My Valentine, A Different Kind Of Love Story
I haven’t read any books lately, though I have started a few, but none to completion. Probably the problem of commitment, the books I have picked were fairly interesting. Scared to my bone, if my love affair with the literature were to end in apathy like this would be a tragedy. Like any other relationship, I decided to give mine a little variety, in order to save it. So, I said to myself, how about reading some more literary works by South Asian Writers aka ‘desi’ writers—English fiction.
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It’s a huge pool to choose from, ranging from literary giants like V.S Naipaul and Salman Rushdie to the darling of the left Arundhati Roy to nominees/winners of Booker’s Prize to aspiring Booker’s Prize winner to relics like R.K Narayanan. In short gigantic pool of talents, you will have to dedicate a good part of your life to read each of these writers’ works. Dilemma. In such a situation, usually, the best bet would be to go with your friends’ recommendations, or the reviews in the papers, or pick up the books that won the prizes. Beware, but prize winning books are not always better, after all it has been chosen by a committee, weighed by many factors—mostly their politics.
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Side Note: It’s pretty sad, most of the English fiction writers are of Indian origin, would have been more interesting to read works by Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Sri Lankan or Bhutanese writers—more flavors. But, I am limited by my ignorance.
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So, my roster looked like this with descending priority:
- Midnight’s Children By Salman Rushdie
- The Inheritance of Loss By Kirin Desai
- Two Lives By Vikram Seth
- English August By Upamanyu Chatterjee
- Interpreter of Maladies By Jumpha Lahiri
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I went to the book store with the intention of buying one book from my list. I said, ok, Mr. Rushdie, I will add another $14 to your millions. Fortunately or unfortunately, the book was out of stock, looks like people don’t seem to get enough of Rushdie. Went for the second book, while fiddling around with Ms. Desai book, miser me took over, what’s the point of buying books when you can get them at the library? Not a sound finance to buy all the books that you want to read. I patted myself for my own prudence, and decided to enroll into a public library, since I am no more a student. But, I hope they do carry books by South Asian writers, if not then I will have to make these writers richer than they already are.
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But, the positive side of borrowing books from library is, you are free of guilt of buying them, and not reading. And, moreover, I wouldn’t be the victim of South-Asian-Pseudo-Intellectual syndrome, where people buy books to decorate their book shelves and never read them. Among such prized gems is ‘The God Of Small Things,’ ‘Satanic Verses or Midnight’s Children,’ and ‘A House For Mr. Biswas’ by V.S Naipaul according to Times of India column.
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But, I am almost there; I have ‘The God Of Small Things,’ (read it) and ‘A House For Mr. Biswas,’ (not read it). Had I bought ‘Midnight’s Children’ and not read it, I would be branded a show off—a quintessential sophisticated desi. But that might be a tad exaggerated, since most of the visitors or friends I have would not know a difference between books by William Faulkner or Sidney Sheldon, for them few hundred pages stacked together between covers, all the same, my lame sophistication wouldn’t make any impression on them. Benefit by association.
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But, my Indian friends are prompt to claim V.S Naipaul as one of theirs, even though he was born and raised in Trinidad, and wrote a scathing book on
India’s social dogmas and pretensions. Social fatwa was decreed against him by Indian civil society, but when he own Nobel Prize, he was again their darling. May be disgusted by this double standard, he proclaimed he was not of Indian origin, instead, he believed, his ancestors came from Nepal, since his last name sounds similar to Nepal. Had he have known Nepalis better, he would have regretted his claim, we are no better than Indians in social pretensions and dogmas, just their side kick.#————————#
On a different note:
I am thinking of revoking my membership from ‘desi-ness,’ love fest, which I had been celebrating, after reading news that Aishwarya Rai weds trees on the advice of some astrologers. What’s wrong with these people, most privileged and most educated bunch? I can understand why Naipaul wants to distance himself from desi-ness. My heart aches and I cringe with disgust, when educated people who have seen the world fall prey to such mindless social/religious customs/practices.
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If desi-ness just means eating ladoo-peda, and revering a cow as a mother, marrying a tree, and watching a movie by an actor who marries a tree, reading suras in Arabic without any understanding what it says, or strapping a thread (Janai) all life without knowing the significance of it. I had it. I would have lost my essence and individualism, if I ever feel the need to associate myself with some club/culture to define myself. Such regressive customs/practices/thoughts encourage Who-I-am to take precedence over What-I-am.
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App ki culture/customs aap ko mubarak. Here, I hurl my membership card out of window. If I ever had an urge to see a circus again, I will go to Mardi Gras, and eat ladoo-peda in
New Orleans.#————————#
Adieu, desi-pan.
never read VS Naipaul. Midnights children, I found too difficult to follow, I went half-way through it and it still lies somewhere in dust. Jhumpa Lahri, well, franly I do no have a high opinion. Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of loss is excellent!
Funny that you would throw your desiness just because of Aishwarya. heheh. Fickle Desi, I suppose. But often times, it turns out, especially in “bidesh” our membershipto the Desi Club comes by default. We get associated to it whether we like it or not.
Mirli is dancing in front of the screen, I’ll get back to the comment later………
Married a tree ????? I mean, i mean … i dont get it. Did the tree have to sign a pre-nuptial agreement ? assuming she’s going to divorce the tree. Isnt she engaged to someone else ? He sort of looks like a tree, though, maybe she got confused
(hehe, that was bad) ……
Humor aside, Gols dai, if you ever decide to swing by the Big Easy during Mardi Gras, let me know, I have been dying to witness witness the carnival, I’ll bring a bag full of beads and we can stare (blankly or otherwise) to mammary glands all we want !
Pakhe, get me in the club.
have u tried booksfree.com?? its an online book rental. I get all my Asterix from there. for 8.95 a month i get almost 6 books 2 at a time. and they have a pretty good selection as well
Great post Mr golay,
I am regularly reading your entries
keep on….
About Nepali writers, try Samrat Upadhyay, I read “Arresting God in KTM” a collection of short stories, and it was pretty decent. I went halfway through “The Guru of Love”, that seemed to be a good story to. I should try and finish that book.
Another Nepali writer that I like is Manjushree Thapa. I haven’t read any of her books, but her columns in KTM Post are few of the columns that make sense and at the same time are well written. Nepali writers ( this is my general opinion) tend to ramble along with too much “bhoomika” and get to the point only in the last paragraph of their writeup and I find that very irritating. But that’s the way we’re taught to write, blame it all on the education system (naya sikchhya and all)
A nice read as usual!
I would rather say “Golay ko Kuber Vandaar”. Not intended to be an intruder here but have been facinated by your writings. An immense pleasure I find going through your write-ups.
I have been more inclined towards Asian writers as I tend to relate more to their stories. Let me add another Asian name to the list, Khalid Housseini. He made a debut into the literary world with the book “The Kite Runner”. If you have not already read, I would suggest you to make a plunge in the whirlpool of “The Kite Runner”.
And what more to say about Rushdie? I mustered by valor to unravel the literary work by him and ended up learning new vocabularies and deep sentence structures.
Nice love story you have depicted and hope it shall continue till eternity!
I too have a list of books-to-read. But don’t have time.
Twaaks
i like Naipual’s writing, unapologetic and insolent. i did read Upadhaya’s ‘guru of love,’ very simple and pleasant read. It would be unjust to compare his works to literary gaints, but do have to appreciate that he is a pioneer in engish writing…but i might be wrong to say that, i remember you giving me your grand father’s book that he wrote in around ‘98 i guess…only thing was your grand father didn’t get the publisher’s deal that Mr. Upadhaya did.
people at diaspora or home might read first two books for the sake of reading it, then the writer has to have susbstance after that to etablish himself/herself…
let’s see how much oomph Mr. Upadhya has…
pakhe and voices
sounds a good idea, a visit to New Orleans, may be we should plan it…let’s watch some white mamaries. do they flash to mexicans? hehehe…
loore
great site… thinking of joinig it, great collection… ah! asterix would be awesome once again…
raj and rambler
thanks
grace
your presence has graced my blog…hehehe…anywawy, thanks for visiting here.
i don’t like to restrict myself to any genre/location. i believe, great story and the story telling transcends boundaries.
yes, i have read reviews on ‘kite runner,’ all of them were rave reviews. i had that book in my books to read list, i guess i need to notch it up few places up in the list. thanks for reminder…
vashek
why not put your list up, that would be great…
Gols dai,
I am sure there are ones who dont flash to mexicans, in which case, we will just have to wait till they get too drunk to tell the difference
and yes, kite runner, thats a good one, although not up there with Roy and certainly nowhere as complex as Rushdie … the writer does tell his story in an appealing way …..
Happy Valentines day dear Golay, twanks and all…
Celebrate urselves as well as e’ery person in ur lives.. Cheers!!!
give a little love n it all comes back to you.. (naya coke ko add hehehe
sorry blog chahi padhna payeko chaina…
Well, Happy shivaratri? Is grass available at your disposal? Btw, you smoke guys and gols? Bum bholay! Happy shivaratriagain!
khoi mero comment ta ajha pani appear bhaena ta…. k bhaako ho kunni….aa hos aba….
smiriti
peerati haina preeti ho preeti…lata
belated happy V day…
vasek
for some reason, the spam filter caught your comments…
i am a bum
i am golay
bum bum bholay!!
hahaha…pot is illegal, you can go to jail for serious time…hehehe
happy shivaratri..
Its time for me to say “Smiriti” hoina “Smriti” lata… hehehe