JAP: Orl Right.

Kavi: I’ve read all the Nancy Drews and etc. But they were never read too seriously. Mostly at the bus stop, or in the school bus. :)

sashi: I think Romantics is interesting, but its execution as a novel is a little clumsy. And I don’t always agree with Pankaj Mishra’s opinions. But I definitely enjoyed reading The Romantics.

tinkertoon: In Tamil Cinema – all that is called “build up”. My build up was to establish my complete lack of social life. Nothing else explains how I was able to read so much. I associate the discovery of books with that house. We moved there sometime in 1989 btw. :) Indian Literature, incidentally, is not an average of what India reads. That is quite irrelevant.

It is anything written by an Indian – or even perhaps of Indian origin sometimes – even if it has never found adequate readers. I liked the Inheritance of Loss a lot.

As for me publishing. Well, that appears to be a really long while away.

as for books, yes Famous Five was the first series for me too… then Hardy Boys, then Nancy Drew (found her pretty charming always!), then Alfred Hitchcock, then a series of James Hadley Chase (all ‘cos of the erotic coverpages!), Sidney Sheldons, Rushdie… oh wait… that was my first go at Indian literature… “The Moors Last Sigh”.. if you can call Rushdie Indian…

among others Amitava Ghosh, Arundhati Roy (the one shot star that degenerated to boring essays later), Jhumpa Lahiri sparked interest.. of course at different points in time..

The complete Ayn Rand years were great… you ate, drank, slept her characters… wait the topic is Indian writing… but Indians don’t write only great stuff and never get that published…

Vikram Seth’s poems are a hit with me… but his novels (including the Suitable Boy) aren’t quite the same mettle…

RKN was simply great… perhaps the best amongst all Indian authors… Ruskin Bond’s Room on the Roof was quite well written…

But in my opinion, Indian literature is not the names above.. but what India really reads… the Radiant Readers… the Gulmohur press stuff.. the hindi poems by the likes of Sumitranandan Pant, and the stories of Premchand (that I read as much as I could lay my hands upon) are the true essence of Indian literature…

my last read from anyone Indian? Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.. but before she won the Oscar… er.. booker prize… :)

someday we hope to see nehavish on the shelf (i mean the author’s pennings) and i’ll search for a whole chapter describing RKP in the late 80s early nineties :), and all the love affairs that went with it… ;)

J.A.P.