Bookends

If biggies like Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Deshpande, and Pankaj Mishra were incontention for the Crossword Book Award for the best work of fiction in English,the award in the category for Indian Language Fiction Translated into Englishwas no less keenly contested for there were heavy-weights and formidable nameslike Mahasweta Devi and Pratibha Ray in the reckoning too..

And then there was V.K. Madhvan Kutty, with whispers doing the rounds thatP.V. Narasimha Rao was arriving specially because of him. As a result, all ofus poor souls had to bear the overbearing presence of security men with theirpolice walkie-talkies (or whatever they are called) providing the usual DelhiPolice Haryanvi static, loud enough for people to wonder what the heck was thematter. Mobile phones were of course not allowed.

How the mighty have fallen! P.V. came, pout in place, and apart from beingtreated as a curiosity, was royally ignored by everyone, though the BritishCouncil Director did announce it as if it was some sort of a big deal. He sathuddled with Kutty exchanging literary gossip, we presume, and seemed to bequite engrossed when the ceremony started. Maybe P.V. was there to get some tipsfor his threatened sequel to that long yawn The Insider? The idea isenough to cause a shudder.

The juiciest piece of gossip of course was about the English Fiction Award.An insider tells us (ah, we do protect our sources, you know, for she may wellhave been an Outsider) that the jury for the prize was fiercely divided betweenNorbu and Ghosh. Apparently, while Geeta Doctor felt that Norbu deserved theprize, Meenakshi Mukherjee, we are told, said that "no detectivestory" should get an award. "She's a complete bigot, y'know, like all thoseJNU types," our Ms. stage-whispered, loud enough for ears to hear, tongues totattle and brows to be raised. Thankfully no hackles were raised. The TitleLady's friends were perhaps not in ear-shot.

I was quite perplexed. How could a jury of three be fiercely divided? Surelythe gentleman of the jury, GJV Prasad had some opinion? "Oh, he was completelyneutral," my source added with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, leaving me totallyclueless. That's polite-speak for a cipher, my friend hissed later.

But some fun was apparently had by all. It seems GD argued longer and louderbut the outcome was in doubt until the day before the award. Apparently shesuggested that she land up in Tibetan Baku etc. while MM should be dressed as aBurmese courtesan to let everyone know about their respective sympathies. Wouldevery one actually have known, if they had? I wonder. Moi? I am not sure.

So who else was there? Okay, so you know who wasn't? Nobody who is anybodywasn't. Well, whatever that means. I am slightly confused. I mean, no Ghosh, noMishra, no Arundhati (unless we were too busy to notice). You get the picture? No Mahasweta. Now that's a ladyeven my JNU-baiting source doesn't bitch about.

Another thing was the excerpts the scene-stealers chose to read out. For somereason, they were all a bit naughty-naughty. Nothing very sensuous or anything,as we all know that Indians can't write good sex. At least in English. But, you know the type whichgets gentle ladies to burst out in peels of those coy titters, or giggles orwhatever it is that such ladies are supposed to laugh like?

Finally, some serious stuff. The highlight of the evening was Bama who wasevidently delighted to have won some recognition. But she was surrounded by thisgaggle of earnest young cub-reporters. So ma'm this is your first novel? Sohow does it feel, ma'm? What is your second book going to be about ma'm? Mysecond book is about dalit women, she started. So when is it, like, y'know,getting published, ma'm, the wide-eyed earnest girl barely out of her teens,wanted to know. Oh, it was published in 1994, she patiently explained. Oh,ma'm, so you have written so many novels. So how does it feel, ma'm? They weregoing to start all over again. Truth to tell, I didn't have anything original to askeither that could pass off as slightly above cretinous, so I decided to play it safeand asked her whether she had finally got the other shortlisted books she hadnot been able to get in her village and whichone out of those, on the basis of the excerpts that were read out by the SS, wasshe gonna read first. "I am going to read the entertaining stufffirst". She quite enjoyed the bits from Shashi Deshpande's Small Remediesand Pratibha Ray's The Prinal Land. 

Before what is called the ceremony began, we got a moment to ask the writersin languages-other-than-English (hope this is politically correct enough,henceforth to be called WILOTE) present to talk about the contemporary sceneand what they thought about His Salmanness' infamous remarks in the 1997 NewYorker (alright, so it's been done to death, but have a heart and thinkabout the over-worked, sleep-deprived hack on the beat). I didn't approve ofthem, said Pratibha Ray. Did you read the full essay, I asked. No. But surely,he was acting as the agent provocateur?  I asked. Was any attention paid inthe English press to WILOTE before that, I asked? Hasn't he single-handedly doneenough for the cause of WILOTE than any other buddhijiivii of ours? Sowhat did you think of English writers being excluded out of Jnanpith? as ShashiDeshpande pointed out recently? No, English is not an Indian language, PratibhaRay said. Why do you say that? By then Madhvan Kutty was in the fray (PV hadn'tarrived as yet). My answer is, he said, that Sahiyta Akademi recognises Englishas an Indian language. Touche. 

The BYTIFIK (pronounced Beatific, for Beautifulor Bright Young Thing In FabIndia Kurta) sighed after the reading for the first-time-clumsy-sex scene (Mr.Mishra had justifiably defended it as being realistic) from TheRomantics was over ("How sensitive, no? And he's so good looking too.Pity he's not here," she sighed. But the seasoned Delhi litterati (sorry,is it with one 't'?) made rather impolite noises when asked if they thought theaward might go to Pankaj Mishra. So there was at least some one missing him.Frankly, we did too. In our run-up to these awards, we had intended to interviewall the shortlisted authors. Susan Visvanathan, Pankaj Mishra, Amitav Ghosh arethe three left from the English list (we do have interviews with Mishra andGhosh on the site, though) and Pratibha Ray out of the shortlist for the FictionTranslation are the ones we haven't interviewed as yet. Watch out forthose.

Do tell us if you'd also like to read about Nita Kumar (translator ofGeetanjali Shree's Mai), Bikram Das (translator of Pratibha Ray's ThePrimal Land), Rimi Chatterjee (translator of Mahasweta Devi's Titu Mir) andGita Krishnankutty (translator of Madhvan Kutty's The Village Before Time).