Oh, for a Book to Ban!

Nice one bro.

Thank you for a v entertaining read - I agreed with vast tracts of it but still do feel that in fiction, execution far more important than the grandness of the subject matter. The Great Gatsby is considered the Great American Novel but if someone had set out to write the Great American Novel by-the-numbers, it would not have ended up being Gatsby, I'm certain of it.

One can only tell one's own story, even if it's about foolish, decadent, nihilistic party-goers. If it's told well, I believe the result will be infinitely superior to a bad attempt at the profound. You make a great case though...almost convinced me...

Hartosh, I'm one of the authors on the list you provide -- a list you judge as not to your reading taste even though you have evidently not bothered to read a page of the work of any. I thank you at least for citing your friend's "strong recommendation" of my book *Arzee the Dwarf*, but despite having got off lighter than the others -- for which gesture I am ever in your debt, for we novelists are calculating creatures -- I think there may be a few things I want to say in response.

You begin with the banning of Rushdie's *Satanic Verses* two decades ago and declare: "Today you would be hard put to find Indian fiction in English that anybody would want banned." The banning of *Satanic Verses* was, it is generally agreed today, a foolish and knee-jerk action by the Indian government, and India remains one of the few countries where it is still illegal to sell the book. Despite the hysteria and controversy surrounding the book upon its publication, no western government thought it fit to ban it.

So it surprises me that an act of such randomness on the part of a government (and whatever the debate about what governments can or can't do, it's generally agreed they're not very good when it comes to judging fiction) should for you become the litmus test for judging the ambition of contemporary fiction. Had the Indian government not banned *Satanic Verses* (and this could easily have been the case), the book would still have been as good or bad as it is. Only you would then have had to actually read it to have anything to say about it, while now you at least know it WAS banned, and therefore IS good.

Indeed, you don't seem that interested in quality issues, as if this is irrelevant in a work of fiction, even though you then quickly pass judgment on two "ambitious" Indian novels as not being good, because inauthentic. That is, you perversely insist that the ambitious Indian novels being published today are not well-written enough, while the "quiet, well-written books" -- well, you won't even read them.

By your logic, were some mediocre novel critical of Hindu society were to be banned, say, by the Gujarat government, that would immediately become an ambitious novel that everyone should read. But only a PR agent would want to think this way about books. Frankly, such a stance is an insult to the entire endeavour of artistic creation. Our powers as writers are limited to realizing our imagined worlds as best as we can. We are not out to write bannable books so that you may read us, although I certainly agree it's a pleasant feeling to be banned and it helps sales in the long run (as your own argument proves).

Your standards for judging fiction seem peculiarly journalistic, as if all that fiction writers do is report true stories while changing the names here and there and adding bits of dialogue and chapter numbers. "As someone who has reported out of Bhopal for two years," you declare," I know that the person excised out of Indra Sinha’s book is the one who has done much of the work on the ground...." Was *Animal's People* a fact-finding commission? Is everyone who did "work on the ground" in a real-world scenario supposed to be given a starring role in a work of fiction? You don't argue at any point, citing a specific passage or interpretative point of view in the book, that its depiction of Bhopal gas tragedy is flawed or manipulative. Your status as "someone who reported out of Bhopal for two years" is supposed to be enough to support your judgment. To judge a work of non-fiction, perhaps (though I would contest even this). But for a work of fiction? Is that all you need? Your problems with the book are actually a direct consequence of the problematic assumptions with which you begin -- assumptions I am surprised you hold, considering you've published a novel yourself (the subtitle of which was, if I recall right, *A Mathematical Novel*).

Also, may I point out that it is not just us fiction writers, but you non-fiction writers and reporters too who need to pull up your socks? It will not have escaped your notice that Jaswant Singh's book *Jinnah, Partition and Independence* was recently banned by the Gujarat government. In one swift and satanic leap, Jaswant Singh, despite all his wooden prose style, has become the leading Indian non-fiction writer of his day. When can we novelists expect to see a ban-worthy work of comparable ambition and consequence by a journalist or professional non-fiction writer? We're tired of reading the quiet, well-written reports you guys are churning out by the dozen -- that's really not what journalism is about.

Lastly, I'm sorry to hear that you won't be reading *Arzee the Dwarf* (your smirking comment about "dwarves and eunuchs" suggests that you think group identity is the primary identity any individual or fictional character has). But please make sure then that you pre-book my forthcoming novel, *Love In The Time of Naxalism*, which should be more to your taste. In fact, if you have reported on the Naxal movement, may I consult you on it? I promise I won't leave you out of the book (although I may be mischievous and compose a scene where you are shown actually READING a novel, page by page, pencil in hand).

I think your article comes across as extremely ill informed, how I wish you had read atleast two of the books on the shortlist before shoving your foot in your mouth

Of course you've deliberately set out to provoke, but even if one ignores the many confusions and obfuscations in the piece, what's staggering is the way you ignore the differences between fiction and non-fiction. So Indra Sinha has his version of Bhopal -- it's his novel, for Christ's sake. To criticise it on grounds of not being close to the lives of real activists is, well, pretty pointless. And then again, to segue from "the small circle of people" that constitutes the world of English language fiction to Basharat Peer's autobiographical narrative is patently absurd. As the earlier commentator has implied, perhaps you ought to simply read a bit more. (Throwing in Kafka's name out of the blue isn't going to cut it, you know.)

I thought this was a balanced and truthful perspective on Indian publishing - and also, everyone, it's his opinion. For someone to speak up yes, from within the circle he speaks of, is brave, and I think we are forgetting that. What he is trying to do is give us an overview, and book blurbs do decide what we read - though of course we should read a book and give it a fair chance, some books just don't get our attention or interest if there's nothing to go on, and that is what he's saying.

Taste of course varies, but by and large there has been stagnation in terms of what is being published, many feel, and what Hartosh is calling for is books that stand out, that beg to be read, in a very tough market - of course I will also point out, Hartosh, that publishers and editors also have to make numbers work in this very tough market, and need a midlist. That publishers are trying to do this and support popular fiction etc is commendable too; we need our own detective novels and adolescent fiction, though of course, we need good novels, and we are too smart to be told (or sold) the same story of sexual coming of age again and again. However, we can't have only a midlist, and I think this is Hartosh's point. But we should also take into consideration that people are trying to change this and there are also some excellent books coming out. We just have to keep working at it, is all. Note: I'll still pass on the papaya!

Haha this is good fun :) Hartosh, well done! And C Hash, well said too!
I've been wondering for years why Chetan Bhagat sells more than everyone else, and why none of the books Sarnath describes as "three generations of cinnamon and papaya" make any kind of lasting impact, either in people's minds or the book market.
The thing writers and publishers seem to forget is that the reader is under no compulsion to like any book, or magazine article. Or to even read them if they do not seem interesting enough.

THE MOST invigorating online debate yet on this website.

Keep it up, gentlemen.

Writers, kindly write more trashy pulp.

Hartosh, kindly speak the truth to pulp power

Shall be a regular watcher :)

Chandrahas, I can only presume your pique has prompted you to take up positions you would not otherwise assume, for what else can explain the conceit of ``we novelists’’ versus ``you reporters’’. There is no guild of novelists that allows you, me or anyone to speak on its behalf. And you were saying something about my giving primacy to group identities?

But for arguments sake were I even to grant you that journalism in this country is lousy, non-fiction trash, so what? We also have very bad roads, does that excuse mediocre fiction. Or are you suggesting that any reader must bear accountability for his or her entire profession before commenting on works of fiction? So any attempt to evaluate fiction must await the second coming.

Let me again try and state what I have and have not said. My knowledge of the books on the Shakti Bhatt prize, like of any reader, is not as limited as you claim. There is a whole industry out there, incestuous as it is, trying to get me to buy these books. There has been no shortage of reviews of these books, including your own. Several extracts have been published, including portions of your book. I find myself disinterested in these books because they are reminiscent of much of recent Indian fiction that I have read and found wanting. If the only response to this is that I must read these particular four or five books before saying anything on the subject, well then I am addressing illiterates. By that argument once again no one would ever comment on fiction because there would always be some such books out there he would not have read.

My critique is based precisely on the element you think I am putting to one side – quality. Just because a book is well-written does not make it a good book. I believe much of recent Indian fiction in English has been middling at best or to put it more politely in Rajni’s words, of the mid-list. This may or may not be true of your book or others on that list but I’m not addressing that question at all, I’m trying to understand why Indian fiction has come to this stage – the middling stage if you will.

In this context, to answer Dilip, I have not said that book bans justify a book, rather I’m pointing out that recent Indian fiction in English does not evoke much of a response at all, whether illegitimate and extreme, from those who demand a book ban, or legitimate and far more moderate, from readers such as me. The two authors I do mention in contrast, Rushdie and Kafka are by no means journalistic but they do stand for a certain idea of quality, representing that very literary ambition and imagination I find missing in recent Indian fiction in English.

Take the diversity of central Europe of the early twentieth century. We find our echo in the clash of languages and identities that was mediated by the vast bureaucracy of the Hapsburg Empire. After the first war came the rise of fascism and communism. Our best guides through this era still are writers such as Robert Musil and Hermann Broch. In a book not quite as well known as many of his others – The Spell – Broch studies the rise of fascism through the eyes of a doctor who has moved to a remote mountain village. Does this make it a journalistic novel, far from it.

When I point to Adiga and Indra Sinha, it is to state that there are others from outside the country who have mined this material. The dangers in letting others do this become apparent in these two cases. The authors know the material secondhand, or so it seems to me. Authenticity is not everything but neither is it nothing. I feel we would have been much better off with writers here attempting this material. There are several reasons why this is not happening. One is of course the publishers themselves who will not take risks or put up money to support writers within the country, the other is the writers themselves and the world they inhabit. It limits them from much of the material around us that would make for invigorating fiction. With that in mind I remain hopeful that my appearance in your next attempt at fiction will redress this lack of vigour. After all what better than a sardar or two (those group identities again) to ensure earnestness is not mistaken for seriousness of purpose, or to call a spade a spade.

Fight! Fight!
To those of you reading this who couldn't be arsed to read the lengthy comments before this, let me provide a summary:
Anita Roy is winning.

no no, not saying Hartosh's argument has been invalidated. I heartily support him. And Chandrahas. And everyone else. Merely providing fight stats.

Anita has thus far provided the sharpest, most incisive comment in this thread - and also the most entertaining, which is all I'm looking for. And I suspect Hartosh can defend himself far, far better than his anonymous supporters.

Do carry on. Don't mind me - this is not my fight.

Also, his surname is not Ball. Cheers.

Hartosh: Somewhere in this seething mass of emotion, I'm guessing you had a genuine argument on the lines of: "Nothing in the last 20 years of Indian writing in English has been as ambitious/ as ideologically or politically intense as a book like The Satanic Verses." That's an interesting perspective, and worth a better debate.

But I'm constrained to point out that yes, you do have to read books before you criticize them (and to hope that you do at least read books before you review them, or would reading other reviews still remain sufficient preparation)?

Also just to note that you've dismissed a large chunk of the ouevres of Amitav Ghosh, Amitava Kumar, Siddhartha Deb, I Allan Sealy, some of Vikram Seth, some of W Dalrymple and Suketu's Maximum City, to mention only the best-known among contemporary IWE writers.

I'm not saying this as snark, but I do wish you had done your research and been more thorough before penning this. This isn't about defending contemporary authors (by the way, several of the books on the Shakti Bhatt Prize list are worth your time, but that's just my opinion) versus the gods of the past. If there is a narrowing of ambition, or a shift in direction/ perspective in the IWE brigade, it's worth discussing--but not if you end up playing defense all the time because you haven't done the basic amount of reading required.

If you can still make your argument after you've browsed the major works by IWE writers over the last twenty years, I'm sure many of us would be willing to listen. But at this point, why should any of us--readers, writers, journos--do any more than think, hey, interesting perspective, but we can't trust this guy's knowledge base. And while you've actually managed to touch on pretty much every issue that IWE writers obsess about, you're packing too much in to each paragraph, and anyone who's read the current canon could rip your points apart. That would be fun in a gladiatorial sort of way, but I don't see how it would move this debate forward, so I'll refrain.

Just a final point: ambition in itself isn't a guarantee of a great novel. (I'm thinking of two recent books specifically that both tried to tackle the Big Indian Picture and that didn't quite make it.) On the other hand, a book like All About H Hatterr is technically not ambitious--but try imagining Indian 20th c writing without Hatterr's remarkable, insane, compelling voice. Or think of the great American novel. One of the greatest of all time, currently celebrating its 40th anniversary, is a book about a Jewish guy with a history of offal deviancy complaining about his life and his mother on his therapist's couch. You can't get more navel-gazing than that, and yet, Portnoy's Complaint doesn't need you or me to confirm its classic status.

Get back to what you started with, which had nothing to do with bans or dissing books you have no intention of reading: if you're feeling dissatisfied with the last 20 years of Indian writing in English, what's missing? Is it there in the genres, there in works in translation, or absent from the entire literary scene? What about the new writers--why *don't* they speak to you?

I think you might have had too much Chateau Lamartine to drink, Mr Sinha. That may account for the personal abuse you rather vulgarly throw in the direction of someone you disagree with. Calling someone an idiot is easy. You could call me an idiot for writing this, and then I would call you a cretin in return. It would not have advanced the discussion one inch though. Maybe you should open yourself another bottle of wine.

For Thor's sake, Bal's 'good enough to ban' shtick is figurative, you literalist buggers. He's asking where's the next Rushdie. It's a valid question.

Not reading the books beforehand? Weakens the argument. But he didn't claim to be doing reviews. He said he was just unmotivated to read them.

To be frank, no matter what corrosive anger lay at its's heart, White Tiger and Animal People are awful novels. Half way through you want to put it down and just read some non-fiction or a pointillisitic novel on "frivolous" things that has the benefit of being well written. Maybe a lot of the novels you write about are dreadful too (I haven't read them) but that's beside the point. Just as much as a small group of academics may be writing about cinnamon, there seem to be a small group of middle class academics who seem to try and validate their existence by writing about "issues". Simply writing about it doesn't make your own life and reputation in anyway more important than that of the run of the mill writer. As a lay reader (I am not a writer of any sort) I am cynical about fiction/non-fiction on "grand themes" or being subjected to the petty politics of writers - really these turn on age old careerism whereby the writer becomes more important than the issue and the people affected (and the reader - the gentle, middle class reader who thinks he/she is making a "difference" by buying the book, pshaw - pays the price by way of the wallet). And your article also demonstrates that proper criticsim in India has a long, long way to go. You honestly need to do better than a tirade. Luckily online content is free.

Also that comment on Bengalis, Malayalis, Bangalore, Chennai etc. is unwarranted, do you have a personal axe to grind here? If things are so regional, why the hell should anyone south of the Vindhyas be even bothered about the stupid dramas of the North like Partition or Kashmir (no one can deny that reams of material are written by people from the North who ask everyone of us to care deeply about the loss of Lahore etc. etc.). Why are these in any way more important than the daily, drama-free, ordinary lives of say Bangaloreans?

Rajni, that's an argument that can be made about anything. regional books in translation for e.g are not visible. Actually each of these will have their own cliques and it all depends on which clique makes itself heard.

Also opinions vary on whether Satanic Verses has literary ambition. Unless having a fatwa laid on you is ambition. Fatwas are now so commonplace that knowing which sentiments are offended can get a book banned quite fast and is an excellent marketing tool. Actually that 16 men and one woman book can find itself banned quite quickly provided someone mentions it to the Shiv Sena.

Basically a lay reader like me who supports the industry by actually buying books reads reviews and opinions on what is great fiction with caution. Burnt my fingers too often. So I am not off to buy the kashmir book if that was the intention.

In addition to everything Nilanjana said — re: Satanic Verses — literalist here would like to point out that the response you speak of mainly came from people who staunchly refused to read it, or were just plain illiterate.

And may I humbly point you to Jack Green’s “Fire the Bastards”? It’s a feisty critique of publishing and reviewing business, a solid defense of an ambitious novel, makes several points you are trying to make — all backed by meticulous research.

Isn't it ironical that an article on the lack of books arousing passions arouses so much passion? QED Hartosh.

The point that Hartosh is making is a general one about English fiction being published in India today, of which I am sure he has read enough to have a valid opinion. Responses which criticize him for not having read the books on the shortlist or which take the book banning reference literally seem to miss this point. I’m glad that he has initiated this debate, it is something I have been thinking about for some time, and it is in this spirit that people should contribute, rather than defending the book that they have written or published or making personal attacks, or watching from the sidelines as if everything is about entertainment.

Hartosh’s point, that the literary world is monopolized by a handful of writers, reviewers, and publishers who all know each other, is undeniable. I've found that many of them seem to be related to each other or have studied together. It is underlined by the fact that most of the people who are making comments here are part of this circle and know each other. It is hard to believe that in a country the size of India, such a small handful of people make up the English language Indian literary circle.

In my opinion, a reason for the issue that you raise Hartosh, is that writing in English, or being a ‘writer’ (perhaps due in part to international recognition and a number of prizes) has come to be seen as a sexy profession. There is a generation of people who have sufficient grasp of the language, some talent, exposure, connections, time and the money, to pursue this career. Stronger than the desire to write, and to write a particular story that they are burning to tell, to critique and comment on the world around them, is the desire to be a ‘writer,’ with all the prestige that is perceived to come with this title. To be published, to be invited to festivals, to do readings, to have fans. These ‘writers’ are in a hurry to publish their novels, even if they have nothing to say. A lot of the time that might be spent writing and rewriting, reading, thinking, questioning, observing and living, all of which takes far too long, is spent in getting themselves known, making the right contacts, getting into the charmed inner circle. It is these contacts who will publish their books, write their blurbs and reviews and promote them. Once the book is published, rather than letting the work speak for itself, ‘writers’ throw themselves whole-heartedly into self-promotion; organizing events, creating fan pages for themselves on facebook and inviting people to be their fans, putting up all the reviews that their friends have written praising their book. All this is part of the process of packaging and selling a brand. Perhaps it is idealistic to see writers and books in romantic isololation from the market, maybe it is necessary today for writers today to play this hands-on role in the book business and in selling their books, and those who do not follow this tried and tested path, sink into oblivion, unpublished or unread. I’m sure that most writers struggle with these issues and how much they should give in to these pressures, how much they should or should not be sucked into the circus. The aspect that concerns me, and which I believe Hartosh is raising, is that so many writers, sucked into this process of turning themselves into brands, often stand for nothing else but this brand, and this comes through in their writing, leaving it hollow.

On the other hand, there are writers like Indra Sinha and Arvind Adiga who are using their pens to say something, to raise awareness of an issue, which is admirable. There are two points I would make about this however. One of these is a point which Hartosh has made. That of authenticity. Of course fiction writers should be free to write about other worlds and people, but this is very difficult to do well. What I felt as I read White Tiger (I haven’t read Animal's People) was just what I felt when I watched ‘Slumdog Millionnaire,’ that the details and textures, the small brush strokes were missing . The worlds and people depicted, because they are not known intimately, are created with broad brush strokes, and what is lost is the detail, the layers, the contradictions, the characrers, the humour, of great art. What we have instead, is something that is between fiction and non fiction and there is nothing wrong with this, the two do not need to be separate realms. The second problem I have, is that, by continuing to speak for these ‘poor and oppressed’ people, the small privileged group of people who have the power to speak and be heard, continue to hold onto their power. When do people get to speak for themselves?

I don’t agree that there need to be more ‘great Indian novels,’ this is a part of the problem. India is a huge country, how can one person aspire to tell the entire nation’s story? But there does need to be more ambition in terms what writers want to say in their work, more examination of why we want to write or be writers. Even ‘Bengalis and Malayalis living in south Delhi or south Mumbai’ can rise above the cliches and write about their world in fresh, enlightening ways; commentary, dissection, observation, satire of the society that they live in, and the politics of class and gender etc within this. At the same time, we all, as writers, publishers, reviewers, can make more of an effort to support and help bring out rooted writing by those from other worlds, in English or in translation, instead of telling their stories for them. (The case of Baby Halder’s book is a wonderful example of this.) The books that are written by newcomers may not be perceived to be of the highest literary standard, but it is only those who have had a certain education, certain exposure and the time, money and leisure to read and write, who will insist that this is the only or most important thing. Indians today co-exist at different stages of history, and literature falls into this. Before James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, you had the simple but powerful and influential slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. Publishers could also think less of the market and what they think the market wants, and realise the ideological power they have to inform reading tastes and to influence society, to take risks and bring out books that need to be read. There also needs to be better editing, and more than this, infrastructure, support, education for those years and years of struggle and practice that are needed to grow into being a writer. It is encouraging that there are many people today who are working quietly towards this.

An excellent post, Kavita.

Superbly put, Kavita. A controversy over Hartosh's reviewing practices seems trite when you consider the far more important point he is making - about how ridiculously narrow and incestuous the Indian literary circle has become. Your astute gloss on this point - about how authors become crass hucksters of their own brands and thereby renounce any claim to authenticity - deserves a much wider audience than is likely to stumble on comment #571 on Open magazine. I do hope you maintain a blog.

I long for the day when everybody is happily blogging, and writing is no longer a sexy profession. I wait for the day when blogs put these publishers and "writers" completely out of business.

To my mind there is a question screaming to be asked here that none have raised - since when did the 'ambitious novel' and the 'quiet well written novel' become contradictory ideas? Why are they two separate and opposing categories today? Surely today's IWE has something to do with the previous generation that was lauded for being so ambitious (Rushdie, Roy, Ghosh et al), so where did this disconnect happen? Is there even a disconnect and does Bal's proposition that today's novels are mediocre hold? Is this trend worrisome or is it simply a sign of the times that does not need examination? Why and in response to what has the quiet well written novel emerged?

Secondly, what is meant by a 'quiet, well written novel'? In general, a book is written with a certain ambition in mind, even if that ambition may be to venerate the drawing rooms of South Bombay and Delhi, or to write about a dwarf in a city. The term 'quiet and well written' is misleading and I don't think anyone who has used it here understands what it means. Are we talking about a novel that is written only for its own sake, for the sake of being 'well written'? Surely these too were written with a certain idea and purpose in mind. Sadly, on this forum those who have defended their right to write such a novel have come across as defending their right to write something that lacks ambition, hence setting up such an opposition.

On the other hand, Bal's glib prose reinforces this dichotomy on first reading, given that he appears to call for novels only about the 'real India', and he also seems to uphold novels only because they were banned (irrespective of the spurious quality of at least some of it). In this his larger idea gets lost (read what he writes in his comments section, it is actually better written than his original piece). His other error was to speak casually of these new books giving the impression that his only engagement with them ha been through the blurbs (he corrects this impression too in the comments). However, given that this is not meant to be a review of any novel it would be advisable to move on from this mistake and consider the real question of his essay. In any case he does need to be called out for his irresponsible prose, for it has at the very least done a disservice to this debate, since it has left us meandering from the larger question of whether or not today's novels are all middling in quality.

"Just because a book is well-written does not make it a good book". What nonsense. This is and always has been and always will be the criteria for good writing.

I've read and liked just one book (Arzee) from this shortlist. I've read a chapter or third from some of the other shortlisted entries, which didn't excite me enough to walk all the way with them to the cash counter. I wonder if I should be banned from this discussion for that and fatwad that I shouldn't utter a word about IWE before reading every word of every book I've found off-putting from the word go.

Unlike Bal, I don't think lack of ambition is the only problem. Sure, it could be one of the problems, but then - as many others have pointed out - ambition alone guarantees nothing.

I think the problem is with the Indian editors and the risks they are not ready to take with a novel. Where are the editors who can support novels like Midnight's Children, Satanic Verses, The Last Jet Engine Laugh, Sacred Games or A Suitable Boy (no, not weightwise)? They all live in London, I guess. Are the ones in Delhi all chicken-hearted chicken-shits? Or is it the smallness of the Indian market that prevents these publishers from taking risks in terms of themes, language and style, or giving the kind of time and attention and passion that a book deserves?

When Penguin India published my book (3 Zakia Mansion) last year, and I was told by everyone that I needed to PROMOTE MY OWN BOOK and all that jazz, I stumbled around asking how. Several different people asked me: "anything controversial in your book?" "any name-calling, community bashing, thinly-veiled public figure, real bad bad-words, especially Hindi-Marathi ones starting with the syllables chu and ha and ga an bho?"
I mumbled no. That was that. I was told, that there was no 'handle' on which publicity would be raised, like a good old stink is raised by a heap of uncleared garbage.
And so, my book (fortunately or unfortunately not found in your dismiss-list) did moderately ok and made no waves. Certainly no bans.
What am I trying to say here? That you're entitled to your opinion, that a good ole ban maketh a great book. But surely there are books, and books, like there are people and people? Why the insistence that only a certain kind of book that brings forth a certain kind of reaction (that too from the indian government and mobs who didnt read it for godsake!) is 'great writing' - while the rest is phuus-phaas?
I'm writing another, also modest in its scope, but about real people. This kind of narration. is what I like and can do. And there's perhaps 2000 people (that magic print-run of ordinary indian writers) who will read it, maybe another 2000 people after that. Big deal? No. But what's the problem? Is there only shelf and mind-space for Satanic Verses?

P.S. This year's shortlist of cute little books is all the more disappointing because last year's inaugural award had raised our expectations by dishing out an ambitious, energetic, irreverent edge of the seat entertainer as the winner.

I can’t believe there is such a brouhaha over a badly-written, illiterate and mindless article. A close reading of this drivel will show the shallowness of contemporary Indian journalism and nothing else. Bal opens with two contrary claims: one is occasioned by the peg of the article, the anniversary of the ban on Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and the other is a claim about literary ambition. The ambition of Rushdie’s book has nothing to do with the fact that it was banned and the fact of a book being banned has no necessary relation to its ambition. But the casualness with which these two contrary claims are made in the first paragraph (with no logic, consistency of argument or productive connection) shows that Bal’s biographical tag line must be taken seriously. He clearly thinks journalistic writing demands no rigour or thinking. Except that he is way more wrong than any body else on the subject.
The next paragraph is so arrogant and illiterate, it takes one’s breath away. He’s read none of the books on an Awards List and yet dismisses them all. He does not care to read them. Why should we care to read him? We do because, unlike him, we take reading seriously and because what follows from this absurd paragraph are a set of further mindless observations and generalisations. First, there is the offensive swipe at dwarves and eunuchs. Perhaps that can be dealt with merely by adding failed mathematicians to the list. But what follows is untenable.
All or most IWE is mindless navel-gazing! Does this even merit rebuttal? Then comes the upholding of some monolithic, homogeneous idea of “truth.” Bal knows what it is and Adiga and Sinha fail. There is one Bihar, one Bhopal. Bal knows them and fiction distorts it: Adiga des not get it right; Sinha mistreats his sources. And then the illiterate sentence: “Fiction creates its own world, but when it distorts we need contrary versions to contest the truth and we just don’t seem to be producing any of our own.” If fiction creates its own world, what grounds does the charge of distortion have? Contrary versions of what? If there is one truth (Bal’s implicit claim), then why produce more? The syntactic illiteracy of this sentence bespeaks the state of its author’s mind. Once can only hope Bal is not working on a novel himself.
Then its time to attack publishers. Writers are not paid well by them, hence they write badly/navel-gaze? But so what if writers have to work? Kafka did (we go weak-kneed). But all Indian writers in English have the same life, so they will write badly anyway. Once again, does this even merit rebuttal? So, the whole world of English fiction is dead because incestuous and monolithic. Basharat Peer’s pathetic book is different. But how? Peer lived in Delhi for years, then in the US, got published by Random House, got published in Granta and comes from the same class as most Indian writers in English. He’s as similar or dissimilar as any other writer from that class in any other region of the country. Lots of Indian writers in English are not publisher-funded. What is this book’s capacity to astonish based on? Peer not growing up in Delhi? Peer acquiring the English language in a Kashmiri classroom? Are these serious arguments? How are most or all other IWE books quiet or well-written? Especially when Bal has not bothered to even read them? Most of them are in fact neither.
But Bal does not care. He’s too busy shooting off an article for a deadline, presuming all his readers are brain dead like himself. And people actually take him seriously! He’s the real navel-gazer. Let’s leave him to it.

What emerges from all of this is a clear need for better blurbs.

EYEFRY, a rebuttal is always required when someone takes your ass.

I am writing The Great Indian Novel as we speak! Can any of you literary luminaries on this forum of multitude of comments find me a publisher? I promise it is The Great Indian Novel and a working draft of it will be ready by the end of this week... PLEASE!

I will be sincerely obliged to yourself.

Uff - this is sounding like one of those painful TV programs with names like Big Fight - where (only in India) everyone talks at each other, recieving nothing. And on top of it everyone sneers, hacks, spits, and begins to exercise their middle finger for possible deployment. And of course there's the name-dropping, and literary muscle flexing.
So yawn.
To quote that guy...Shakespeare was it? or Salman maybe?: "Doh!"
slug it out, guys, while i change channels.

Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann...

Here are extracts from the blurbs written for the books on the Shakti Bhatt prize

Atlas of Impossible Longing: The story is of three generations of an Indian family, brilliantly told, in which a sensitive and intelligent foundling boy orphan who is casteless and without religion and Bakul, the motherless granddaughter of the house, grow up together.

Arzee the dwarf's dream has come true. He has been crowned as head projectionist at the Noor, the Bombay cinema where he has been working since his teens. Arzee thinks that the worst of his troubles are behind him, and that he can marry and settle down now. But not for the first time, Arzee has it all wrong!

Hotel at the End of the World: On their journey to China, Kona and Kuja, bound together by fate, stumble upon the trail of the Floating Island, promised land of plenty. Pema’s story is about lost love, while her husband speaks of homesick Japanese soldiers in Manipur and the Naga hills during World War II. The Prophet takes us back to the quest for the Floating Island, leading us to the little girl’s story as she sets out to fetch water and chances upon something quite unexpected

Baulsphere: Freewheeling Mimlu Sen lives in Paris, where one day she witnesses an electrifying performance by three Bauls, mystic minstrels from Bengal, who spin like pillars of dust. Their music inspires her to return to Calcutta, and to go on an extraordinary journey with one of them, Paban Das Baul, from her respectable home in the city to his humble village, and further on, into the verdant Bengali countryside that is their common heritage.

In If It Is Sweet, precisely etched characters collide, the blind suddenly seeing the blind. Mridula Koshy plumbs the chasms across which they stare, asking the question: what is it people see when they see one another? Her characters are proximate, though from vastly different class backgrounds. Servants and mistresses. Middle-class insomniacs wandering the same footpaths on which labourers wake to care for their sleepless infants. An old man, his maid, and a koodawallah, and a conversation that ends in both insight and blindness.

Eunuch Park: Palash Krishna Mehrotra writes about prostitutes, cross dressers, murderers, drug addicts, students and stalkers, portraying their perversions and vulnerabilities with equal insight, taking us deep into the dark and seamy soul of India.

Evening in the whole day: Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding and already internationally acclaimed debut introduces us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as its closely guarded secrets are slowly peeled away.When Chellam, the family’s rubber-plantation-bred servant girl, is dismissed for unnamed crimes, her banishment is the latest in a series of recent, precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha’s life. A few short weeks before, Aasha’s grandmother Paati passed away under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, departed for Columbia University--leaving Aasha alone to cope with her mostly absent father, her bitter mother, and her imperturbable older brother.

As Hartosh says,
“We are stuck with these people wanting to tell the story of their own lives. Unfortunately they all seem to have lived out the same life.”
Bravo. I don't think he even read the blurbs

Hi Urvi - I don't think he meant that these particular books all contained the same story of the same life, he is speaking generally of a kind of writing that is monotonous, as many others have agreed, above. (Also Baulsphere isn't included on his list.)

@ Ashley: Basharat Peer hasn't been published in Granta, I don't think you have your facts quite right. Also, he isn't of the same circle that has been spoken of; yes, he learnt his English in a Kashmiri classroom, and he also speaks of a different world than is commonly written of - the one of Every Man/ Woman growing up in Kashmir, speaking as one of them. Not a 'pathetic' book as you proclaim, but in the eyes of many, many readers an excellent, moving personal account.

@ Everyone: why is everyone so upset about this? Because these are friends of friends or people they have backed up, and they have their hackles up because they too are implicated. Isn't it time we acknowledged that all of us have grumbled because of the very same things Hartosh is taking up? And it doesn't happen only in the Indian publishing world, there has been a monotony in the west as well - only more so here.

Bal's words might be loosely fitted but his missive flies beyond their penury. The book that provokes, courts 'bans' is worth more than a 'quiet well written' book perhaps for its ability to bring forth a debate like this one.
Well done then Bal. Here is an article worth banning.

I love this article and totally agree with it! Don't know you from adam, dude, but you said it like it is. More Indian authors need to grow a set and swing them hard. More giants, less dwarves?

That includes me, someday somehow I'm going to step out and take a shot. Or get shot at. It's the only way to really write. Fuck the self-promotion, PR, incestuous soireeing, caferati mutual masturbation societies, collective clusterfuck serais, and mutual scratchaback societies. Shut up and write. Or just shut up.

Which is what I'll do now...

a man's username doth not a man make.

As a non-member of any "literary" clique, and a non-novelist, and as a non-buddy of any of these fine argumentators, and therefore as someone truly unbiased and duly draped in the Rawlsian "veil of ignorance" (the very one that apparently leaves Amartya Sen cold), I hereby proceed to deem myself a worthy commentor on the subject under discussion.

Have dutifully read all the blurbs/comments above. My verdict? The burden to disprove Mr Bal's charges has shifted to Indian novelists. They must show us that they are not totally unaware of the fierce intellectual arguments of the era in which they live.

i completely agree with the writer. whys everyone throwing such a fuss? not from the writers/publishers world - and just realising how all you guys get soo pissed up at free speach etc.
best
S.Z

I think the article is right to demand more seriousness and ambition from Indian writers in English, although that is not nearly synonymous with writing about political/social issues- which may often hardly be fiction at all. I'd say one of the root causes of (legitimate) disenchantment with Indian English fiction today, is the state of our literary criticism. I've written something on this in today's Hindu Literary Review. A complete version is at my blog: http://adityasudarshan.blogspot.com.

82 comments; almost everything that is to be said has been thrown at the article. And it deserves it.
Shame on the writer. Shame, all the more, because he has proudly proclaimed without flinching that he is a journalist.
Believe me, the reader who has just been born. The definition of a journalist is not "Hartosh Singh Bal." A journalist would have read the books. Well, anyone who didn't want so much mud on him would have read the books.
Blurbs!!! Such audacity!!!
Never go by a books cover and a girls looks, did your mother not tell you?
Never go by a books title, did your sense not warn you?
Disturbing article.
OPEN, did you pay for this? Serves you right.

Chetan Bhagat's "3 Mistakes OF My Life" sold 2.5 million copies in print. It was about the Gujarat riots. How come this long discussion gave him zero mentions? Is there some big disconnect between the West aligned publishing mafia and the state of the actual reading market within the country?