The Sea, The Surf

Then there was a clutch of Parsi novelists—all settled abroad. Gifted story-tellers with good command of the language and the ability to laugh at themselves. They were at their best writing about their small circle of Bawajis. None went beyond, their plots became predictable. The most acclaimed in recent years was Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance and Family Matters). I read them, enjoyed what I read—and forgot who had written what.

Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, which won her the Booker, stands out as an example of good prose telling, a good story laced with sex. However, Arundhati blew herself out with one novel and turned from a gifted writer to a rabble-rouser. A great pity.

Another woman who had a grand debut as a story-teller was Jhumpa Lahiri with her collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. She lives in the US and her stories are mostly about Indians and Bangladeshis settled in America. Her short profiles make better reading than her novel Namesake.

A novelist who did not live up to his promise of making it big is I. Allan Sealy. The Trotternama was a brilliant account of the evolution of the Anglo-Indian community and its gradual shedding of the Anglo part of their heritage and Indianising themselves. The Everest Hotel, which won him the Crossword Award, and Brainfever Bird and Red did not make the same impact. A worthy successor of Trotternama was Jaisinh Birje Patil's Chinnery's Hotel, which carries the Anglo-Indian saga forward. This novel, perhaps because of its unsellable title, went almost unnoticed or was dismissed by biased critics. Take my word, it deserves to be read and enjoyed.

After this long lament over hopes belied, let me turn to writers who still inspire me. The first name that comes to mind is that of Amitav Ghosh. Just about every novel he has written is first rate: highly informative and in excellent prose. His latest, The Hungry Tide, is a vivid account of life in the tiger-infested Sunderbans. It is now on the top of my list of good reading.

Another novelist I recommend is Kiran Nagarkar. His Ravan and Eddie and Cuckold (fictional account of Mirabai) were followed by God's Little Soldier, the story of a Muslim boy from a liberal family and a genius whose sole ambition in life is to kill Salman Rushdie. Nagarkar will go very far.

M.J. Akbar's fictionalised family saga Blood Brothers is about his grandfather's conversion to Islam and their relations with their Hindu friends. It is packed with information about events in India and the world outside. Tarun Tejpal's Alchemy of Desire is a lively account of his escapades in Himachal, Punjab and Delhi. It is loaded with sexcapades. It could have done with some pruning as could David Davidar's House of Blue Mangoes which, though sexless, makes engrossing reading. Talking about sex, I overlooked Richard Crasta's novel The Revised Kama Sutra, and Shashi Tharoor's Riot is a compelling mix of passion and politics.

There is a crop of young writers who merit attention: Anita Rau Badami's The Hero's Walk, Anita Nair's Ladies Coupe, Lavanya Sankaran's The Red Carpet, Rupa Bajwa's The Sari Shop and Neel Kamal Puri's The Patiala Quartet. Ira Pande's Diddi: My Mother's Voice, though not a work of fiction but the life of her mother Shivani, makes compelling reading.