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Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novelist
Review by Sharada Eswar
Sharada Eswar crosses the border and gets diplomatic with Shashi Tharoor on the Riot he has created..........
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse is one of his favourite writers. Wodehouse gave us Jeeves and the prize pig Empress of Blandings, while working at a bank. His avid fan is following in his footsteps, creating a riot with his pen while holding one of the most unusual and challenging temp jobs ever.
Meet Shashi Tharoor. Under Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, United Nations, as well as a prize-winning author, whose latest novel, Riot, is stirring up emotions across the country.
Over 20 years Tharoor has written prolifically, chronicling the life and times of India, in works as varied as Show Business, The Great Indian Novel - his brilliant retake on the Mahabharata - his essays in From Midnight to the Millennium as well as the just released novel Riot. He also writes sharp-edged, often witty political commentary that appears in magazines and newspapers.
But the writing stops with the rising sun and he dons on the mantle of a peacekeeper, dousing the flames in the world’s flashpoints...and has been the case ever since he joined the United Nations in 1978.
Questions about this dual existence abound as one talks to him. Does his role as a diplomat complement his role as a writer? Or are they in conflict? How has he balanced his diplomat’s tactful use of words and the writer’s unrestrained use of words?
"I keep my two worlds firmly apart," he says. "In one part of my world, I write about nothing but India, but in my work, I do nothing on India. As a human being, I have a number of responses to the world, some of which manifest in my writing and some, in my work. Both are coming out of the same person."
And as for the all-powerful use of words, this is what Tharoor has to say..."Writers obviously want exquisite precision in their descriptions and want to convey very clearly the sense of place, of feeling that they are experiencing and wishing to communicate to their readers. Though having said that, and I’ll qualify that in just a minute, in diplomacy there is a sense sometimes that precision can do harm, that it is better to find the form of words that are agreeable to everybody. Security Council resolutions or presidential statements are classic examples of drafting by committee where each phrase usually has fifteen hands in it. And ultimately the lowest common denominator is arrived at rather than the most euphonious or the most explicit sort of phrase. In diplomatic language you learn to read between the lines. You learn to read behind the words. You try to think of what has been left out and why. And what the omission implies about the substance of the diplomatic statement. There is always code. There’s a wonderful expression: "frank and cordial talks," which means "disagreed completely," and this sort of thing. So diplomacy has its own logic and subtext.
But I said I would qualify what I said about literature. This wonderful field of postmodernism suggests that texts should also be read in literature for what the writers leave out, for what they don’t say, for how they say it, for what’s between the lines, and so on. So maybe from a postmodern sensibility, the two fields are not that different in the use of words after all.”
And when asked, which of the two roles he enjoys more and finds more challenging… “If I neglected either side, part of my personality would wither on the vine.” However he admits that it is increasingly hard to set aside the time to write, especially in the existing scenario, where his role as a senior official at the United Nations is increasing his workload.
But write he will, because he feels this compulsion to write. After all, a lifelong affair with the written word can’t be that easy to shake off. In his own words, “It is inside me, it’s got to come out, and in a real sense I would die if I couldn’t. It is the way I express my reaction to the world I live in. Sometimes the words come out more easily than at other times, but writing is my lifeblood.”
And he was obviously not at a loss for words with his latest novel: Riot. At a time when Hindutva is out on the streets and baring its menacing grin, he’s dared to write a novel that takes the enemy head-on. When asked for the cause of the rise of religious fundamentalism in India, he says,
“In part it has to do with identity politics and with competition for resources in a contentious democracy. Our politicians, sadly, have focused on narrow interpretations of identity in order to get votes. In that context, religion becomes a potent source of appeal. I have said in some of my writings that if politicians continue to appeal to these narrow identities, who is going to ask the question of what it means to be an Indian. Our greater strength in India lies in the realization that the larger Indian identity makes us secure in our smaller identities. And every Indian has many of these identities. It’s identity politics of the most basic kind that is to blame and it is only by reminding people of their larger identity that we will overcome this problem.”
And as for the Hindutva movement - Shashi Tharoor feels it’s travesty of a faith he knows for its eclecticism and tolerance. “To reduce the soaring majesty of Hinduism, the subtle philosophical quests of Vedanta and the profound awareness of the many paths to truth that permeate our faith, to the petty bigotry of political identity, is a betrayal of Hinduism by those who claim to speak in its name,” he says.
But that is not to say he has given up on India, which sadly is the vaunt with many an ex-pat. An eternal optimist, he believes that there are enough things that will go right. “India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. India matters immensely to me, and in all my work, I would like to matter to India.”
And his writings stand ample testimony to that statement. From The Great Indian Novel to Show Business, to The Five Dollar Smile - a collection of short stories, followed by two non-fictions - Reasons of State and India, From Midnight to the Millennium and to the recent Riot, he has done a wonderful job of presenting India, warts et al.
What is even more interesting is that in each of his novels he has managed to use a “novel” form. The Great Indian Novel was a reinvention of the Mahabharata - a satire in the mythological style. The Show Business, with its puns and fatuous love songs used a totally different kind of narrative. A Bollywood parody, full of puns and fatuous love songs, monologues and movie scripts. And the Riot unfolds through newspaper clippings, diary entries, interviews, journals, scrapbooks and transcripts.
So which of the novel forms was the most difficult to achieve “Each form posed its own challenges, but in each case the way the tale is told is crucial to the reader’s experience of the novel,” he replies.
Difficult or otherwise, his writings generate a lot of media hype. His maiden venture catapulted him to literary fame. But his Show Business had the critics gunning for his throat and as for Riot… it is doing just that - whipping up emotions. But one thing is obvious the current popularity of Indian writing in English can be attributed in no small measure to this great storyteller and the huge diaspora across the Atlantic.
Rather ironic considering the huge pool of talent that exists in India. Apart from R K Narayan and Anita Desai, the others have had to attain success abroad before gaining recognition at home. To which Tharoor responds, “I am astonished that this still seems to be the case, but it seems to be true. Quite apart from the superstardom that has struck a Jhumpa Lahiri, for instance, after just one excellent volume of short stories, I will never forget the story of what happened to Shashi Deshpande a few years ago. After receiving rather modest attention in the Indian press for years, she had a novel turned down by her usual Indian publisher and found a home for it instead with a British feminist house. The mere fact of the British publication led to glowing reviews and major interviews in the Indian press, which she might never have got if her novel had been accepted in India in the first place! My point is that, of course, she should’ve been recognized here for what she’d already shared with the Indian public.”
Which brings us to the controversy that seems to be all the rage. First Rushdie, next Naipaul in a keynote address said “if Indian authors writing in vernacular languages had written great works, they would have become great themselves.” And now we have U R Ananthamurthy adding fuel to fire with his “ There are any number of top-quality regional writers who don’t get international recognition only because their language is not the global language of America.” To which Shashi responds, “I agree with Ananthamurthy - a lot of great Indian writing goes unrecognized because of the poor quality of translations into English. But I’m glad to say the situation is improving in recent years. And I myself have urged my own foreign publishers, in languages like French and German, to look beyond English source material - after all, if an Indian novel is going to appear in French, how does it matter if the original was in English or in Malayalam?”
So what does Shashi Tharoor the diplomat think of Shashi Tharoor the writer “Probably a bit too frank and cordial!” he replies?
The dual life of Shashi Tharoor moves in remarkable harmony. And he intends to continue, both, his professional life, as well as his writing.
.....But I do not finish so easily. Indeed, I have scarcely begun. “I have a great deal to say,” I told my old friend Brahm, “and if these fellows won’t hear it, well, I intend to find myself a larger audience.” Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novel.
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