Original or virginal

Cult of authenticity

Vikram Chandra's rhetoric is not convincing, though he had his share of words. A few points:
There are three kinds of people here: First, the Indian English authors abroad who are clearly Mukherjee's target. Second, Indian English writers living in Indian urbana, like Chandra. And finally, the U.R. Ananthamurthy's and Bendre's (sorry, unfamiliar with vernacular literature outside Karnataka).

While Chandra tries to makes a case that the Indian authors in urban Indian settings are as isolated from true-India i.e. Bommanahalli's and Chapra Jilla's, he barely addresses the original question -- Are these authors truly the socio-cultural emissaries of India or are they their own ambassadors? Currently it seems like these authors are serving the following people at best -- themselves (I am inclined to repeat this thrice -- no seriously, if anything, some of them have dextrously carved out a large piece of the global literature pie) and the NRI crowd that wants a Gurinder Chadha-esque depiction of India so they are not viewed as just another immigrant community von third world -- please, definitely not with India's rich maharaja culture!

A major issue with Indian English authors has been ignored by the article: the English itself. While everyone knows how pervasive English is in Indian societies, it is completely a different language than one spoken in Britain or the US. The profound influences of the colonial usages combined with vernacular turns of phrases make it a language like nothing the Western world has heard. Read the blogs written by current IITians IITian blog links and it is clear that this dialect is thriving and evolving in all sections of society. Hardly any Indian English author has tried to capture this, save, perhaps, Desani and his Hatterr (that was in the 40's though!). Indian authors in English grow up on a wealth of Western literature and the styles are often imitative and in someone else's language. Any writer makes a commitment to a style and, more often than not, Indian writers make that commitment to one that is alien to even urban Indians.

Going back to the mainstay of Chandra's argument, on a very practical level, Indian authors sitting even in South Bombay are clearly more in touch with Indian happenings than ones in NY and London. A truly good writer, while smoking his cigars with socialites by night, clearly, cannot miss the walk down the street or the occasional drive down to interior Maharashtra. In a nutshell, he is literally much closer! Readers will associate with the difference between visiting their hometowns once or twice a year from abroad to living in their hometowns. For the same reason that people take vacations, the interface the country offers you is simply different when you are an NRI. Moreover, the writings of NRI's cut off from India for a decade speak for themselves -- dated, retrograde and, at best, nostalgic. Case in point: Rushdie's musings on Sonia Gandhi post-election.

There's no doubt that the thought that haunts you by the end of the article is, in fact, Mukherjee's point about koel's and tamarind trees. That is what the mediocre ones are doing for western audiences anyway. As for the celebrated literateurs, their literary contributions are far more important than their socio-cultural representation of India.