I came across a wonderful post by Monideepa Sahu “INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH; THE SUPPRESSED VOICES” She writes “Indian book lovers can choose from a wealth of fascinating new titles in creative literature from foreign authors. Our regional Bhashas have their venerable home-grown creative traditions and towering literary giants. However, Indian writers of comparable stature writing in English seem relatively fewer and far between. Many acclaimed authors such as Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri or Rohinton Mistry are expatriates writing primarily for a Western audience. A new Indian author of fiction who is published in India, commands a limited readership and is considered successful if the book sells just 1000 copies. “The best of Indian writing is not in English,” avers Sunil Poolani, senior journalist, author, and founder of Frog Books, Mumbai. “A Vaikom Muhammad Basheer or a Sarat Chandra Chatterjee is any day equal to a Marquez or Umberto Eco. They are not as famous because they are not properly translated like their western counterparts.”
I suggest every one should participate in this dialogue. (even if you happen to be writing in other tongues).
Please do visit her site and read the whole post, and do leave your comments.

I also suggest that you read : “The lost sub-continent” where he Dalrymple writes “Seven years ago, publishers descended on Delhi in search of the next Arundhati Roy. But, the future Anglophone Indian bestsellers are more likely to come from the west “ […] -also John Matthew has some interesting things to say about the above article.
Personally, I feel that William Dalrymple has written some interesting travel monologues. And though he is right about many things, I don’t wholly buy his worry-full lament.

My concerns aroused by her wonderfull post can be read at her site (its a bit silly on edges though) Here is a slightly more polished version (with some corrections:)

Hi Moni, What a lovely post.
I agree with almost everything you have said, and even Pradeep. Infact, I am still trying to gauge the full living breath (The atmosphere and horizons) of the problem you two have raised (though I don’t consider myself as a writer, although I have written several articles and reviews for technical mag.: for example: http://www.studio-systems.com/backIssues/MagzineCovers/MarApr2001/CoverPagewithtop.htm
and
http://www.studio-systems.com/broadfeatures/NovDec2002/Broadcast%20Article/Pinnacle/30.htm
(as you will see, I was never a creative writer or a journalist) still...I feel that this problem like the one you highlight, goes much deeper, and as we follow its path, and the deeper we go, the more uncanny and strange it becomes, primarily because English never ever did take hold of our eyes and ears. (I mean television and radio)
Now I am not saying this because this (media production) happens to be my line; but generally, come to think about it (not using the very eyes and ears) hints at something unnatural at the very core of English as a language in India.

I read a lot of Marathi and Hindi Literature and the topics that interests them (these writers) are the topics no Indian/English author could come around to frame. What we have instead are the Rushdie's and Shoba-de's. Their concerns are totally divorced from the grassroot concerns (anxieties & involvements), and this is another of those strange phenomena about angrezi in India and the unusual expectations of and by the vilayti publishers.
The Diaspora from Rushdie to Naipul is always about the problem of vilayat, and never deshi. (for example: the newly arrived Marathi couple in the foggy suburbs of Mumbai.)
This is understandable, because multiculturalism is an ongoing problem for the West, and these stories form the backdrop from where debates and coping practices get channeled. But should it also becomes ours, especialy when our problems happens to be radically different.
And as often, like "begani shadi main abdulla diwana wala haal" we scuttle yonder wander (which means everything and nothing) :)

To sum up, (I Include myself within those who lack the necessary craft or skill…But!) I see that this problem of angrezi goes much deeper, and the deeper it goes the more knotted it becomes.
English I can today safely declare has remained by and large the news paper wala bhasha, exactly as the angrez happened to have left it, and this includes the typical as well as the tropical verity of english journalism we encounter in the gali kooncha of school master kitab wala company bahadur ecesis, which as you may have noticed (not surprisingly) is rapidly being displaced by the 'aaj tak' phenomena. This displacement leaves English only as a technical bhasha required to be learned and mastered, but only so far as it can satisfy the odd demands of globalsoft call-center technonomy.
This simply means that it is not a lived language for us, it never was; Kyunki bhasha chamdi ki tara hoti hai -language is like ones own skin, with its rivulets of sensitive nerve fibers rushing headways, here there upwards and back.  After all, rasa, rita, Sar-rasa-vas-ti all presupposes atmosphere, environment and the furrows of earth and natural grooves, a recording of the spirit, like the voice cut grooves of a phonograph record that holds speech and music, and both can only be heard (made sense of) from its own ground.

On an even deeper level, I sometimes wonder as to whether, I will ever be able to speak and communicate the Marathi idiom as spoken by a newly arrived Marathi couple in the foggy suburbs of Mumbai, or will my idiom remain locked to the American and Uk[ian] folds.

 

This is roughly what I feel is wrong with Indian English.

 

 

crossposted from my website