Nobelity, At Last

When I got the news of V.S. Naipaul being awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, I was delighted and felt I had been vindicated. I was delighted because I have known him as a friend for over 35 years. I have met his first wife, who was English, and get on famously with his charming, vivacious present wife, Nadira, who is Pakistani Punjabi. I met his late brother Shiva and saw quite a lot of his mother when she visited Delhi. Whether it was in Delhi or Bombay, throwing a party for Vidia was a must. I took him with me wherever I went. He liked being entertained and meeting new people. He never returned hospitality. That did not matter as everyone felt privileged to have him in their houses and be able to drop his name.

I feel vindicated because every time I wrote about him, I said he deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature as he was a much better writer than many Nobel laureates. He handled the English language with greater finesse than any contemporary writer and his range of interests was wider: humour, history, travelogues, religion, clash of civilisations, personal profiles—whatever. Why the coveted prize eluded him for so long I could only attribute to some kind of deep-seated prejudice against writers who did not write in their mother-tongue or political considerations. Although Naipaul is a Trinidad-born Hindu, English is his mother-tongue and he is essentially an objective observer of political movements, bold enough to come to his own conclusions. In my review of his latest novel Half a Life for Outlook (Noble-Blooded Prose, October 15), I ended by saying that Naipaul deserved the Nobel Prize. My observation turned out to be prophetic. A few days later, he got it.

When I first met Naipaul, I had only read his A House for Mr Biswas. I sensed then that a new star had risen in the literary firmament. That book has remained my top favourite. I can't recall exactly how we met. Perhaps he rang me up from his hotel and I invited him and his English wife over to my home. I became his escort in Delhi. He was a shy man of few words. His wife was even shyer and hardly spoke. It was evident that they were not enjoying their visit to the land of his forefathers. She was under the weather, bothered by the heat, dust and pestilence of flies. One early morning I took them to Surajkund. We stood on a ridge, looking at the rock-strewn valley ablaze with flame of the forest in flower. Vidia looked at the scene for a long time. I thought I would read a memorable description of it in his next book. Then I took him to Tughlaqabad. I had brought sandwiches and coffee. As we sat munching our sandwiches, village urchins gathered round us. They had nothing but loincloths to cover their nakedness. Their eyes and noses were running and they had flies all over their faces. In An Area of Darkness, Naipaul dismissed the bewitching scene of the flame trees in flower in a couple of lines but had more to say about the semi-naked urchins with flies round their eyes. It was the same about his visit to Kashmir. He visited Pamposh on a moonlit night. He had less to say about the autumn crocus (saffron) scent pervading the atmosphere and more about Kashmiri women lifting their pherans and squatting to defecate. Squalor and stench attracted his attention more than scenic beauty and fragrance.

Naipaul could be very edgy. Once when I invited him over to my flat to meet a few friends over drinks, he seemed to be getting on famously with an attractive Parsi lady. But as soon as she fished out a camera out of her bag and asked: "Do you mind if I take a photograph?", Vidia snapped back sourly: "As a matter of fact, I do mind." The poor woman was squashed. It took some time for the others to resume conversation.

Another time the owner of a big industrial house invited me to a cocktail reception at the Bombay Taj. I took Naipaul and my son Rahul who had got closer to him than I. When we entered the ballroom on time, there were very few guests who had arrived. But seated in a row were a few attractive girls. We made a beeline for them. I introduced Vidia and my son to them. None of them spoke English, nor were they related to our hosts. It transpired that they were callgirls invited for the amusement of the guests. Naipaul had an insight into the methods adopted to promote business.

Naipaul's Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey caused a lot of uneasiness among Muslims. Even Salman Rushdie accused him of harbouring anti-Muslim feelings. What Naipaul in fact wrote cannot be faulted. He observed that people who accepted Islam wrote off their pre-Islamic past. This phenomenon can be verified in Muslim countries today. In Egypt, the Pharaonic period which produced the pyramids, the Sphinx and many beautiful temples is only of historic interest, bringing in tourists and foreign exchange. It is the same in Pakistan. They have consigned their Hindu and Buddhist past to archives, museums and history books. Even the period of Sikh dominance is brushed aside as of little consequence. The destruction of the Buddhas in Bamiyan is a recent example of erasing pre-Islamic past. This can be seen in all Muslim nations, including the most westernised like Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia. Naipaul did not invent this fact of history; he only exposed it.

I had the opportunity of interviewing Naipaul with Bhaichand Patel for Outlook ("Hindu revivalists are mimicking Islamic fundamentalists", May 8, 2000). He doesn't relish being interviewed. Patel and I were very exercised over the destruction of the Babri Masjid and heckled him for what was widely believed to be the Sangh parivar's view of the act of vandalism. Naipaul stood his ground. He was an outside observer not concerned with the rights or wrongs of destroying a mosque. The phrase he used was explanatory: "It was a balancing of history." I interpreted this to imply that deep in the Hindu psyche was the resentment that Muslim invaders had destroyed hundreds of their temples. So what was so devilish about destroying a dilapidated old mosque?

Ever since Naipaul married the highly animated and attractive Nadira, he has mellowed a great deal. He is not so gruff and edgy as he was. And for good reason is writing about sex with remarkable candour and erotic artistry. His latest work, Half a Life has a few memorable episodes of lusty encounters between men and women other than their spouses.

Most writers who have won the Nobel prize tend to rest on their laurels and write little of any significance thereafter. I hope this does not happen to Sir Vidia Naipaul who has besides the Nobel, many other literary awards under his belt. Other laureates had aged wives; Vidia has the young and zestful Lady Nadira to egg him on to produce more masterpieces.