One of these faultlines is amnesia; we forget our best writers for decades at a stretch. Like G.V. Desani, they slip into oblivion for a generation, only to be "rediscovered" by the next. Another faultline is language: the "authentic" writer working in an Indian language is ceaselessly pitted against the impostor working in English, a language fit only for export. A third is form: the novel rules, with poetry and the short story relegated to the rear.