>one has to be educated outside India or very exclusively, to acquire the “peculiarly Indian sensibility<< I feel someone who is totally outside the Indian mainstream can never be in full touch to be relevant. His experience of his country is at many removes. He is mostly a foreigner who has an Indian name, that's all!
Shakespeare
- From: arvind (@ 203.197.143.2)
on: Sat Aug 4 09:48:52
Hi folks,
i'm new 2 this forumhub, hence sorry for continuing an OLD topic by today's standards. Personally i think Ms. Roy as an one-book celeb. After God o' small Things, nuthing, rite?? and we have to also see the gimmicks she indulged into for being in the limelite.
First she wrote a third rate article in '98 (Outlook) when India tested an atom-bomb in Pokhran for the second time. It was supposed 2 b for the intellectual elite of India toread such a great article.
then she took part along with Medha Patkar in the Narmada Bachao Andholan. It was say, a week long stint and that's how far she could manage. She just had some figures and quoted it around whenever a media person happened tobe near. The irony is she survived the whole stay there on mineral water bottles, the way the Indian(NRI !!??) Rich defend their tribals, pity !!
As for as her book is concerned, I thought it was just written keeping the Western audience in mind. its a bane on Indian writers writing in English, the typical other example being Salman Rushdie. I dunno what these people get out of degrading the image and customs and practices of India. As such, if you ask any Westerner abo' India, there's a 90% chance that the answer will be "its a land o' snake charmers and roads full of cows". That's the image created by the Western media, why do our writers then add fuel 2 this ?
and the amount of sex the book had, its disgusting. all these written as seen by seven year old twins !!!
so, any reply folks??
bye
arvind.
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