Supplement: India in Literature [Pt. 1]

(Continued from Agra to Delhi: My Snake Story [Plus Bonus Material])

Featured Photo: “Self Portrait – Shadow on Taj Mahal Marble”  Agra, India—2011

During my travels, I have found that reading books from local authors in a country—especially a land as foreign and enigmatic as India—helps to understand and experience that place more fully. Following this course, I have discovered some wonderful literature, which I would not otherwise have ever been exposed to.

If the photos and stories from my first trip to India have piqued your interest and you would like to learn more, I can recommend some excellent reads that capture the feel of the country very well. I realize the books may resonate more for someone who has traveled to India, but I suggest they also offer remarkable characters, engaging narratives, and enlightening commentary on the human condition, regardless of location.

I will also admit it has been several years since I read these books myself, so I am unable to recall all the plot details. For the following summaries, I drew on information from jacket covers and other sources (and will acknowledge text that is not my own by using italics). But I can say that these ten books—the stories and the emotions they evoked—have remained seared in my memory since I turned the last page.

The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga’s debut novel was recommended by a good friend, himself from India, shortly after my first visit to the country. Winner of the Booker Prize in 2008 (I’m a huge fan of books and authors who win that prestigious literary award, which is conferred each year for the best fiction written in English), the book’s protagonist is Balram Halwai, a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn’t create virtue, and money doesn’t solve every problem—but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations. While I read this irreverent yet charming book, I distinctly recall thinking, “Yeah, that’s exactly how it felt to visit India.”

Enamored of his first book, I was eager to read Adiga’s second offering, Between the Assassinations, the title referring to the period between the slaying of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and of her son, Rajiv, in 1991. While I usually prefer novels to short stories—I like to immerse myself in a good long book—I found this wonderful collection of stories, told with humor, sympathy, and unflinching candor, to feel more like a novel, with the main character and connecting thread being the fictional Indian town of Kittur, an extraordinary crossroads of the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and the poets and the prophets of an India that modern literature has rarely addressed. You might find this book a good way to ease yourself into the wonderful literature of India.

Another collection of short stories published 60 years earlier, which also features a unifying connection with a particular location is Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan. I found this panoramic view of village life in India to be an equally engaging and enjoyable work of fiction. In his introduction, Narayan describes how in India “the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story.” He portrays an astrologer, a snake charmer, a postman, a vendor of pies—all kinds of people—drawn in full color and endearing domestic detail. And under his magician’s touch, the whole imaginary city of Malgudi springs to life, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This again might make a good entrée for you into Indian books.

One of the pivotal events in India’s recent history was gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. This coincided with the country’s partition, which also created the state of Pakistan. As a result, ten million people—Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs—were in flight. When the ensuing violence ended, almost a million of them were dead, and all of northern India was in arms, in terror, or in hiding. The only remaining oases of peace were a scatter of little villages lost in the remote reaches of the frontier.

In his 1956 historical novel, Train to Pakistan, Khushwant Singh tells of one such village, where Sikhs and Muslims have lived together in peace for hundreds of years. Then one day, the “ghost train” arrives, a silent, incredible funeral train loaded with the bodies of thousands of refugees, bringing the village its first taste of the horrors of the civil war. Train to Pakistan is the story of this isolated village that is plunged into the abyss of religious hate. It is also the story of a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl whose love endured and transcends the ravages of war. For me, this novel was both poignant and illuminating, describing an event about which I knew next to nothing, and reminding us of the power of love and the good in people that can rise above religious differences.

Another book based around India’s independence is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Although much controversy surrounds him, this work from Rushdie has been called: a marvelous epic; an extraordinary novel; the iconic masterpiece of India; and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time. It was selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time. Not only did Midnight’s Children win the Booker Prize in 1981, in 2008 it was also named ‘The Best of the Booker’—recognized as the best book to have won the prize in the forty years of its existence. The plot summary goes like this:

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people—a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. And from my own reading of the book, I can add this: There is a jaw-dropping plot twist, which is revealed gradually as Saleem grows up, culminating in the confession of truth by one of the characters. So well-developed and intwined is the story leading to this revelation that as I wrote this summary, I would have sworn I’d read that truth on the very first page. So, I say: believe the Modern Library, respect the Booker Prize, trust me and read this book.

(To be continued…)