One would need to be blind not to notice the signs – that of the Indian publishing industry being on a roll. Every other person seems to be penning a book, and everyone seems to be buying and reading them. Newspapers every other day carry reports of one book launch or the other. To top it all, there are the literary festivals that all and sundry want to attend.
Yes, the Indian publishing industry is certainly on the upswing, if one goes by sheer numbers, recession or otherwise. But then, all book lovers would have been taught while at school never to judge a book by its cover. Maybe one should take a look at what lies between the covers.
The canvas for this, needless to say, is too huge to be condensed into an article. One can, however, for this occasion, briefly look at Indian writing in English. Has it indeed come of age, as many would have us to believe? Or is it just industry-propelled hype?
Nabina Das, author of Footprints in the Bajra, does not agree with the cliche “coming of age” since she feels literature evolves constantly. Das, who teaches literature as well, explains, “Coming of age has been happening and will happen as various forms and styles dwindle or stay in what we read and write. The current spate of books is an indication that more Indians – a large number of them moving from small towns and villages to metro cities – are eager to read and write in English. Often these books may not, in the purist’s eyes, pass muster as ‘literature’. But ‘spate’ is the word to describe this phenomenon. Publishers have discovered that making available a decent books ‘spate’ to the aspiring Indian sells well too.”
Das certainly has a point. What we have here in India is a growing-daily market – of buyers (readers, if you please). More books are arguably hitting the market since there are people willing to buy them. Few would disagree that the Indian publishing industry is being buoyed by the phenomenal growth of English fiction —across all segments, including those for young adults and children. Yet, this growth cannot be indicative of the prevalent standard of writing. If you are a lover of the language, you would know its modesty is outraged every day.
One aspect of this “growth” was captured in a weekly a couple of months back. The article looked at the rising trend of self-publishing in the country. High-nosed publishers, who would earlier not look beyond those proficient or “qualified” in English literature, were indirectly responsible for pushing and motivating writers into either going at it alone, or settling in for smaller publishers. Their success, whatever the reasons, changed the ballgame totally.
What this particular article willy-nilly did was to dwell on writers who were “not burdened by the purity of language or the literary style mainstream publishers demand of their writers.” So, there are writers who proudly say that their manuscripts are not even “touched” by the publishers. And there are publishers who vouch for this. The table, in fact, has been turned upside down. For, the snooty publishers of yore would often impose their own styles on those of writers. There are many today who indeed write well, but there are more whose paperbacks may neither qualify as “writing” and nor are “English” in any sense of the word.
The growth of “Indian writing in English” that we saw in the 80s and 90s has been turned on its head as well. Many of those writers lived and published in the West, remain cut off from Indian realities. The realities themselves that we talk about have changed radically since Rajiv Gandhi swept in liberalisation. People no longer wish to keep reading boring tales of the Raj, they want to read about themselves. Today’s contemporary fiction, mostly, is rooted in today’s India.
So would this change of content tantamount to Indian writing coming of age?
If anything, believes journalist-writer Mayank Chhaya, it is marketing that has certainly come of age. Chhaya, who has written two books and is waiting for three more to hit the stores in the coming months, argues, “That said, not a lot of people seem to recognise that the last two decades of economic reform has given the generation that came of age in that period unprecedented self-assurance and a fair amount of dispensable income. The consequence of this convergence between self-assurance and dispensable income has been felt in the fields of cinema, literature and arts generally in so much as young Indians have begun experimenting with themes, idiom and forms, and finding those who would consume all that.
“Whatever passes for the coming of age of Indian literature in English is a result of that confident sense of self which hundreds of millions of Indians below the age of 25 have developed. It is no coincidence that people like Chetan Bhagat who barely string a plot and sentences together have found such deep resonance among a certain type of urban readership, which also happens to be a direct beneficiary of the economic boom. You would find that those who read Bhagat will also go and watch Delhi Belly or The Girl in Yellow Boots. I see Indian writing in English coming of age inextricably linked with India’s economy coming of age.”
Of course, there is more to this boom. Rupleena Bose, who teaches English literature at Delhi University, finds it interesting to see how the writing in English has spread itself over many genres and varied readership. “What I particularly like is the market for translations and number of translated texts which are available and being read by people.”
Bose would know what youngsters today read, and why. “While writing and publishing has definitely become more accessible, at the same time more young people seem to be reading things which do not question realities and conventions. Also writers to me like Bhagat, who are the product of the publishing boom, are dangerous in the things they say and the things they don’t address. Nowadays, as a teacher I notice students becoming apprehensive towards intellectual questions which are often not addressed by writing of a certain kind.”
A catch certainly lies here. While many of the earlier writers who had boosted a readership in English were in some ways insular from readers, most writers of now don’t delve deep into today’s realities. What we are seeing is a Bollywoodisation of Indian writing in English, many might argue. Most of what we are doled out is a genre that is decidedly escapist and plays to the lowest common denominator. Worse, there’s no way of proving that it is kitsch.
Face it: publishing is an industry, and all industries are driven by market forces. The bottomline at the onset can never about quality, it is always quantity. Writing, and as a consequence the industry itself, is just about beginning to grow. Expecting quality t this stage may be a tad premature. Yet, market forces come with their drawbacks and compulsions. If you had to be someone with NRI connections to get published earlier, now you need to have graduated either from an IIT or an IIM. Maybe that’s a hyperbole, but you get the drift of things. The second downside is that if you randomly pick up two books at a store, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. They may be rooted in the same campus milieu, targetted at the same “young India” that FMCG companies root for. It’s not a question about how good a product is, but whether it sells or not. What we are talking about is a market-driven economy, not a writing-driven industry. The profile of the average Indian writer has changed.
And as the number of published writers grows, there are spin-offs too – one of these being the literary festivals that have are being organised the country over. The next three months are to see as many as ten being held. Do these mean anything in the context of writing?
“The important thing to remember about litfests is the festival part of the equation. Indians have historically liked festive congregations where the content is often secondary to festivities. Litfests are also more about entrepreneurship of a new kind. Some people have figured out that there is substantial commercial opportunity in literary festivals, not to mention a certain kind of glamour. It may not directly benefit the quality of literature, but it at least gives writers shortlived glory that might lead to a spike in book sales. Litfests are great as long as they are not accorded intellectual gravitas. It would be a mistake to turn them into doctoral and scholarly back and forth among pompous critics and self-absorbed writers,” says Chhaya.
The litfests are a lot about numbers and rupees. You, therefore, see more big players joining the bookwagon. A newspaper house that had drawn flak for doing away with its weekly page on books some years back will be organising one too. Writing be damned, it’s money that counts.
The numbers for sure are staggering. The Jaipur Literary Festival this year saw footfalls of over 100,000. Big numbers, one does need to be told, also mean big sponsors. Here, probably, is a potential problem area. The Jaipur festival drew criticism over the participation of Shell, which was virtually responsible for the execution of Nigerian author Ken Saro Wiwa. But this was not the disturbing part of it. The distressing bit was that at a gathering which was meant to be a forum of free thinkers, there were few who were even willing to talk about it. Barring a handful, not many of India’s current writers are willing to push the frontiers of free speech.
But then these gala events do have had their plus points. “Litfests are also spaces to generate interest about literature. In a way it is good since earlier talks and lectures were limited to university spaces. In India, arts and humanities were never seen in public conversation before. This has sort of changed because of litfests. Litfests also have a hand in making writing fashionable for a large number of people which was not so earlier. That apart, I wish the State gave a little more importance to literature studies since this is a very difficult time for humanities In India and across the world,” says Bose.
Das, who rarely lets go of a literary event, wants litfests in every park or street corner. “Or probably there has been, e.g. in my Jawaharlal Nehru University’s ‘Ganga Dhaba’, over myriad cups of teas, but no one back then called them ‘litfests’. What concerns me is that these litfests should provide a platform to new writers, really new writers, particularly poets, which I fear happens less frequently. You see the same flock of writers, award-winners and their fans crowding around the podium. I know we are discussing ’Indian writing in English’. But can we really keep that separate from countless other writing traditions in this diverse country?
“What about regional writers? Writers who are challenging and reinventing the vocabulary of Indian writing (e.g. Dalit writers)? Why not have litfests showcasing more regional language writers, particularly poets? I repeat poets, because fiction writers do influence the purse strings of the publishers, whereas poets, as the rumour goes, die a silent death. We don’t have to have a Billy Collins, but let’s have poets and balladeers reinstated at the litfests and in our lives.”
The point is a lot about marketing too. The way Amish Tripathi went about promoting his book single-handedly has now become part of book marketing lore. Tripathi gave away freebie chapters and fell back on Youtube to promote his book. No one had done that before. The best part of it was that it had to be a writer who had to teach the industry how to market.
No writer, after all, can afford to ignore the economics of publishing, especially in a country like India where many old-time publishers were known to fleece authors on royalties.
Chhaya takes this further, “Having started and failed at a very ambitious publishing venture both online and traditional in 2000 and 2001 in America, I can tell you that the physical aspects of publishing, such as printing, binding and distribution often overwhelm content. As an industry, publishing requires a peculiar kind of commitment to stay alive. Indian publishing is going through a high right now, but that high is much lower than the glitzy release functions might lead you into thinking. India is uniquely placed among the major publishing economies because of the sheer number of languages and diversity of sensibilities specific to those languages. Although ebooks have taken off in America, I am not sure if that model can work in India where people are still very tactile even in their reading habits.”
Then there’s the question of reviews. Das points out, “The tradition of ‘literary criticism’ or critique is severely deficient in this so-called ‘come of age’ book publishing scenario in India. Most book reviews are a slathering pat on the back or a harsh denouncement of the writer, especially new ones. Unless a balanced, critical and comparative tradition of lit critique is developed and is widespread in discussing literature, I won’t say anything has ‘come of age’.”
All said and done, Indian writing in English is certainly in a growth phase. There are writers, and there are readers. It is in the latter that the future lies. English writing may not yet have come of age, but it is definitely in a transition stage – hopefully into higher form of writing.
