An eye on Kashmir, and the underbelly of India

Two debut novels about other Indias and a non-fiction one imagining her future steal the thunder in 2008

December 14, 2008 00:25 IST

It?s come late in the year, but surely one of the most exciting releases of 2008 should be Basharat Peer?s Curfewed Night (Random House India), part memoir, part reportage of life in Kashmir. A teenager when the Valley exploded in its anti-India pitch, followed by the swift, often terrifying counter from the Indian Army, Peer travels up and down the Valley, and gives us a glimpse of what it must be like to live in hell in paradise. He contrasts it with passages from his childhood when life was simpler and better, making it an insider view on Kashmir like none other.

Indian writers were in the news at home and around the world, not least because a relatively unknown debutant writer walked away with the Booker Prize for a book which draws up a scathing portrait of the ?other? India, the one that lives beneath the middle-class.

Aravind Adiga?s Booker win for The White Tiger may not have been celebrated enough in his home country, but the writer and publisher (Harper Collins) are laughing all the way to the bank. In a rather dismal year for the publishing industry in times of economic meltdown, Adiga?s The White Tiger is still on top of the bestsellers? lists and it has sold 90,000 copies already.

The story is in the form of letters Balram Halwai writes to visiting Chinese Premier Wen Xiabao ? in his voice we hear the rumblings of an unrepresented India ? the ?colossal underclass? as Adiga puts it.

Adiga?s win is even more remarkable because it comes in a year when Salman Rushdie, the double Booker of Bookers winner for Midnight?s Children, was dropped from the shortlist. The chair of judges Michael Portillo said The Enchantress of Florence ?was not one of the top six books? which finally made it to the shortlist. And Adiga?s book was in competition with Amitav Ghosh?s magnificent Sea of Poppies with its host of colourful characters, which did make the Booker shortlist, with some critics saying it should have gone on to win.

Ghosh?s book, which centres around the ship Ibis, is set in 1838, when the opium wars between Britain and China are about to begin. It follows the lives of seven-eight individuals, who are on the verge of a ?huge social upheaval?. It was a terrible time in Indian history ? 90% of the world?s opium trade was generated in India. Ghosh became fascinated by what this social disruption was doing to the lives of his characters ? a widow from Ghazipur, whose husband used to work in the Ghazipur opium factory, a chamar (the leather worker caste), a raja gone bankrupt, a boatman?s son, a mulatto American freedman, a nature-loving European. They all end up on the Ibis, as jahaj-bhais, and are on their way to Mauritius when part one ends.

Three other books of fiction that linger are Jhumpa Lahiri?s Unaccustomed Earth (Random House India), Anuradha Roy?s elegaic The Atlas of Impossible Longing (Picador) and Manil Suri?s The Age of Shiva (Penguin).

It?s been a vibrant year for Pakistani writers too with the spotlight on Mohammed Hanif?s alluring first novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes, published in India by Random House, which revisits Gen Zia?s assassination in 1988, particularly the days leading up to the crash, in fiction; Moni Mohsin?s second novel, The Diary of a Social Butterfly (Random House India); and Nadeem Aslam?s The Wasted Vigil (Faber & Faber). In the world of Aslam?s Afghanistan, there?s bleakness in beauty. It?s not a historical narrative, but he gives us an explosive novel filled with Afghanistan?s complex realities and its troubled history. But at the heart, it is a story of love and terrible loss. Azhar Abidi?s Twilight, about a mother-son relationship played out in the backdrop of Gen Zia?s tightening grip over modern Pakistani society, is captivating.

In non-fiction, one of the most awaited releases was Patrick French?s ?authorised? biography of V S Naipaul ? The World is What it is, and it didn?t disappoint. Sir Vidia ? and his million mutinies ? was on display, warts and all. But despite his terrible handling of relationships, the biography talks about Naipaul?s deep commitment to his craft even in the time of utter despair.

Nandan Nilekani?s Imagining India lays down a detailed blueprint for a better India, and he is persuasive on why it would be crucial to follow the plan.

There?s a very interesting book by Sadia Shepard, called The Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and a Sense of Home. Born to a white American Protestant father and a Muslim Pakistani mother, Shepard promises to search for the roots of her maternal grandmother when she discovers she is Jewish.

Always India?s strongpoint, literary acclaim also for those across its immediate borders only means greater global interest in subcontinent in the coming year!

The World is Reading

Diverse nations dominate the best books lists around the world in 2008. A lowdown:

A Mercy Toni Morrison

Old ghosts ? slave trade and Native Americans

2666 Roberto Bolano

A detective novel by a Chilean master

Netherland Joseph O? Neill

A Dutch victim of 9/11 finds comfort in immigrant cricket

Man in the Dark Paul Auster

Another gem from the American master of illusionary tales

Indignation Philip Roth

Celebrate his writing.