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First Proof: The
Penguin Book of New Writers from India–1
You can start delving into the fiction section and, when you want a change, flip the book over and read non-fiction from the other side of the book. Knowing the kind of criticism that editors draw, the editors in this case have chosen to be discreetly anonymous. They needn’t have because all the pieces they have selected are eminently readable. I would have liked to write about them all but space doesn’t permit. The non-fiction section leads off with Living Dangerously with VS Naipaul by Manmohan Malhotra, who, as a young IAS Officer in Faizabad, played host to the then not-so-legendary writer, when he came on one of his early visits to India in search of his roots—a visit that led to An Area of Darkness. The purpose of the essay is to take us beyond the public persona of the legend, a purpose it fulfils admirably. We are delighted to read about his irreverence, his great sense of humour, his talent as a raconteur, his joy of life, his courage. Malhotra writes with sharp insight and skill: "Vedia was a master of disguise, concealing his formidable intellect behind light-hearted banter. His sense of the ridiculous was highly developed and he enjoyed playing cat and mouse with those whom he met." The Woman who Could not Care by Jerry Pinto is an extract from his forthcoming book Helen. This is not "biography" in the traditional sense of the word. Pinto uses the legendary actress without whom no film was considered complete for almost 25 years, to examine the socio-economic factors that threw up this phenomenon. In the process, he also provides us with a vivid picture of the Hindi film world during that exciting era. This extract provides a teaser and I am sure that all followers of Bollywood will read the book. In How America’s War on Terror Ran out of Steam, Ajai Shukla, through his first-hand experience as the NDTV correspondent covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tells us just what the title of his essay promises to tell us. "With this moment of triumph in Kabul, America also reached a decisive crossroads in its war on terror with two choices before it—the first, a path of restrained pressure, broad internal coalition and well-considered local partnerships; and the second a path of impatient unilateralism and do-it-now arrogance, President George W. Bush chose the second road." Shukla goes on to give us the consequences of this choice. Shukla brings the same clarity of thought and expression to his writing as he brought to all his war reports on TV. I, for one, am looking forward to reading more of his work. In the fiction section, Anuradha Roy takes us to the small hill station of Kapalkhet, which seems suspiciously akin to the little Cantonment town of Ranikhet. Through Mr Upadhya, the Chief Engineer, Roy holds up the mirror to the extremely limited and narrow thinking of senior officialdom. She shows how with his lack of vision, Upadhya destroys the very environment, which he thinks he is protecting and enhancing. Palash Krishna Mehrotra’s The Other Evening captures the sterility of modern life. The protagonist, a young man, lives in a small apartment above a garage in Delhi. He drifts meaninglessly through life and drifts, with absolute indifference, into an encounter with Pooja, a prostitute. The sordidness, the total lack of passion, even of volition on part of the protagonist is brought out beautifully by the writer. One cannot help but be reminded of the sexual encounter in T.S. Elliot’s Wasteland. What should have been at least an expression of sheer animal lust, turns out to be another example of the general impotence of modern man. It is a short piece, but Mehrotra is able to display his deftness with remarkable skill. Perhaps the most beautiful piece of fiction writing in the book is Uma Mahadev Dasgupta’s Matunga. It functions at a number of levels and is permeated by a soft sadness. There is the sadness of the mother’s loosing battle with cancer and the onset of Alzheimer in the father, sadness at the decline of a gentle, kind generation. But there is also a triumph in the way, even at this late stage; the mother brings purpose to her life by attempting a Tamil translation of a Mahashweta Devi book. There is also a sad contrast of the rootlessness and lack of desire for roots of the younger generation. Mahadev Dasgupta eschews all overt emotions and sentimentality and her style takes on the gentleness that she ascribes to her parents. I enjoyed reading the non-fiction section more than I did the fiction section, but this no comment on the merits of the writers, which are of a uniformally high standard. The editors have been successful in fulfilling their purpose of showcasing "emerging talent and writers who have enjoyed acclaim, but not as wide a readership as they deserve." It is only a matter of time, and not too much of that either, before we see The Penguin Book of New Writers from India 2 in the bookshops. |
FOR
someone who has always had favourite pieces of writings and never
favourite writers, this anthology is a godsend. The variety of genres it
offers is mind-boggling. There is biography, memoir, social history,
travel, politics, world affairs etc., and fiction.