Shut up amid the cackle.

Books, Indians and other such.

I have been reading a lot these days. Exclusively focusing on Indian authors, might as well add. Some of them make for really interesting reads. Others, oh well.
I am not going to present a critique of all the Indian novels I have read since it would be a waste of too many words. There is one specific subject which has caught my eye in all the novels I have read.

The dreaded three lettered word. "Sex". There, there. It is a very real word, a really easy word to spot, as the Wild wild words game on my cell-phone proves. What I am really intrigued about is the portrayal of this word, or rather this aspect by Indian authors in their books. There is a lot of it in our books. In fact, a lot more than our western counterparts. Make that a humongous lot more.

The sexual aspect in our novels can put a veritable Harold Robbins to shame. Well, I would not expect anything more from a repressed country any way. However, what I wish could be better is the aesthetics. Writing is an art. I wish Indian authors would remember that and stop talking about the physical aspect of human lives like it was a dirty piece of linen which has not been washed in centuries.

Recently read Khushwant Singh's "Delhi : A novel". Admittedly, the book is a good read, especially the history part of it. However, I don't think that it needed to be so graphic about the violence part of it, physical and otherwise. It makes the history of Delhi seem like one huge rape case which is still being fought in the courts without any hope of justice. Ok, I know that all these Turks and Afghans and Mongols plundered their way through India but I cannot believe that it was only rape through which they established their supremacy over India. Also, there is a graphic description of the assault of an English woman that the book could have done without.

There is a thing called poetic license. Somehow I don't think poetic license allows you to destroy the beauty or the art in anything by portraying it as something we want to hide until we are alive. I certainly hope none of my kids (whenever I have them) learn about sex by reading Indian novels.

Amen to that.

posted by Anupama. @ 10:28 pm