Eating Out

We flee past kake da pasta and lasagne da gobi to the authentic gosht of the barbaric north. At Pakwan at the Le Meridien—a short shuffle away from Parliament—the jal jeera is cool and tangy. Atmosphere? Vintage sarkari kitsch, complete with tattered ornamental chairs and a peculiar smell, which Upamanyu Chatterjee, now director, constitutional languages in the education ministry, instantly identifies as governmental. He orders a kabab ‘seema noorani’ ("sounds like a pretty lawyer!" he grins) and I grab a plate of virulently scarlet mutton burra. We then agree on khasta roti, garlic naan, palak paneer, dahi bhalla. And move on to matters authorial and Stephanian.

After Upamanyu published his acclaimed first novel English, August, and after I recently published my first, The Gin Drinkers, the burden of ‘The St Stephen’s School of Fiction’ has been strapped to our backs like the holy crucifix. It’s difficult to walk a few steps without being damned or applauded for attending this hapless institution. "This St Stephen’s school of Indian literature makes no sense to me," Upamanyu munches. "Someone asked me to write on it and I said, I have absolutely nothing to say!" All he remembers of St Stephen’s College are the long bus rides. And all I remember of St Stephen’s are classmates dedicated to ‘perpetual hallucination’.

He says he never drinks but does on occasion smoke and not (ahem) tobacco. "Do you know where I can get some good stuff?" The Kumbh Mela, I’m forced to suggest. "Those days were a haze," he chuckles, "reading Wuthering Heights and T.S. Eliot. When I went to the IAS academy, I thought, god, all my reading’s been useless."

Although he hates travelling, this summer he’s off to Bratislava with his French wife Anne to holiday with his in-laws who are diplomats there. "It’s a challenge for us to find our sensibility. And to get people to read our books. Sadly, Indians themselves disdain other Indians who write in English as they think only sahibs can write English."

And matters are not helped by book critics. "All the people who write columns hate Indo-Anglian writers, so get used to a pretty bad time from everybody." I agree. From that bitter taste, we move on to things mitha. He orders rabri and I decide on kulfi. We’re stuffed, but pretend our puddings are critics and demolish them mercilessly.