A More Extensive Book List Of Indian Reading?

global_yatri

jhumpa is pronounced "jhoom-pah" with a puff of air at the jh sound much like the ch of church... and i liked a couple of stories in "interpreter of maladies" but really loved "the namesake" -- which is now a movie but i haven't watched it yet because i just loved the book so much! (it took me five months to come to terms with the lord of the rings series being made into movies!!!)

there's also a non fiction writer pankaj mishra whose "temptations of the west" i recently finished reading... phew - really good writing and a solid left wing radical approach to political and social life in india through the 60's, 70's and so on. real eye opener for me in many ways.
cheers.

Lou Wilson

You can now read Chasing Rainbows in Chennai at

http://chasingrainbowsinchennai.blog...ai-all-18.html

"Light-hearted narrative (full of) wit and vivacity... Speaking on the occasion Ashokamitran said, 'It is both honest and entertaining. If a writer is able to make the reader associate with the events and emotions in his book, then he is successful. I think Colin has therefore been successful.' Theodore Baskaran, eminent author, who has written the foreword, presided over the function. 'This kind of creative travel writing that makes you feel the pulse of a place is rare,' he said" - Prassana Srinivasan in The Hindu

Lou Wilson

Kite Runner Movie was just screened
click here for details http://www.indiamike.com/india/chai-...reened-t44386/

Lou Wilson

New York Times reported that Paramount Vantage will now release "The Kite Runner" on Dec. 14

Also two books I have come across which are outstanding
Growing up Untouchable In India
A Dalit Autobiography by Vasant Moon
and
A coffee table type Photo book called The Last Empire
Photos in British India 1855 - 1911

Lou Wilson

I just read listened to The Shadow of the Silk Road A modern account with 20 centuries of history. Fantastic well researched very very informative.
Amazon UK -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadow-Silk-.../dp/0701173637

Author Colin Thubron on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6WChHpHu68

Lou Wilson

Q&A
By: Vikas Swarup is hilariously delicious
I have it on audio and reader really adds a depth that the book would not provide.
A small prison cell in India holds an 18-year-old penniless waiter from a Mumbai slum.... More info at Audible and a sample of the reading
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/pro...BVCookie=Ye s

ColinT

For lovers of Madras/Chennai, check out the following link from India's Seminar Journal. It's a piece from the writer, poet and playwright Shree Kumar Varma from 2004 documenting some of the books wriiten on the city: Madras in Words

Shree has a real love and feel for the city

Diana

Thanks for the pronunciation. I've wondered.

Just saw The Namesake (and have read Maladies but not Namesake as of yet) and the film was lovely. Beautiful and poignant. Incredibly well acted. You won't be (too) disappointed. I hope.

Of course Mira Nair is the director so you know it's quality work.

I tend not to like films into books much but this was quite nice.

__________________
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Lou Wilson

Thanks Colin for that link to the article.
It seems people are more passionate about Madras - Chennai ???
than say Delhi or Mumbai Bombay.
Has anyone got any ideas about this?

ColinT

I don't know if residents in Chennai are more passionate about their city than are people in Mumbai for Mumbai (only ever spent a week there) or people in Kolkata for Kolkata (spent about 4/5 weeks there), but I know Chennai a lot better and yes I've noticed a definite passion/allegiance among Chennaites for/to their city.

ColinT

In this thread on March 22 2007 Unclelach wrote a very interesting post about Nirad Chauduri. Shree Kumar Varma (mentioned in my last but one previous post) wrote an interesting piece in his column about old Nirad in the New Sunday Express on 1/6/03. The following is an edited extract from it.

"I often feel that success is accidental. Dreams, hard work, courage and other such commonly acknowledged things also have a role to play. You may possess all the necessary ingredients for creative success but still find yourself nose-diving dangerously. And then one friendly little tap on the head from fate (or God or chance or destiny — or accident), and you're up in the air!

Sometimes this comes in the form of a patron saint who works his magic on you without your knowledge. You feel you've been truly blessed until you find that there’s also a human agent involved.

My first story today is about an invisible patron saint in the life of a world-famous writer of Indian origin. A letter from the writer written years later reveals his discovery of this saint. And another letter from the “saint” reveals his discovery of the writer. The writer’s first book, The Autobiography Of An Unknown Indian, that was so mysteriously recommended to Macmillan decades ago, is still read today with great pleasure or great disgust.

Nirad C Chaudhuri, of sweet-and-sour memory, was a man who left the dubious joys of rural Bengal to wallow in the even more dubious joys of being an English gentleman. A hundred-and-one when he finally decided to call it a day, Chaudhuri firmly believed that it was British rule that shaped everything that was “good and living within us”.

A writer of startling candour, his wit and intelligence often led him through avenues of dark pessimism. His criticism of the prevailing nationalism, especially the one “tainted” with Gandhian morality, was sharp and most often indigestible.

I have in my hands copies of two letters, one by Nirad Chaudhuri himself in his own hand and the other by John C Squire who “discovered” Nirad. Both were sent to me by my good friend Mini Krishnan of Oxford University Press. Squire’s letter dated December 5, 1950, is addressed to C R Reddy (his Cambridge contemporary) and talks of five days and nights he spent reading a manuscript for Macmillan. The manuscript is of Chaudhuri’s first book (The Autobiography). “I wish,” he tells Reddy, “that you had been here when I read it. He has his defects, for instance he has never been out of Bengal, and although he has drawn spiritual sustenance from all the great English writers of the past, and thinks that any Indian revival must come from Europe and mainly from England, he has met very few Englishmen, and has a certain resentment against the commercial community in Calcutta…”

Squire continues: “Reddy, my dear, he is a sage; he is as familiar with all the arts of the world as he is with the religions and the philosophies. His English is so good that one is tempted to think that he must have had a translator — seldom reading a manuscript do I feel that I’m in contact with a Mind. He could meet any of the great thinkers of the past on equal footing — If his book comes out, as I hope it will, it may put India into an uproar. But it will certainly enlighten all historically-minded men; and he might possibly, if necessary, find a refuge in England where in spite of all we have lost, we are still allowed liberty to think.”

Well, Squire’s prophecy came true and Chaudhuri made England his home. Whether it was a satisfactory refuge is, however, a matter of conjecture.

Chaudhuri, writing to Mini Krishnan years later (in 1991), thanks her for informing him about the secret mentor who had recommended his work to Macmillan. He is recovering from a cataract surgery and apologises for his “handwriting and its untidiness”. He writes: “I could never find out upon whose recommendation Macmillan accepted the book (The Autobiography) so enthusiastically. Now it is all explained.” He also waxes eloquent about a review that appeared in The Illustrated London News (November 3, 1951) accompanied by a “full-page (or nearly) portrait of me”. He finally says, “I am now a ‘refugee’ in England, if living in one’s second motherland can be called being a refugee”.

When he died, V S Naipaul wrote a stinker of an epitaph for the Royal Society Of Literature. “Nirad Chaudhuri,” he said, “was an old fool. He wrote one good and unexpected book, The Autobiography Of An Unknown Indian, and then took to clowning. He pretended to interviewers that he was a great reader and scholar. But he wasn’t.” Chaudhuri was both enjoyed and reviled. But he probably would have had to struggle even harder if John Squire hadn’t chanced upon his manuscript and prophesied greatness."

unclelach

Thank you ColinT for posting Shree Kumar Varma's piece about N C Chaudhuri. I saw your post only today and was glad to read the content. I ran into the "sweet-and-sour" feeling about Chaudhuri last February when I posted here about visiting his old Delhi home in Nicholson Road.

ColinT, you could as well have included Shree Kumar Varma's remarks about another India writer in his column, your good self!

ColinT

Uncle Lach, for once, modesty permitted.

Here is the link to Shree's article in full

Modesty only goes so far: Chasing Rainbows

Lou Wilson

See a great window of Indian books at http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/s...3/ppuser/15002

mr_rush

Some additional titles:

Kim and Jungle Book by Kipling. Kim is a magnificent journey through north India.

Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham. History of food, empires and people.

India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha. The best book I've head about post-colonial Indian history.

An Autobiography: Or the Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi. From the great man's own hands.