The hardest part about studying reading in India

is that I cannot say what I really think about Chetan Bhagat because so many people I talk to love his books. So let me rant here. He is a miserable author. His writing is remedial. His plots suck. He is racist. His opinions of the West are not empowering to India, they are engendering nationalist sentiment that are only going to hold normal Indians back while allowing the rich Indian elite, (e.g. investment bankers like Chetan Bhag) to continue sell out India to the West (zing!). His books are big cartloads of do as I say not as I do kind of stuff. They are written as movies and Bhagat spends all his time now trying to get his books made into movies and delivering speeches to support his affluent Mumbai lifestyle. Let's be honest, he writes crappy movie scripts. Like high school level stuff. It's high school level scripts except instead of emo drama, they are full of platitudes about how you can be whoever you want to be. Note that there have a been a string of murders related to labor riots in Haryana over the last month or so, with some speculating that the violence started after some castist remarks. Okay, I am stopping now. I just wish Bhagat would too.

Okay that is not the hardest part, but every time I see someone reading Bhagat or someone gushes about how much they like Bhagat...I have to almost literally bite my tongue.

I think the most surprising thing to me, which in retrospect should not have been, that I have concluded from my research is that Indians, with regards to reading, are really not that much different than Americans. I have never studied American reading, but from remembering what I have observed from talking to friends and acquaintances in the U.S., reading reports about books and e-books, and from inspecting people's bookshelves or lack of them in their homes (disclaimer: if you let me in your house I have thoroughly inspected any book collections I could find. This isn't probably, I have. I am a shameless book snoop) it is basically the same thing.

There are some differences. Americans do read more overall, but the quality of the literature is the same. Chetan Bhagat is on par with Stephanie Meyers and any cheap romance or mystery writer. Dan Brown, Michael Chrichton, Stephen King, and Sue Grafton are perhaps of slightly better quality than the big writers of cheap fiction that Indians read in English at least, they are formulaic, over-hyped, and while perhaps important parts of English literature to study and remember, their books individually are fairly forgettable. Why am I talking about this. Oh, Americans may read more due to the wider availability of books, literacy, and the cheapness of books, but the reading and the purpose of the reading is essentially the same.

The thing that surprises me is the lack of correlation between why people read and what they choose to read. Even in the field of English books, there is a general preference for Indian authors. In fact, outside of those who legitimately read (not that everyone else does not really read; what I mean by that is people who actually do enjoy reading for a hobby and devote at least some time to for sheer pleasure), I do not think anyone mentioned a preference for Western authors. It makes sense in my mind that if you are going to favor your own nation's authors that you would then also choose books with strong messages or try to read the "classics" (whatever that might mean). I guess this is really not that surprising. I don't imagine that the "'merica" kind of people would really be capable of digesting or understanding much more than twilight or fifty shades (oh I so went there). Except the difference is the Indians do not take pride in stupidity or ignorance like the American set do. They hold traditional ideas and opinions sometimes, but they do not knowingly seek after ignorance like some Americans do.

I guess I expected that if there were a preference for Indian authors, the reading would also be to some degree political as well. But mostly I haven't really noticed it to be.

Another interesting trend is that the other popular genre for reading, motivational/business lit, it is all about the ideas. It doesn't matter if you are Rajan Tata or Bill Gates. If you have good ideas and people feel that they work, the book is popular. The most popular, or at least the most frequently mentioned seem to be Indians, or else Indians living abroad, however no one seems to discriminate against books written by Westerners in the slightest. The seven habits are frequently mentioned as good books. It seems like with literature, Indians are conscious of preserving a native tradition, but when it comes to business and success, it is a free-for-all.

I am still developing these ideas. Over the next two weeks I am setting things up to get some hopefully really good more one on one kind of stuff. Since I have generally lacked (and still lack) a target population that I could focus on getting access too, I have just been working with what comes up in conversation, what I observe, and what I overhear. Finally college is back in session, so I am going to take advantage of that. Also I have gotten much more comfortable with the people in my PG and also I have made headway in some of the clubs I have been attending. It is to the point where it isn't exactly the societal penetration I was imagining, but it will work for my project.

Ah! And I still have a draft of that entry I never finished. I need more time! I need more time for reflection and observation. I cannot draw conclusions of any kind after one short and crazy summer. Field Studies are not near long enough. I need at least a year to confidently say anything. This is crazy!..."I just met you. And this is crazy. But I've only been here three months and I'm analyzing your culture and drawing sweeping, misinformed, possibly racist and insulting conclusions, maybe." Aiyo. And I bet that (I was thinking SWEARS!) Dr. Nuckolls will just love how things turned out. Next time. You have not heard the last of me, Dr. Nuckolls, you hear that? *shakes fist* This isn't the end!

Book Club

This past Saturday I finally was able to go to a meeting for the book club I signed up for. It went really well, actually. We met at Costa Coffee in Connaught Place. I suppose as a little background, Connaught Place was designed as the centerpiece of New Delhi when the British rebuilt it after they, uh, ahem, leveled the previous city to punish India for the 1857 rebellion. Basically it is a business/shopping district thing. Anyhow, on the back end of L block, we met in a coffee shop to discuss books. Four people besides myself came. I was hoping for a few more people, but still, it was really one of the best research moments I have had thus far directly concerning my project.

I was actually kind of surprised who came. I was expecting the club to be some former liberal arts majors, maybe some sort of professor, or house wives or something like that. The four people who came were all unmarried men in their twenty and thirties. One was an IT professional. There was a business man, someone who worked for some sort of contractor, and an engineer. I was not expecting them to be the ones expressing interest in books. Also, the kinds of books they are interested in was somewhat surprising.

I think I have mentioned it before, but my findings so far have been that Indians generally speaking do not read. If they do almost universally they read quick easy reads like Chetan Bhagat, spiritual material, and self-help books. I have kind of been discouraged by the seemingly complete hegemony of these three things. I keep hoping I will randomly run into someone who reads something else or mentions a preference for classics or literary fiction or something other than, well, to be blunt, trashy novels and flavorless inspirational literature.

The people I met with actually expressed different ideas. One of them specifically noted that they really only like books written by Indians set in India. They mentioned that they liked the Catcher in the Rye, one of the first western novels they ever read, but after that never really found anything else they liked.

It seemed like there was a general preference for Indian novels with a mix of history and what they called "fantasy." From what I gathered, I think what they mean by fantasy is what we in the West would more commonly call magical realism. They kept talking about the fantasy elements of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and there are not really very many elves or dragons in that. The other thing that they seemed to like were again the self-help books, although their taste in them was much more refined. They differentiated them into two types: those that focus on doing and those that focus on just giving inspirational messages. One of them called these those that work and those that do not.

It was so awesome to talk to people about books like this. It was so great just to talk to people in general on a level like this. It was not perfect. I consciously restricted how much I expressed my opinion. It was a titanic effort, but I had to keep reminding myself that I was not here to argue about truth or correct their misconceptions. There were so many times when I knew they were completely off base or at least had an extremely limited perspective that may have been accurate, but did not factor in so many different perspectives and ideas. They specifically panned Japanese authors for being ridiculous, which is sad, because I am passionately in love with Japanese literature.

The issue of translation also came up. They made some good points, but concluded that translation was always a bad idea. Again, so much I wanted to say, but I just let it lie. I learned a lot though. If I could just have a few more meetings like that with people my project would be amazingly rounded out. I wish I had the ability to talk to people like that on a regular basis. Every day would be freaking amazing and it would only require an hour or two each day. I would have more material than I know what to do with.

Also, they discussed and shared the best ways to get around India's bit torrent firewalls to download e-books illegally. I was so torn. On the one hand, it is piracy and it definitely negatively affects the publishing world and the future availability of books, but on the other hand, it is so important for people to read and for these ideas to get out there. Books here are prohibitively expensive. I have actually been surprised. Until prices drop or incomes rise, books are definitely a luxury good here in India. Which has tremendous implications and opens up a huge discussion on reading and literature and ideas and stuff. I just found it all quite funny and kept my mouth shut.

Not to get into it too much now, but it may be that in India books, like internet and telephones, will skip the hard phase and go straight to the mobile, wireless route through e-books. That makes me so sad to some degree, but it makes sense. The developing world may actually play a bigger role in the demise of the physical book in favor of the e-book than the book addicted west when a mind-blowingly enormous reader market opens up as China, India, and other places as they develop enough to where they have the disposable income and the free time to make reading as a pastime feasible.

I think that is one of the most frustrating things about this project. It has been an amazing experience, but the biggest things I am learning are how to set up a project better in the future. Not just in project structure. I am actually fairly happy with my project as I outlined it. Rather I am learning so much about how to properly plan a project for actual implementation. I know so much more about the necessity of contacts and what kind of contacts to have, timing, location. Actually I am just going to make this another post. Screw academic professionalism. I am an English major. I declare this stream of consciousness writing. It is now legitimate and cannot be criticized.

A Suitable Boy

Normally I wouldn't just post an entire post about a book, especially one that does not strictly speaking move my project forward, but I am super excited about this book. It is my most recent accusation, one that I acquired thinking I might get to it at some point when I had time in the indeterminate future, perhaps even after my field study, to continue my study of Indian literature. However when I got it, it was so physically massive I had to check it out. Basically it is the story of a Mother and a daughter in the pursuit of a suitable boy (go figure) for her to marry. It is set in India in the 1950s in the northernish part of India. So far it reads kind of like an Pride and Prejudice except in India and in the 1950s, not a long time ago England. I think it is supposed to be an epic story of the interactions between four families.

A Suitable Boy takes an intimate look at Indian culture, religion, and politics. Sometimes it is serious, sometimes it is satirical. Again drawing the comparison to Pride and Prejudice, part of the reason I am so excited to read this novel is the close perspective of something like a novel of manners. Not that A Suitable Boy is necessarily a novel of manners. I believe that it incorporates many aspects of Indian storytelling. It is divided into sections and chapters, but they do not always follow the same people. Often a new character or subplot is introduced and then abandoned only to be incorporated much later in the story.

In the future, I hope to come back to this novel to examine it with regards to Indian epics such as The Adventures of Amir Hamza, The Ramayan, and the Mahabharat to look for similar literary elements and methods. I will know better when I finish it, but I have a theory that A Suitable Boy may in many ways be a kind of Indian Epic.

Separate Journeys

I am still trying to get my stride back, but while I do that, I have been reading a collection of short stories called Separate Journeys. Each story is written by a female Indian author from a different part of the country. The stories have been interesting, although not for exactly the reason I at first anticipated. The introduction to this book makes a big point out of the fact that each of the authors comes from a distinct background with different literary and cultural attributes as a result. My perception of Indian literature is rapidly expanding. It seems like, so far at from what I have observed, English is a fundamental part of Indian writing, but it is also just another language among many languages. Most of the major languages have a huge body of literature. I find that idea fascinating. Regardless of what I ultimately end up doing specifically for my project, I am going to devote a certain amount of time to try to hunt down the sources of these books. One of the stories suggested that there was a massive pool of Kannada literature, except while I was there in India I never saw anywhere that sold books except for in English, with maybe a single book case devoted to the most common regional language. I mean, I was not actively looking, but I feel like if these were such prolific writing communities, there would be more evidence of it. Maybe I just am not looking in the right places. The posh malls cater to the rich, obviously, and so it isn't surprising that the majority of their books are in English. The thing is, I only ever noticed two kinds of book stores while I was in India. There are the super posh ones and then the small, warehouse like black market book stores. Well, black market is kind of harsh, I guess, because they do sell legitimate copies of books. But they also sell a lot of pdf print off kind of books where I am pretty sure neither publisher nor author sees any royalties from them.

So when I get to New Delhi, I am going to have to be on the look out for other outlets for books. I am going to have to ask around, but the things I have thought of so far are: book stores, "black market" street book stores (obviously), book fairs (like the Sunday book sale I mentioned in an earlier entry that existed in Hyderabad. I feel bad, but in pursuit of my project I am willing to go out on a Sunday and buy books, if it comes to that), book carts, book stalls, yard sales?, literature events, college stores, national libraries, and local libraries. Perhaps talking to publishing houses might also help to see which book seller people they sell their books to might uncover some leads.

I am finding that in my research I am struggling to find sources talking about Indian readership. There isn't much, but there is plenty for a field study project that involves literary criticism. However, while enlightening and something that would be productive to read in preparation for my time in India and discussing literature with people, it doesn't really help me ground my project in the current research about reading in India. I mostly have been hitting the databases I use as an English major, which is probably part of the problem. The study of English is interested in why people read, but usually is more abstract/attempting to be universal, which isn't terribly helpful. I think I will have to talk to a few of my anthropologist friends to see if there are any databases that they recommend particularly (Rachel, here's lookin' at you kid, among others). Perhaps they will have more of what I need.

Anyhow, I talk like I have completely narrowed it down, but I haven't quite yet. Emma Roberts is out. As much as I would love to do that, I do not think I have the temperament to go run around the country and accomplish things. I am not good at being spontaneous like you would need to be in order to make that work. Besides, I really do not think a summer is enough time to make that work. I think the Urdu poetry thing might be out as well. I am in love with the idea, but I don't know if I could quite tie it together in something meaningful. Okay, I think I could, but I guess I am not sure that I could learn Urdu well enough in time in order to actually work in translation, which is what I would have to do. And it wouldn't be text book Urdu, it would be artistic, high Urdu written in handwriting from two hundred years ago, not printed, with all the irregularities and complexities that go along with it. I think it would be fun, but I would probably end up writing a paper about the experience of how hard it is to translate and interpret poetry, not really write something meaningful about the poetry. The remaining three ideas are kind of iterations of each other. Some are too broad, some might be too narrow, I will have to work them out. I may just end up creating a hybrid out of them or something. I think locating some actual resources about what and why people are reading will be helpful to giving me some really healthy perspective on what direction I should go. Although I guess thinking about the topics, I am going to need literary history, not just literary anthropology. Blerg. I don't know where to get that.

Reading in India

So while I was thinking and writing about my five competing project questions, I realized that I may be thinking about this incorrectly. I do not think what I am about to write about will actually directly affect my project. I am committed to studying literature-esque things, but I realized that actually trying to approach literature from such a blunt perspective may be the wrong approach in some ways. I was thinking about the things I have been reading and I would like to look into when I was thinking about a book I got, The Adventures of Amir Hamza. It was originally a Persian epic, but it kind of found new life and grew in its Urdu incarnation in the Mughal courts. According to William Dalrymple, the last full version published in Urdu was something like forty volumes. Okay, I am getting sidetracked with fun random facts. The main point is, The Dastaan-i-Amir Hamza for most of its existence has been an oral text. Now I am not saying that I should just scrap books and look at oral literature, folk stories, and gossip, but I think it represents an important paradigm shift that I need to understand before I will be prepared to go to India to actually study things. India has an almost frighteningly immense literary heritage. Mostly unknown to the west there is a canon of sorts of classical Indian writings from the last two and a half thousand years on everything from religion to literature to criticism. The way these things have been transmitted and recorded is in many ways different from how things were done in the West.

I think an important thing to consider for many of my proto-projects is how do Indians feel about knowledge, stories, and literature as topics. I will need a firm understanding of the place they have in Indian society and how they relate to the Indian world view before I will really be able to make sense of any information about literature I collect in the field. It is a question on how they view literature. Most Indian languages have no word for chef. Being a cook is not really a very prestigious career and so the only way to say it in most language is just to say someone who prepares food. Mostly lower caste people prepared food traditionally. Thus there could be something important in the place of the author in Indian society. I suppose another angle to consider is the place of sages like Valmiki who are respected.

Another point brought up in class was that of literacy. Understanding who cannot read could be as important as who can read and what they read. I am very interested in this topic, except I am pretty sure it would make any project I tack it onto way to large to be possible. I might spin it out into a sixth possible project question. Although really it is time to choose, not come up with more. It would be interesting to know what the illiterate feel about reading, their motivations to want to learn to read, why they don't want to read, or what has prevented or is preventing them from being able to read. I wonder what stories and myths they know and how it affects their world view.

Anyhow, overall I think I still know what I want to do. Before I leave I will need to do a bunch of research on this concept of literature and oral tradition and everything to inform my project. I do not know how much these concepts will change my project, but they will definitely inform how I put it together going forward. I will have to contemplate these ideas a lot more.

The History of Indian English Literature

The final topic I have been considering, is the development of English literature in India. Basically its history, where it came from, where it is, and maybe where it is going, if it is possible to tell that.

In doing this I would need to take a survey of Indian literature from its inception to the present. I think the most important and difficult part of this would be finding the origins. I would like to get down to the very details. When were Indians first using English? And then from those beginnings in clerical notes or whatever it was, trace it all the way back up to the present where there is now everything from user manuals to novels to comics produced in India, by Indians, for Indians in English. I would need to know significant trends and movements, the major authors and influences, the major impetuses for Indians to write in English, and maybe public opinion about English all along the way.

I think libraries, schools, universities, book stores, publishers, and government offices would be my primary sources for information. I do not know how much normal people would be of help in this case, but they might be. It is probably not possible to simply go through everything. I would need to have people that know about these things to contact and work with. I also would need to have a plan of major sources and things that I would need to hit to really learn anything.

The purpose of this would be to put together a coherent sort of history, I guess, of Indian writing in English. I do not think I would have time to do much detail, so it would probably end up being sort of a brief introduction to the topic. Tracing the Origins of Indian writing in English would relate back to its current place in post-colonial literature. By looking at where it has come from, where it is, and where it is going, I would hope to gain insight into how it fits into the paradigm of post-colonilial literature and how it fits into contemporary Indian culture. Perhaps they are related in some way.

I think the main concerns I have with this is that it is such a huge topic and there isn't really a good way to narrow it down. I could choose a specific segment of history to focus on, but anything but the most recent time periods would not really help in looking at how Indian literature fits in with post-colonialism. Also, there is the problem of finding all the sources and knowing them well enough to write them into a history. I assume this is a huge amount of documents. The history of English in India goes back at least a few hundred years. I do not know if I could track down everything I need. I am not exactly sure where to look for it. I get the feeling that I am not going to find what I need in the United States, but in India, at this point, I am not exactly sure where to start looking for something like that. I feel like I would run out of time before I made any significant headway.

Anyhow, that I guess concludes my five question analyses for now. I am tired so they kept getting shorter. I feel bad about that, but I just want to get them done. I feel kind of paralyzed in my research right now because these topics don't exactly jive perfectly. Writing them out has actually really helped me kind of get a feel for what I actually want to do while I am in India and what would conceivably even be possible. I am kind of burned out on writing for the moment, but remind me to write about an epiphany I had about reading while I was thinking about and writing these. I do not know if it will actually end up relevant, but it has suddenly changed how I look at my project. Also, I need to update the Intent and logs pages on my blog. I want to get them with something in them.

18th and 19th Century Urdu Poetry

The Mughal Empire, while initially militaristic, at some point in its history, fairly quickly actually if I remember correctly, turned into a center of learning and culture. The Mughal court in Delhi was a huge center for Urdu poetry and literature. There were tons of poets and the royal court sponsored poetry readings and festivals for its celebration. The last Mughal Emperor, and probably some of the other ones, actually were decent poets in their own right, in many ways mirroring the court of Queen Elizabeth in England. Many of the best poets were given status as nobles and were respected in society. There is a huge body of Urdu poetry from this time period as they developed new styles of writing and experimented.

I really would like to go to Delhi and see what I can find of this lost tradition. I know that in the mutiny papers from the 1857 rebellion, there is some of the Urdu poetry. I should think that the central archive has copies of these works. I am not sure if the universities have anything or not.

The goal of doing this would be to go through and perform some analysis and critical examination of Urdu literature during the late Mughal period when literature was at its height, basically the hundred years between the mid 1700's ending with the 1857 rebellion. I would want to look at as many of the originals as possible, and barring that, the poetry presented in the original Urdu, printed in Urdu. This would cover everything from what was written, to how it was written, to how it was presented. Essentially your standard literary analysis. I would need to be in India and actually specifically in New Delhi/Delhi because that is where all of this went down and where I assume most of the originals still are.

This project does have a few minor concerns and one huge concern. The biggest problem is that the English, bless their hearts, destroyed a huge chunk of Urdu literature when they sacked Delhi in 1857. Entire libraries of priceless manuscripts were destroyed or burned or stolen. Even the work of living poets was lost. Considering the manuscript culture of the time, in many cases the texts destroyed were the only existent copies. Thus I am not even sure exactly how much of the Urdu literature I want to study actually still exists since the English performed a sort of cultural cleansing on it. Some other problems are tracking them down. Some of them might be museum pieces, which would make things difficult, either through not being able to see them, having to analyze them through glass, only being able to see one page through glass, or the simple difficulty of trying to access to each of the museums they are in, if they are even in local museums. Another problem is I can't read Urdu, at least not yet. Urdu is essentially identical to Hindi, so that wouldn't be a problem per se, but I would have to learn how to read Urdu, since I don't think relying on a translator is practical or ideal. That basically defeats the whole purpose of traveling to Delhi  in the first place. Another similar problem, is even if I learn to read and write Urdu, I do not know if hand written manuscripts would be legible to me. They could be too ornate or too messy for me to really accomplish much.

English vs. Native Languages

I would like to look at the status of English language Indian writing as compared to the status of Indian writing in native languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, etc. This relates back to post-colonialism, I guess. The idea would be to place English writing in the context of the writing going on in other languages.

I would look at the amount of writing in each language, how often they are translated into one another, where they are sold, what are the demographics for each, do certain languages cater to certain classes of people. I would also want to look at things like themes and ideas. Is there certain things they write about? If English writing is considered post-colonial because it deals with the issues of getting back to the original culture and de-colonizing, what if native language writing is dealing with the same themes? Is it post-colonial? If it is in a native language, say Hindi, (sorry Tamil, no bias, I swear) and it is effectively completely controlled by solely Indians, can it be considered post-colonial? What literary forms occur in native languages? Indians (and most countries for that matter) often express a desire to resist westernization. How much has western ideas infiltrated native writing? How closely tied to the rest of the western world is English literature? How closely connected to the past literary tradition is literature in native languages? Does Indian writing in English often follow genres and forms usually found or created in native Indian languages?

Basically I would be looking at the literature, not the people. I would need to see what is available for sale, what is in libraries, what people own, what is taught in schools. I guess all of this would be impacted first by finding out prevalences. If there really isn't much of a certain language or something, that would be highly indicative. Information from publishers and authors would be helpful. Even though this is all literature analysis, essentially, I would have to be in India since native Indian language texts really do not make it far beyond the borders of India.

The goal of all of this would be to be able to put together a sort of ethnography? study? report? (I don't know what you would call it) on literature as a whole within India. This would then allow a more even perspective of English literature in India. Through this I would be able to answer questions about whether English is a weird upstart, whether it is a significant literature movement, if it is ,as Salman Rushdie claims, an Indian literary language, and whether or not it meshes more with Indian literature as a whole, or with post-colonial literature.

This topic does have some problems in that this would require the study not only of works in English, but in other languages. And not just one other language, but a bunch of different languages. It would be impossible for me to learn the languages enough to do this sort of thing. I could probably get Hindi where it needs to be in time, possibly Urdu if I had to. (since I essentially just need to figure out the dag blasted alphabet) However I would have to rely of people and/or translators for books in other languages. I am concerned on how possible that would be. This could be too huge of a topic. It might be better to focus on something like English literature versus Hindi literature. I am also not sure if it is possible to look at this from so many different angles at once. It might be necessary considering time and skill constraints to simply look at publishing rates and readership or else just themes and movements or something. I still also have to deal with the sheer mass of each body of literature which each might make a study of even either of them by themselves impossible.

Why Indians Read and Write

So I decided to kind of work my way through each of my possible topics here. I really would like to narrow it down so I can better focus my research. Reading a bunch of novels and background stuff is great for the trip, but it doesn't do much for my project.

In studying what Indians read and write, I want to look at where literature is in India today. When I have lived in India, I have never really ever noticed anyone reading anything other than a newspaper. Most homes I have visited had textbooks and possibly some religious books, but not always. As far as I could tell and from the few people I asked in passing, it really seemed like most Indians did not do much reading for pleasure or self-motivated instruction. Granted, I do not have many rich friends in India. Maybe they are the ones who read more. There are many book stores, both legitimate as well as black market. Supposedly in a part of Hyderabad there is a book sale every Sunday. There are books, I just cannot seem to find the readers. Or the writers for that matter.

Another aspect that I am interested is in how Indian literature in English relates to post-colonial literature. I have been doing some background reading into the state of post-colonial literature and how it works. From here in the West, there is not much exposure to Indian literature, and so they fit nicely into the paradigm of post-colonialism. However, there are hints in some things I have read, and in my assessment of Indian culture that there is more to Indian literature than just trying to navigate out of a colonized mindset. I want to go see what is on the ground in India. What are they writing and reading thematically? How often is the influence of the British mentioned? The robustness of Indian culture that is independent in so many ways to the West suggests that perhaps Indian literature is also more independent than the West gives it credit for.

In India with this project idea I would get to know people, interview them about what they read, what books and authors they are familiar with, how they feel about Western and Indian literature. I would visit book stores and publishing houses to see what trends are happening, where the publishing market is going, where the authors are coming from, and what their goals are. I would find whatever authors are available and see if I can meet with them about their writing, why they write, and who they are writing for, and also what they hope to accomplish by writing. I would also meet with university professors, officials, and k-12 (well, the Indian equivalent, since it isn't quite the same, I should post about that actually) teachers and administrators about what they teach in the classroom and how they feel about what Indian students should be learning.

I guess the ultimate goal of this would be a kind of ethnography of reading (thank you Ashley giving me the label). I want to get a snapshot of reading in India. This would orient me to where India is in the world of literature. Maybe they should still be babied in post-colonialism. But maybe there is enough there and enough independence that it is essentially bigoted to lump them in with every other colony from anywhere in the world. I think a big part of this is, while post-colonial scholars do note that countries like Canada and the United States are colonies themselves, there is definitely a different tone to the United States' literature's label as "post-colonial" and India's literature's label as "post-colonial." I use these terms a lot, but I think I need to stop and define the difference between post-colonial and "post-colonial," if there is a difference even.

Some concerns: The more I think about this topic the more I feel crushed under its size. It is a simultaneous feeling of it crushing me under its weight as well as the feeling of trying to catch fog in a jar. It just is ephemeral and floats away and spreads and I cannot really grasp it. I feel like this could actually be like five different projects focusing on each of these. I feel I could probably combine some of these ideas, but I worry about it being too broad and general to really mean anything. The label of ethnography also makes me nervous. To me an ethnography is something huge that takes place over at least eight months to a decade that involves a ton of research and an eventual big report or book. I understand that is not the expectation of a field study, but I worry that what I can accomplish in three months will be too small. Everyone is important and part of the data, but knowing what a few people think that is not really conclusive across a culture in any way is kind of wasteful to me. The experience regardless will be good, but I do not want to start a project I feel is futile from the start. I am not an anthropology major, so I don't know that having a failure experience with ethnography exactly fits in with what I want to do with my life. Also I do not know that it will in any way help the discussion of literature in India, which is part of what I want to accomplish. I think my primary opposition to this idea is that I really do not feel capable at all at conducting an ethnography. I do not know that I have the skill set to do this. I do not know if I can reign in the topic enough to make it both viable and interesting to me. But this idea is what brought me to a field study in the first place, and it is one of the most legitimate reasons to actual visit the country.

The Great Indian Love Story

I just pounded it out this afternoon. As soon as I started it, I knew it was not going to be a good book, but I am fascinated by the perspective. To best describe it, I would say if you ever want to convince someone never to go to India, especially New Delhi, give them this book to read. The entire thing was about drugs, alcohol, and lots and lots of adultery. It was basically a romance novel, but without all the explicit parts. The sex is all implied. Similar to The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, this novel, novella really, is about the Indian perspective of love. I think that is why I kind of struggle to get my mind around it. On so many levels it is trying so hard to be just like every other trashy Western Romance novel, but if you really look at it, it is so incredibly Indian. No one writes such crazy, destabilized romances like Indians do. I do not like broad declarations about groups of people, but from what I have observed so far in what I have read, seen in movies, and witnessed first hand, Indians really struggle with the concept of love. It is either tame, devoted arranged marriage, or psychotic, usually tragic, romances. I mean, in many ways American romances are no different, but in India, it feels like you either have the equivalent of a Hindu Mormon Message or an Indian soap opera. I didn't hate The Great Indian Love Story as much as I thought I would. The characters were completely flat and predictable. I never liked them. A couple of them died (of course), but I never felt bad. The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, while also not a terribly amazing book, is basically the same kind of story, but far better.

This is the second work of fiction in a row that I have read that features a female protagonist who grew up in India, went to school in the United States and then returned to a "foreign" India. It is kind of an interesting perspective. Now I wonder if this is some sort of sub genre of Indian fiction. The copy I have was actually meant to be sold in India, so I am curious as to what kind of people read this sort of book. It was all about rich people in Delhi having crazy parties and sleeping around. Is the desire for this kind of thing from Indian repression? Most of the Indian fiction I have read so far has been fairly literary. This is the first work I would describe as "trashy." I have purchased all of them so far, well, most of them, in the United States, so I am wondering if that has a filtering effect. Is most of the fiction that is popular in India trashy, easy fiction? I think I finished this book in less than four hours, more like three. It is not difficult at all. It is similar in that way to Chetan Bhagat, another terrible, terrible, yet immensely popular Indian author. I wish I had another year to read and ponder all this to put my project together.

Tempus Fugit

I don't actually know if that is a real phrase or if it is spelled right. I don't even actually remember what language that is supposed to be. Just whenever I think of the phrase "time flies," that is the first thing that pops into my head. Every time.

Anyhow, the last week has been crazy-go-nuts busy. This semester is going to be freaking insane. I do not have much time tonight. I have to crash through some Plato I should have read yesterday, but did not make enough time for.

So I did not finish all six books I wanted to, but I did finish four, which I am super pleased about. All in all it was about fifteen hundred pages, so I am not going to cry about the remaining five hundred or so I did not get through.

The Empire Writes Back...I do not know quite what to say. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. The only chapter I really had any trouble with was the chapter on post colonialism and theory. That is partially because I do not really know the literary theories all that well. At least I do not know them well enough to understand the nuances of their relationships with post colonialism. I am excited to read it again. It has helped me open my mind to a whole bunch of new ways to consider post colonialism. It is more complex than I thought it was. I still think I stand by my initial opinion that I do not really think it is a productive literary...area...genre? Some of the questions they raise were interesting and really made me think. I will definitely have to read it again soon, especially the theory chapter.

After finishing it I feel stronger than ever that post colonialism is the stupidest literary grouping ever for India. I did a little research. India has a frickmassive literary tradition already. In like twenty different languages. At least. At least twenty freaking different languages. Why are we holding their hand and changing their diapers in post colonialism? Let them manage their own English literature. Sure, their English literature deals a lot with colonial issues because that is where it came from, but let us stop and consider a few things. They have a frickmassive literary tradition already. Indians who write books classified in post colonial literature know these languages. To be educated enough to write in English, they most likely are familiar with at least some of their native literature. Ergo, their thought processes, writing style, and perception of the world is at least semi-influenced by their own literature. So how is studying it apart from that tradition helpful? More than any country that didn't get its native culture obliterated, (por ejemplo the United States, Australia, etc.) India has best integrated English into itself. What I mean is, English is almost to the point in India where it is not an invasive language. It is not a threat to the local language. The important place of religion in India all but guarantees that English will never be able to replace the native languages of India. Why would a muslim abandon Urdu, a language influenced heavily by Persian and Arabic, for English? To what? Read the Bible? Why would a Hindu turn from Hindi or Tamil with their heritage in the Vedas and the Ramayan? The current leader of the Sikh religion is a book! And it definitely is not in English. Thus I now am certain that trying to come at India primarily from the post colonial perspective is to severely retard their development. The thing is, it won't actually retard their development. What it will do is maintain the culture of ignorant Western academics who have spent a few months at an Ashram and took some pictures at a temple and ate solely vegetarian food with their hands and now think they are experts on Indian culture and are so worried about helping India recover their national identity through literature when they have already done it in their own native language and if Western scholars would just back the hell off they would be just fine in expressing their own views in English rather than obsessing about whether they are decolonizing or not.

So I officially now renounce India's place in post colonial literature. There is only Indian literature, some of which is written in English, in the period during and after they were colonized. The place of their English texts is on their native soil, in their own libraries, not in some politically correct, sterile, UN-esque post colonial collection floating out in the middle of the Atlantic.

Anyhow I have stayed too long. I have to go read that dag blasted Plato crap. Shoot me now. Why does anyone like Plato? I mean seriously. You can sum up everything he says in like a paragraph, but he goes on for pages about this inane crap setting up these unrealistic conversations that magically perfectly work out so someone looks super ignorant while the Plato voice character looks so bloody brilliant. Nobody cares about your stupid logic! Just say it and be done!

Seriously, I'm not trying to get your hopes up

But it is a break so I have time to just update, so why not, haha. I think I finally made a break through on Midnight's Children last night. I started reading again at like 11:30 pm and I was just clipping along. I was actually kind of hooked finally. I think the remaining two hundred pages will be cake. I have been trying to focus on the meaning of the book as I read. I think a lot of what the main character does and what happens to him reflects Indian history and culture. I kind of wish I had done a through study of Indian history, at least post Britain history, because I feel like the book would make a lot more sense if I knew the history of this time period. I know generally what happened, but I have never really looked into the details. Part of the problem is how politically charged the time period is. I can't stand obviously slanted history. I know all history is fundamentally biased, but I do not like it when you can tell how biased it is. Although maybe that is preferable to the bias you cannot detect because it matches your own.

As I have been reading and thinking about my project, I have decided that the stance I am going to take for my project is to deny the label "post colonial" for the literature I study. If you want to talk about the "post colonial" period of Indian literature, then I would be happy to discuss it. But lumping the writing of Chinua Achebe with R.K. Narayan with the writing of Isabelle Allende is perfectly ridiculous. What do they have in common? How can you group together a academic community based on such diversity? Not only are these "colonies" from different sides of the globe, they weren't even colonized by the same cultures. How is that a coherent field of study? While some of these countries arguably are still wading through the mire of re-establishing their national identities after being released from colonization, India hardly falls into that category. Can anyone create a coherent list of the Indian authors and books in English alone? All my research points to the contrary. In fact I have spent the better part of this year futilely contacting professors from over a dozen institutions to see if I could put together a rough list of the most important authors/works to read to orient myself to Indian literature. No one could help me. No one had any real suggestions. From these contacts and snooping around the internet I have amassed a list of over two hundred Indian authors, each with multiple mentions as an author in English of merit, before I kind of gave up. I maintain it, but not for the reason I did before. If Indian literature in English has grown to the point where it is now impossible for a single person to conceive of it, can it still be lumped in with every other former colony as "post colonial"? It seems to me that it would be much more practical to give Indian literature in English its own field of study, namely Indian Literature, with accompanying sub-subjects for specialization. It is extremely arrogant of the English academic world to try to lump everything that isn't American or British into a broad, amorphous holding pen labeled "post colonial". The English language is like a virus, or, I don't know, like linux or something. It is open source. No one controls it. It is not like Spanish, French, or Icelandic that have unified directing committees that have the final say of what is a word and what is not. By asteroiding into India, Britain infected it with English. It became an Indian language. In fact, due to the diverse languages in India and the proud cultures behind each, English is now an essential language in India, not least to facilitate communication between Hindi and Tamil speakers. Thus if they have their own brand of English and now write fluently, directly in English so prolifically that it is now nearly impossible for one person to hold the entire corpus of Indian literature in English, the brand, like a dog's collar, is not only inadequate, it is insulting. It is time for the genre boundaries to change. If other countries still would like to remain within the confines of "post colonial", that is fine, but as for India, it is time they got an English department of their own as equal participants in the language. Especially since they have technically been exposed to it and had it spoken on their soil for around four hundred years. If my hasty research is correct, that is longer than Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, and at least as long as the Americas, and it is quite possible that the East India Company had a presence in India before the English ever really had a presence in the Americas. Besides, the only reason English is so successful in each of these countries is because their invades obliterated the native culture. Is being labeled "post colonial" then a punishment for resisting cultural cleansing? I don't think the implications are very flattering for the English academic world.