"How does a writer compete against the media's
invasion of public discourse in all its chattering, hectoring, commercially packaged
format?"
Geeta Doctor
Alok Rai
Fiammetta Rocco
Statement at the Economist Crossword Prize Award for Fiction 2012.
This is a challenging,
but by the same token, very exciting time for the Indian novelist – certainly the Indian novelist who writes in
English. In an obvious and easily accessible sense, this has to do with the
opening up of the global market. However, there are certain other aspects of
this development that have a more direct bearing on the creative situation.
The problems of belonging
and identity that played such a preponderant role in the first decades – the terrain that was memorably identified by Meenakshi
Mukherjee as “the anxiety of Indianness” - seem to have lost some of their fascination.
It is remarkable, therefore, that two (and arguably, three) of the five novels
on our shortlist are set outside India, set as far afield as Guyana and Morocco.
This is, unquestionably, a welcome development – Indianness is no longer a yoke that the Indian writer is forced
to wear. However, this raises the matter of the complex relationship between
locality and globality or universality in a very interesting way. Thus, we
would argue, the global defines the horizon of aspiration, but the path to that
horizon lies, and must lie, through some intimately experienced locality, some
particularity.
Then again, and for
immediately identifiable reasons, the first generation of writers felt
compelled, in some sense, to imitate Stephen Dedalus's famous move, at the end
of Portrait: “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated
conscience of my race.” Hence the urge, both declared and attributed, to write “the great Indian novel”. Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is, of course, a crucial landmark in this cultural trajectory. But it is
also evident, now, that for a new generation of Indian novelists, Rushdie has
already become a forebear, a respected ancestor. Thus, we have novels that seek
to tell small lives, to explore the shifting identities that texture ordinary
living.
Finally, we cannot help
but remark the fact that two of the five novels on our shortlist are concerned
with opium, albeit at opposite ends of a deeply significant historical arc.
*
Being a judge for
contemporary Indian fiction is like being a prospector for gold. Or for those
who have read Rahul Bhattacharya's splendid book set in Guyana, like a
prospector panning the river for diamonds. That is to say it is both an arduous
and an exhilarating task.
You sift through many
layers looking for nuggets or shards of diamonds. As Rahul will tell you, when
you first see a rough diamond, it looks quite ordinary.
For some, the thrill is
in the seeking. For others, it is being able to possess that shining nugget.
For a judge, it is being able to pick up and display this tiny fragment of
stone.
In our case, we found
many shining nuggets and by a process of elimination, discovered five such
pieces. Each one was cut and polished in a different manner.
The final choice was a
difficult one. Amongst the issues we discussed were those touched upon by Alok
Rai – thus, the hunt for the
great Indian novel, the burden of the past – colonial, feudal, or the affiliations of religion, caste and
class, and the tensions these can create for the writer.
There is also the
challenge of the present. How does a writer compete against the media's
invasion of public discourse in all its chattering, hectoring, commercially packaged
format.
One way could be by
creating a small, inviolable space in which to observe and record all the
subterranean upheavals to create those moments of clarity that we value as
literature.
The small diamond that
we have unearthed and enjoyed is called The
Folded Earth. All the three of us are happy the Economist Crossword Prize
for Indian Fiction for 2011 goes to Anuradha Roy.
Statement at the Economist Crossword Prize Award for Fiction 2012.