Oh, I'd like to think you don't need an Indian connection to read it and get a lot out of it. I mean, I found it quite refreshing after the general whiteness of most literary fiction in English, but I'd hate to think that Indianness = niche.
You raise a good point about Amit! Of course, the authorial self-insertion would have made that a little awful. But I still don't think Haresh was the right choice, somehow. (But I think this is my hypercritical Indian mother gene manifesting a couple of decades early.)
imagine not being able to write to your compatriots because you write in different scripts!)
Believe me, I don't have to imagine it. What he does with language is really, really impressive, I think, and he does it very subtly.
Edited because I forgot to say MAAN AND FIROZ. They are so wonderful. And you are so right that reading this for the first time is such a treat. I shall follow ysiskah's example and start flinging it at people.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2010-06-16 09:12 pm (UTC)You raise a good point about Amit! Of course, the authorial self-insertion would have made that a little awful. But I still don't think Haresh was the right choice, somehow. (But I think this is my hypercritical Indian mother gene manifesting a couple of decades early.)
imagine not being able to write to your compatriots because you write in different scripts!)
Believe me, I don't have to imagine it. What he does with language is really, really impressive, I think, and he does it very subtly.
Edited because I forgot to say MAAN AND FIROZ. They are so wonderful. And you are so right that reading this for the first time is such a treat. I shall follow