Chaudhuri, Amit;
The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature
Picador, 2001, 638 pages
ISBN 0330343637
topics: | literature | fiction | india | translation | anthology
Around the turn of the millenium, two anthologies of "Indian literature" were published, comparisons are inevitable. Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West's anthology of Indian writing, (Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing) was controversial, since the "Indian writing" of the title was equated with "Indian writing in English". In his introduction, Rushdie made it clearer: the prose writing - both fiction and non-fiction - created in [the last fifty years] by Indian writers working in English, is proving to be a stronger and more important body of work than most of what has been produced in the 16 "official languages" of India, the so-called "vernacular languages", during the same time. And he goes on to claim that: this new, and still burgeoning, "Indo-Anglian" literature represents perhaps the most valuable contribution India has yet made to the world of books. While Rushdie is perhaps being deliberately controversial (as is his wont), certainly to the western reader today what little is known of Indian literature is known through its Indian English writing. But I feel that the status of Indian literature has little to do with its intrinsic quality it has more to do with India's status on the world stage, and as this changes, the status of literature will certainly rise. A more practical issue is that no Indian can read the original literature in twenty languages, and translations can never give a flavour of an entire literature. Perhaps Rushdie and West merely wished to simplify things by sticking to writing in English. But Rushdie makes it an act of bravura, which of course makes for controversy, and controversy sells!! For more on the difficulty of spanning many literatures, see Vinay Dharwadker and A.K. Ramanujan's The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry which also is very spotty on selections not from the editor's own languages. Nonetheless, Rushdie's essay was a challenge to the vast and rich vein of Indian literature. In this anthology, Amit Chaudhuri takes up the gauntlet, by collecting a commendable set of writings, and in a superb introduction that places the context of Indian literature by broadly including a number of literary movements across the many languages of India. The task that Chaudhuri sets himself, is by any measure, formidable. In the end, "Indian" literatures are too diverse, translations are often difficult, and unless you are personally familiar with the originals, it is simply hard to make sense of the whole literature. India is really like Europe, with possibly greater cultural and linguistic diversity, and I am yet to see an anthology of "European literature". The entire justification for such an enterprise is itself tenuous. In Amit Chaudhuri's case, I felt that the "south" was too thinly stretched out; whereas the Bengali ethos, the anthologist's own locus, comes out too strong.
However, on the whole, the pieces are of very high quality, and reflect a
more rural, ("deeper"?) India than in Rushdie. For instance, the Santhal
landscape of Mahasweta Devi's Arjun, or the old Lucknavi mood of Qurratulain
Hyder, or in fact, the majority of the stories, seems far removed from the
urban India in Rushdie, which actually reminded me of a character in Upamanyu
Chatterjee, saying:
I should have been a photographer, or a maker of art films, something
like that, shallow and urban. (English August, p.13)
Chaudhuri's text is also enriched by the very well-written introductions to
each author, which precede their work and place it in the literary context
(Rushdie/West have only a few lines at the end).
Both books are actually good collections; worth opening at any page and
reading. But if you are looking for writing that is "Indian" perhaps
Chaudhuri fits the bill better.
From Chaudhuri's introduction. Indian literature is concerned with the lives of Indians, and the west, even in its colonial presence, is hardly to be seen anywhere: If a Western reader should turn to this extraordinary literature in Bengali and expect to find some sort of simple response to colonialism, he or she will be disappointed. . . the colonial world is represented, in these fictions, as history, contemporaneity, memory and change, by, for instance, the post office and the railways, by the names of roads, by professions, and old and new ways of life, rather than the figure of the British oppressor. This peripherality of the Western figure may be unsettling to the Western reader; unsettling that a historical process, engendered partly by Western intervention should continue, even in its profoundly original and creatively unprecedented engagement with Westernization, making little or no acknowledgement of the Western colonizer. - p. xx On the evolution of Indian literature in the 19th c. : The vernaculars - which were, in truth, paradigms of a new consciousness - emerged from a feudal-religious world into a secular one; this emergence was connected to the cross-fertilization that took place during colonization, largely due to the receptivity and intelligence of the local population . . . of which the colonizers, whose concerns seem constricted and provincial in comparison, were almost completely unaware. - p.xxi --- p. xxvii - a fascinating discussion on "hybridity" in language - Borges story of Pierre Menard - author of - not another Quixote, but "the Quixote" - how an Indian consciousness seeps one's writing is illustrated by two otherwise absolutely innocuous passages from Nirad C Chaudhuri and VS Naipaul.
A popular literature for Bengal (paper read before the Bengal Social Sci Asso 28 Feb 1870) A popular literature for Bengal is just blundering into existence. It is a movement which requires to be carefully studied and wisely stimulated, for it may exert a healthy or a pernicious influence on the national charcter... The popular literature of a nation and the national character acta nd react on each other. At least in Bengal there has been a singular harmony of character between the two since the days of Vidyapati and Jayadeva. Jayadeva was the popular poet of his age and the age which followed him. ...
It would be difficult to conceive of a poem more typical than the Gitagovinda of the Bengali character as it had become after the iron heel of the Musalman tyrant had set its mark on the shoulders of the nation. From the beginninng to the end it does not contain a single expression of manly feeling - of womanly feeling there is a great deal - or a single elevated sentiment. The poet has not a single new truth to teach. Generally speaking, it is the poets (religious or profane) who teach us great moral truths which render man's life a blessing, but Jayadeva is a poet of another stamp. I do not deny him high poetical merits in a certain sense, exquisite imagery, ternder feeling, and unrivalled power of expression, but that does not make him less the poet of an effeminate and sensual race. Soft and mellifluous, feeling tender and as often grossly sensual, his exquisitely sounding but not unfrequently meaningless verse echoed the common sentiments of an inactive and effeminate race. [AmitC footnote: repeats a typical British racial construction, where the "effeminate" Bengali is contrasted, with, say, the 'manly' Pathan, a construction ... used by Kipling in his fiction four decades later.] And since then Bengalis who have ventured on original composition have followed in his footsteps. The same words may be used to describe the writings of Madhava, the second best of the Bengali Sanskrit poets. (same applies to the Nuddea poets) who wrote under the patronage of the Nuddea Raja ... Bidya Sundar [by Bharatchandra], the best known production of that age, continued to be the most popular book in all Bengali literature. 15 VIDYASUNDAR banglapedia a romantic poem of Medieval Bangla literature based on the love between Vidya and Sundar. The work drew heavily on Chaurapanchashika by the sanskrit poet Vilahana, a work composed in the eleventh century. The plot is as follows: The beautiful and accomplished prince Sundar obtained a boon to marry the beautiful and scholarly princess Vidya by pleasing goddess Kalika through his devotion. Sundar then reaches the kingdom of Vidya along with a parrot given to him by the goddess. He pleases the princes with love letters and paintings sent through the flower girl of the palace and they fall in love. Sundar then enters into the bedroom of Vidya through a tunnel and has sexual intercourse with her. But when Vidya becomes pregnant, her father becomes furious. The angry king then sentences Sundar to death by impaling. Sundar, however, saves his life by pleasing the goddess and marries Vidya. AmitC: There is some justifiable controversy over Chatterjee's anti-Islamic views; these, like the subject-matter of his historical novels, owes to the work of the Orientalist scholars, and their reconstruction of Hindu, pre-Moghul antiquity as the 'true' India. 13 [Bankim praises the Nyaya philosophy, but decries the complexity of codifying these philosophies into a ponderous system of law, rather law and religion welded into one, that] set unbearable restraints on individual freedom of action. [On the other hand, ] the splendid Nyaya Philosophy which flourished side by side with it... had little influence on the people, for it did not reach them. It was to them an unintelligible jargon ["tailAdhAr ki pAtra nA, pAtradhAr taila"]. What a blow to the immense mass of Bengali superstition would this philosophy have been, if it had been allowed to see the day! 16 And thus indolent habits and a feeble moral organization gave birth to an effeminate poetical literature. 16 [Causes for poor quality in Beng Lit (though quantity is high):] FDirst is the disinclination of the more educated classes to write for their country in their own language. Authorship is with us still the vocation of the needy and fawning pundit, or the ambitious schoolboy... The second cause is the absence of sound and intelligent criticism [Amit C: A persistent probolem, alas, even 130 years after Chatterjee] 17 [A need for circulating readable books in the mofussil. proposes village public libraries. ]
from Dead Man in the Silver Market (1954)
My grandmother... rarely spoke to anyone not of her own social station and
she received them formally: i.e. to say, with her breasts completely bare.
Even in her time women were growing lax about this custom in Malabar. But my
grandmother insisted on it. She thought that married women who were blouses
and pretty saris were Jezebels; in her view, a wife who dressed herself above
her waist could only be aiming at adultery. 348
When I was 12 she demanded that I be brought and shown to her.
I was incontinently taken half across the earth, from London to the south of
the town of Calicut. My mother came with me.
A special house [was prepared] for my mother's accommodation. It was on the
furthest confines of the family property. This was her soln of a difficult
problem. My mother was ritually unclean, and therefore whenever she entered
my family house, she would defile it. The house would have to be purified
and so would every caste Hindu in it. It followed logically that if my
mother stayed in the house, it would be permanently in a state of defilement
and permanently in a state of being ritually cleaned. Since this ceremony
involved drums and conch shells, my mother's visit foreshadowed a prolonged
uproar. 349
But her chief complaint was that the English were so dirty... '[Did they,] like
decent people, take a minimum of two baths a day? My uncle said that, well
no; but a few took one bath and the habit was spreading. But he added that
she should remember that England had a cold climate. 350
[To visit his grandmother] I used to go by palanquin. It was a hammock of
red cloth ... swung on a black pole which had silver ornaments at either
end. Four virtually naked men, two in front and two behind, carried the
palanquin at a swift trot. There was considerable art in this. If the four
trottted just as they pleased, the hammock would swing in a growing arc until
it tipped the passenger out on to the open road. To prevent this, the men
trotted in a complicated system... they kept their rhythm by chanting. 351
The family house was vast and cool and in my view, unfurnished. But to my
gm's eyes it was very elegant. There was nothing but the floor to sit on.
She disliked chairs and thought them vulgar.
There were no tables and no tablecloths. In my gm's house, if anybody dared
to eat in any fashion but off a fresh plantain leaf, his next meal would have
been served in the kitchen, where the servants were allowed to eat without
ceremony. 351
Each person ate his meal separately, preferably in a secluded corner. The
thought that English people could sit opposite each other and watch each
other thrust food into their mouths, masticate, and swallow it, made her
wonder if there was anything that human beings would not do, when left to
their own devices. 350
Much as she looked down on the English, I think... she would have found they
have much in common. Her riding passion, like theirs, was racial pride. She
believed -- and this made her character -- that she belonged to the cleverest
family of the cleverest class of the cleverest people on earth.
She felt that she was born of a superior race and she had all the marks of
it. For instance, she deplored the plumbing of every other nation but her
own. She would often say to me, through my uncle:
"Never take a bath in one of those contraptions where you sit in dirty water
like a buffalo. Always bathe in running water... A really nice person does
not even glance at the water, much less sit in it." [And she would laugh
pityingly].
Why, if the English wanted their offspring to grow up decently and not lewdly, did
they omit to marry them off when they were children? A child should grow up
knowing quite well that all that side of his life was settled according to
the best available advice and in the best possible manner for his welfare... 352
History, I have discovered was on my gm's side. The great majority of
civilized peoples have always agreed with her. Brutus, that honourable man
who assassinated JC, [complains in a letter] at being left out of the
bargaining that went on during the betrothal of 'my dear little Attica', who
was nine years old. 353
--- PANKAJ MISHRA (b. 1969)
from "Edmund Wilson in Benares" (1998)
[Books are not available] libraries did not stock anything except a few
standard texts of English literature: Austen, Dickens, Kipling, Thackeray.
My semi-colonial education had made me spend much of my time on minor
Victorian and Edwardian writers. Some diversity was provided by writers in
Hindi and the Russians, which you could buy cheaply at Communist bookstores.
As for the rest, I read randomly, whatever I could find, and with the furious
intensity of a small-town boy to whom books are the sole means of
communicating with, and understanding, the larger world. 357
INTRODUCTION Modernity and the Vernacular The Construction of the Indian Novel in English – A Note on the Selection
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-73) 3 from The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu' 5 Two Letters 7 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94) 12 'A Popular Literature for Bengal' 13 The Confession of a Young Bengal' 19 from Rajani 24 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) 26 The Postmaster' 29 Five Letters 34 An Essay on Nursery Rhymes 39 from the Introduction to ThakurmarJhuli 42 Sukumar Ray (1887-1923) 45 'A Topsy-Turvy Tale' 46 Bibhuti Bhushan Banerjee (1894-1950) 66 from Pather Panchali 68 Parashuram (Rajshekhar Basu) (1880-1960) 88 Blue Star' 89 The Jackal-Faced Tongs' 97 Buddhadev Bose (1908-74) 106 from Tithidore 107 from An Acre of Green Grass: A Review 114 of Modern Bengali Literature Mahashweta Devi (b. 1926) 122 Arjun' 123
Premdhand (Dhanpat Rai) (1880-1936) 133 'The Chess Players' 134 Nirmal Verma (b. 1929) 145 'Terminal' 146 Krishna Sobti (b. 1925) 156 from Ai Ladki 157
Sadat Hasan Manto (1912-55) 187 Peerun' 188 The Black Shalwar 193 Qurratulain Hyder (b. 1927) 205 'Memories of an Indian Childhood' 206 Naiyer Masud (b. 1936) 220 'Sheesha Ghar 221
U. R. Anantha Murthy (b. 1932) 239 A Horse for the Sun 240 Vaikom Muhammad Basheer (c 1908-94) 266 Walls 267 0. V. Vijayan (b. 1930) 290 The Rocks 291 Ambai (C. S. Lakshmi) (b. 1945) 297 'Gifts' 298
Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918) 309 from Story of My Life 310 Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897-1998) 330 from The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian 331 Aubrey Menen (1912-89) 347 from Dead Man in the Silver Market 347 Pankaj Mishra (b. 1969) 355 'Edmund Wilson in Benares' 356
R K. Narayan (b. 1907) 375 from The English Teacher 376 Raja Rao (b. 1908) 397 from The Serpent and the Rope 398 Ruskin Bond (b. 1934) 414 The Night Train at Deoli' 415 A. K Ramanujan (1929-93) 419 Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? An Informal Essay 420 Dom Moraes (b. 1938) 438 from Answered by Flutes 439 Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (b. 1947) 455 from The Emperor Has No Clothes' 456 Adil Jussawalla (b. 1940) 478 'Make Mine Movies' 478 Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) 484 from Midnights Children 486 Vikram Seth (b. 1952) 508 from The Golden Gate 509 Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956) 538 Tibetan Dinner' 538 'Four Corners' 542 [this latter is a beautiful piece of travel writing, about driving holiday in the USA] Upamanyu Chatterjee (b. 1959) 547 from English, August: An Indian Story 548 Vikram Chandra (b. 1961) 563 'Siege in Kailashpada' from a novel in progress 564 [Sacred Games; not mentioned in text] Sunetra Gupta (b. 1965) 582 from Memories of Rain 583 Aamer Hussein (b. 1955) 595 The Colour of a Loved Person's Eyes' 596 Ashok Banker (b. 1964) 605 from Vertigo 606 Rohit Manchanda (b. 1963) 617 from In the Light of the Black Sun 618 Notes on Translators 632