The sorry state of Indian English writing

Having a student of English literature at home was a real motivator for me to re- start reading, a habit that I had left behind in my school days. I had not read much of Indian English authors while I was in school and hence, I thought I should do something different during my second spell at reading. I started focusing completely on Indian English authors, a fact the regular readers of my blog would have understood by now. I am also working towards creating my own library and this lands me in a bookshop at least once in a month. I started out with R K Narayan, tried out different kinds of authors ranging from Chetan Bhagat to Nisha Minhas to Tushar Raheja. During my recent trip to a bookshop only did I come to realize something common about all recent best sellers of Indian English writers- they are all the same!!! It was not very long ago that India boasted about a handful of Indian English writers who had done the country proud. We still have a few classic writers- Vikram Seth, Anitha and Kiran Desai, Arundathi Roy, Shashi Tharoor, Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, the list goes on… However, the new generation of writers who have recently cropped up seem to have only one theme to offer- life and love on the different campuses of India. Chetan Bhagat successfully started the trend with the very enjoyable “Five Point Someone”. These days, there are many others who follow suit. I did manage to read through Tushar Raheja’s Anything for you Ma’am. But, I was really taken aback at the number of titles on display at the bookshop that deal with love stories in the celebrated campuses of India like JNU, the IIT’s and the IIM’s. I am in a serious quandary- don’t the Indian English writers have better subjects to choose from? Are they all interested only in providing anecdotes about college life and college romance in light hearted manner? Don’t they have anything else to write about? Is it that the new generation of Indian English writers doesn’t have adequate experience to base their plots on different stuff? Most importantly, who do have among the new generation of writers who is going to carry forward the reputation left behind the ageing stalwarts of Indian English writers? As I am asking these questions myself and posting them herein, as things stand now, I really don’t have an answer myself to any of these. The popularity and the huge amount of royalty that Chetan Bhagat took home have definitely influenced many aspiring writers to break the mould and come out. However, in the pursuit for name, fame and wealth, there definitely should not be a compromise on the variety of themes that can be offered to readers, especially by writers of a country that boasts of a rich culture, tradition and diversity. It is also the duty of readers and publishers to encourage anyone who comes up with something novel and thus, put an end to the redundancy that is slowly creeping into the field of Indian English writing. All I can do at this point of time is to look towards the future hopefully for that change agent who, I hope, will take the market by storm, very soon!

Hopefully yours,