How strange

If you have read my previous posts on the contemporary Indian novel, you would have got the feeling that it is one which is necessarily written in English. That, the contemporary Indian novel is not written in one of India’s 22-odd nationally-accepted vernacular languages, and then translated into English. No, it is clearly written and published in the English language. And, most likely, it is published outside India.

Not only that, there is a great chance that it may be, later, translated into European languages like French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or several other languages around the world. But, it is not likely to be translated into any one of India’s vernacular languages. It is likely to remain as a published work for, perhaps, 10% of India’s English language novel reading population.

I have often wondered how strange this is. How strange it is to have a body of work written in English, a language foreign to the greater population of India, represent India as its literature to the wider world. I have wondered how strange it is to have a body of work, supposedly from India, written by authors most of whom don’t even live in India. Or, at least, not anymore.

It’s not that these Indian authors are in exile like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Milan Kundera. These Indian authors have left India and migrated to another country for better opportunities for themselves. Or, a few, like Jhumpa Lahiri or Pico Iyer or the ubiquitous V S Naipaul, have always lived away from India. Their only attribute (or qualificator, as someone once told me) is Indian parentage.

Yet, today, these authors represent my country and me to the world at large. I find this strange. I find this strange when I consider the huge body (perhaps I should call it treasure) of Indian literature, written in India’s own vernacular languages, which is a truer representation of life in India, and yet, which is being overlooked by the literary world.

And so, I ask myself, to what extent does this contemporary Indian novel have the right to represent me and my life in India... and be called Indian literature.