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From: riddle@im4u.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india,net.books
Subject: Re: Books about India
Message-ID: <343@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 12:14:55 EDT
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Posted: Wed Jul 24 12:14:55 1985
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Mahababa: "Bob"

>> Some time ago, a friend asked for a couple of books about India...

I'd like to echo some of Vallath Nandakumar's comments.  R.K. Narayan not
only richly described Indian life, but he had an excellent eye for human
nature (especially in its Indian manifestations) and a rich sense of humor.
"Freedom at Midnight" by Collins and Lapierre is a piece of hackwork -- it
includes some of the basic framework of modern Indian history, blows a few
characters up into ridiculously exaggerated heroes and villains (especially
Lord Mountbatten), and then uses that as material for a supermarket
potboiler.  V.S. Naipaul is a fine writer and a very sharp thinker, but he
goes to uncalled-for lengths to trash Indian culture at every turn.  He sure
makes you think hard to refute his arguments, though -- good exercise for
the brain.

Here's one Indian writer whom no one has yet mentioned: Ved Mehta.  I have
read only his political books, but he's supposed to have written some fine
memoirs, too.  I can see why, knowing a bit about his unique life: he was
blinded at an early age in India, educated at one of the few schools for
blind children then operating, and eventually was packed up and sent as a
teenager to (of all places) rural Arkansas for a better education.  As a
young man he hitchhiked (alone!) all over the U.S., attended some
prestigious university or another (Oxford? Cambridge? or one of the U.S. ivy
league schools?), and then broke into journalism.  A curious characteristic
of his work is that it is extremely *visual*, with detail you wouldn't
expect from a blind person.  More importantly, his writing about Indian
politics is extremely clear and vivid, even to non-Indians who don't have
much background.

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
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