Indian Writing in English

A discussion of Indian Writing in English (IWE) in all its aspects, with a view to creating some structure and organization in this body of writing.

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Monday, November 07, 2005

Dream within a dream - II

Carrying on with the discussion on whether IWE makes sense.

The English language in India carries with it a connotation of elitism, as opposed to native languages which are seen as being down to earth, belonging to the people proper. Or as opposed to French literature in France, or English in America, which are the native languages in those nations. Perhaps French spoken in the Czar's court in Russia, or the use of Italian in operas in Germany in the past had a similar tag of elitism that English has in India today.

The English-speaking population in India has grown since, say, the era of Independence, and it is certainly not as exclusivist today as it was then. But the English language has a terribly long way to go before it reaches the acceptance-level of another British legacy: cricket. Seen objectively, both English and cricket are imports of the Raj. Then why should one have a colonial taint attached to it (indeed many movements in India have viewed the continued use of English post-Independence as a continuation of mental slavery), while the other has practically replaced the national game of hockey, is baffling. (And one would think that the knowledge of English has done more for India than the pursuit of cricket.)

No IWE writer can ever dream of approaching Sachin Tendulkar's iconic status. But then writing could hardly have the mass appeal that cricket has. And writing in English, impossible. The point to note is that Sachin's cricketing genius makes him a national hero, but an IWE writer, however great he is, will carry an elitist tag with him, maybe even one of pandering to foreign tastes.

The vernacular writer thus, considers himself, closer to reality and hence more authentic than the IWE writer. (IWE versus the vernacular writer will be a separate topic for discussion later.) The IWE writer based in India considers himself more authentic than the NRI IWE writer. (India-based versus NRI IWE writers is another topic too!)

According to an extreme criticism of IWE in Waffle of the Toffs (the title says it all, a rough and alliterative translation of which reads: the pointless prattle of pretentious people), only those belonging to the poorer strata of society are fit to write the real stuff (what is real for whom is--you guessed it--another topic). In India, an IWE writer is almost certain not to belong to that strata, and as a corollary, no one in that strata will write in English. So whatever is a genuine subject for literature, can never get written in English in India. That's the extreme stand.

Fictive writing, as everybody knows, is not real. The tacit understanding between a writer and a reader is that the writer has created a dream, and the reader lives that dream as if it were real, though knowing fully well that it is not. (We don't really believe Amitabh Bachchan beating up a dozen armed baddies, do we?) This agreement is termed the "willing suspension of disbelief". The writer's part of the contract is that he will make the dream as real as he possibly can.

And when the IWE writer's Indian characters all talk and think in English, he is asking the reader for another indulgence, for a higher degree of suspension of disbelief. The reader needs to accept that not only are the characters and their story real, but also their language. That's why IWE is also called twice-born fiction, or a dream within a dream (some also call it the waffle of the toffs).

So where does all this discussion lead? The question we started with still hangs fire. Does IWE make sense?

Such a subjective question merits a subjective conclusion too; a simple true/false answer is incomplete. It is true that IWE suffers from handicaps that other literatures don't. The IWE writer has to labour under additional constraints, work doubly hard or take recourse to literary sleight of hand in order to maintain an air of authenticity. A few modern writers like Rushdie recognize that traditionally realistic IWE is not possible, and hence instead of creating a semblance of reality, deliberately make their fiction as fantastic as possible (so that the reader is compelled to follow only the rules the writer lays down).

One cannot deny that IWE has an extra layer of artificiality built within it. This is not due to the inadequacies of IWE writers, but a congenital weakness. The reader of fiction is fully aware that he is sharing a dream, living within a bubble, while he is reading a novel. Does it then matter, whether that bubble is inside another bubble?

If a reader is strict about having only one bubbly layer between him and the world, then IWE does not make sense to him. If another reader considers a two-layered bubble as good as a single-layered one, then IWE makes sense to him. Ultimately, it is upto the reader to decide whether he wants to carry on with his dream, or burst the bubble. He could dismiss fiction in any genre or form as unreal if he were that strict... and find pleasure in reading only newspapers.

3 Comments:

Blogger Silvia Merialdo said...

Hi Paritosh,I am posting here some of my questions... so other people can read them.
Don't you think that in the whole literary history, writers have always been an elite?
And that, even if they spoke the same language of their characters, the literary language was completely different from the spoken mass language?
Thanx

Tue Jun 24, 11:38:00 am GMT-7  
Blogger Paritosh Uttam said...

As I mentioned in my post, Silvia, IWE suffers an extra layer of disbelief. The fact that most characters speak a different language is a tough one to ignore. It's as if you are reading a translation, though the writing is original.

Like if you were to read the translation of one of the IWE books in Italian, you would know, ah this is not real, because the characters would not be speaking in Italian. And here, they would not even be speaking in English, as in the original novel.

Well, yes, you could say writers have always been an elite, because a writer has to dissociate himself from what's going on, so that he can observe and write. That act of dissociation and observation would make him different from the people he is writing about, and that would be true of every literature.

Yes of course one cannot write exactly as people speak. I would say the art of the writer lies in making their speech "literary" and believable at the same time!

Sat Jun 28, 07:50:00 pm GMT-7  
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