An Overview of the History of Indian Writing in English PDF

An Overview of the History of Indian Writing in English Indian writing in English refers to literature written in the English language by authors of Indian origin or descent. It is a significant and distinct literary tradition that emerged during the colonial period in India and continues to flouri...

An Overview of the History of Indian Writing in English Indian writing in English refers to literature written in the English language by authors of Indian origin or descent. It is a significant and distinct literary tradition that emerged during the colonial period in India and continues to flourish today. Indian writing in English has its roots in the British colonization of the Indian subcontinent, which began in the 17th century and lasted until India gained independence in 1947. The earliest known examples of Indian writing in English can be traced back to the 18th century when Indian authors started using English as a medium of expression. However, it was during the 19th century that Indian writers began to produce notable works in English literature. Initially, most of these writers were influenced by British literary forms and themes, and their works often focused on social and cultural aspects of colonial India. One of the pioneers of Indian writing in English was Raja Rammohan Roy, a social reformer and scholar, who wrote extensively on topics such as religious and social reform. Another important figure was Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who is regarded as one of the earliest novelists in Indian literature. His novel "Anandamath" (1882) is considered a seminal work in Indian writing in English. The early 20th century witnessed the emergence of several notable Indian writers in English, including Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore's poetry and plays, translated into English, brought global recognition to Indian literature. Other influential writers of the time included Sarojini Naidu, Mulk Raj Anand, and R.K. Narayan. Post-independence, Indian writing in English underwent a significant transformation as writers began to explore a wide range of themes, styles, and genres. These writers, often referred to as the "postcolonial" or "Indo-Anglian" writers, tackled issues of identity, cultural conflicts, and the social and political challenges faced by independent India. Prominent authors from this era include R.K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharya, and Kamala Markandaya. In recent decades, Indian writing in English has experienced a surge in popularity and recognition both within India and globally. Several Indian authors have achieved critical acclaim and international success. Writers such as Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Aravind Adiga, and Jhumpa Lahiri have won prestigious literary awards and gained a substantial readership worldwide. Indian writing in English is characterized by its diverse voices, rich cultural tapestry, and the blending of Indian and Western literary traditions. It reflects the complexities of Indian society, its history, traditions, and the challenges faced by its people. Indian authors writing in English have made significant contributions to world literature and have played a vital role in shaping the literary landscape of India. Colonial Era (1800s-1947): 1.1 Raja Ram Mohan Roy: (22 May 1772 – 27 September 1833) was an Indian reformer who was one of the founders of the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, the precursor of the Brahmo Samaj, a social-religious reformmovement in the Indian subcontinent. Known as the "Father of Indian Renaissance," Roy championed social and educational reforms through his works, including "The Precepts of Jesus." His most popular journal was the Sambad Kaumudi. It covered topics like freedom of the press, induction of Indians into high ranks of service, and separation of the executive and judiciary. 1.2 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: (26 or 27 June 1838 – 8 April 1894) was an Indian novelist, poet, essayist and journalist. He was the author of the 1882 Bengali language novel Anandamath, which is one of the landmarks of modern Bengali and Indian literature. He was the composer of Vande Mataram, written in highly sanskritized Bengali, personifying Bengal as a mother goddess and inspiring activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhayay wrote fourteen novels and many serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical treatises in Bengali. He is known as Sahitya Samrat (Emperor of Literature) in Bengali. Anandamath Anandamath (trans. The Abbey of Bliss) is a Bengali historical novel, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and published in 1882. It is inspired by and set in the background of the Sannyasi Rebellion in the late 18th century, it is considered one of the most important novels in the history of Bengali and Indian literature. Its first English publication was titled The Abbey of Bliss (literally Ananda=Bliss and Math=Abbey). Vande Mataram, "Hail to the Motherland ", first song to represent India - as the Motherland was published in this novel. The story takes place during the Bengal famine of 1770 CE. It begins with an introduction to Mahendra and Kalyani, a couple trapped in their hamlet Padachinha during a famine with neither food or water. They make the decision to leave their hamlet and relocate to the next metropolis, where they will have a greater chance of surviving. The couple becomes separated throughout the course of events, and Kalyani is forced to run through the forest with her newborn to avoid being caught by robbers. She passes out on the brink of a river after a long chase.Jiban, a Hindu “Santana” (who were not actual sanyasis but common people who took the sign of sanyasis and deserted their households in order to rebel against the British East India Company), took the daughter to his home and handed her over to his sister while he relocated Kalyani to his ashram. Mahendra, the husband, is now more interested in joining the monastic brotherhood and helping the Mother Nation. Kalyani wants to assist him in realising his aspirations by attempting suicide and thereby releasing him of worldly responsibilities. Mahatma Satya joins her at this juncture, but before he can assist her, he is apprehended by East India Company soldiers, who believe that other monks are fueling the insurrection against Company control.He notices another monk who is not wearing his unique robes and sings while being carried away. The second monk decodes the song, saves Kalyani and the infant, and transports them to a rebel monk stronghold. The monks also provide shelter to Kalyani’s husband, Mahendra, and the two are reunited. The rebel leader depicts the three faces of Bongo Mata (Mother Bengal) as three goddess idols worshipped in three separate rooms to Mahendra: The rebels’ power grows with time, and their numbers increase. They relocate their headquarters to a modest brick fort, feeling more confident. With a huge force, the East India Company attacks the fort. The rebels have blockedade the adjacent river bridge, but they lack artillery and military skills. The East India Company makes a tactical retreat over the bridge during the conflict. The East India Company men are chased into the trap by the Sannyasis’ undisciplined army, who lacks military expertise. When the bridge is crowded with insurgents, the East India Company cannon opens fire, killing many people.Some rebels, though, manage to take some of the guns and return the fire on the East India Company’s lines. This novel includes the song Vande Mataram. “I bow to thee, Mother,” Vande Mataram says. It inspired freedom warriors in the twentieth century, and the first two stanzas of the song became India’s national anthem after independence. 1.3 Rabindranath Tagore: (7 May 1861– 7 August 1941) was a Bengali poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful" poetry of Gitanjali, he became in 1913 the first non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society. Referred to as "the Bard of Bengal",Tagore was known by sobriquets: Gurudeb, Kobiguru, Biswokobi. Rabindranath Tagore’s most well-known work, Gitanjali, is a collection of poems that came out in India in 1910. Tagore then turned it into English prose poems called Gitanjali: Song Offerings. It was published in 1912 with an introduction by William Butler Yeats. Tagore based the poems in Gitanjali on devotional songs from India in the Middle Ages. He also wrote music to go with these words. Love is the main theme, but some poems also talk about the struggle between spiritual longings and earthly desires. A lot of the images he uses come from nature, and the mood is mostly low-key and quiet. Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 in part because of this collection, but not everyone agrees that it is his best work. Theme of Geetanjali The main idea in Gitanjali is mysticism, which also brings up a number of other ideas. According to Indian philosophy, mysticism is the highest stage where the human soul is in direct contact with God. A mystic thinks that the world we see with our eyes and ears is not real and that there is a more real world behind it that can only be understood spiritually, not through the senses. The mystic tries to get in touch with the inner, ultimate reality in a way that is direct and intuitive. In some ways, realism and common sense are at odds with mysticism. Mysticism is not something that can be explained logically. All mystics try to separate themselves from the outside world and connect with the world inside. This type of mysticism is based on the ideas of renunciation, detachment from the world, and asceticism. Tagore was influenced by a lot of mystic writers, such as Walt Whitman, Kahlil Gibran, and, to some extent, Sri Aurobindo. Still, Tagore’s version of mysticism is a little bit different from the first. He doesn’t completely doubt what he thinks and what he feels. He doesn’t try to get away from real life, but he does enjoy the joy of living. He doesn’t deny sense experience, but instead turns it into a way to have a spiritual experience. Nor does he have the slightest desire to be a monk. His strong humanism keeps his mysticism in check and keeps it from getting out of hand. Story of Gitanjali Gitanjali is divided into two parts. To begin, the majority of these songs are composed as dialogues between the poet and God. Even if God’s messages were not always spoken, the poet expresses his prayers and sentiments. Aside from certain personal prayers, some songs are also directed to the Bharatvidhata—the God of India. In two songs, He mor chitto punyatirthe jagore dhire (song number 106) and He mor durbhaga desh (song no 108), the poet urged his countrymen to band together against both internal and external calamities. It is important to understand that Gitanjali was composed in British India. When the protests against the British government became violent and nonviolent, the poet appealed to Bharatvidhata to awaken his compatriots into the paradise of wisdom and labour. He also asked for the abolition of caste prejudice. The poet’s prayers are not for mortal or material things. They aspire to live a better life. According to Yeats, these songs arose from immense sadness and intense emotion. A single line of his poetry may make anyone forget about the world’s problems. Gitanjali’s songs can help us purify our bodies and minds in order to grow closer to God. Although the God of Rabindranath is the God of beauty, intelligence, and perfection, he is neither a religious or traditional god. This God has no unique picture, nor has the poet ever represented his God by symbols. He resembles the notion of a supernatural force, the God of the Upanishads. The opening song in the collection, Amar matha nata kore dao he tomar charandhular pore, appears to be a prayer from the poet to his God to forcefully lower the poet’s head before the Almighty. The fundamental message of the hymn, however, is that the devotee must give up his pride in order to get ultimate peace and contentment from his God. In Bipode more raksa kato, he prayed to his God for strength and courage to tackle his issues. Rabindranath depicted death as the only way to reach his God. Death seems to him as a calm ocean where he may relax when his earthly life has ended. Gitanjali’s songs have a strong link to nature. These songs are generally written during the monsoon season, autumn, or spring. When nature bestows her gifts on us by adorning our surroundings with fresh pictures, lights, fruits, and flowers, we become new and pure in our devotion to God. Song nos. 11 and 13—amra bedhechi kasher guchha and Amar nayana vulano ele—describe autumn festivals, whereas song no. 12 Amala dhabala pale legeche mandomadhur hawa is composed in the rain. Songs 16 through 20 highlight various aspects of the rainy season. Gora Gora (is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, set in Calcutta (now Kolkata), in the 1880s during the British Raj. It is the fifth in order of writing and the longest of Tagore’s twelve novels. It is rich in philosophical debate on politics and religion.Other themes include liberation, universalism, brotherhood, gender, feminism, caste, class, tradition versus modernity, urban elite versus rural peasants, colonial rule, nationalism and the Brahmo Samaj. The story mainly revolves around its protagonist, Gormohan alias 'Gora', a ‌staunch Hindu Brahmin.Gora is a young man with a well-built body, good stature, white complexion, and a heavy voice. Because of his physique, he is the head of his circle of friends. Despite not being handsome, Gora is considered attractive because of his heavy speech and high stature. Gora's best friend is Binoybhushan aka Binoy. Binoy is a friendly and handsome young man. He has a special affection for Gora's mother Anandamayi, and regards Anandamayi as his mother as he was orphaned as a child. One day Binoy meets a Brahmo Samaji Paresh Babu and his daughter Sucharita when their wagon crashes outside Binoy's house. Binoy helps them, and starts visiting their house. And then Binoy is introduced to Paresh Babu, his wife Varadasundari, his eldest daughter Lavanya, middle daughter Lalita, and younger daughter Leela. Along with them, he is introduced to Sucharita, the adopted daughter of Paresh Babu, and Satish, Sucharita's real brother. At the time of the story there is an ongoing conflict between the Brahmo Samaj and Hinduism; as Gora is a staunch Hindu who believes in untouchability, he forbids Binoy to meet Paresh Babu and his family. This leads to an argument between the two. Gora accuses Binoy of being attracted to Paresh Babu's daughter, but Binoy denies this. Gora's father Krishnadayal, a good friend of Paresh Babu, one day urges Gora to visit Paresh Babu's house to inquire about his well being. When Gora goes there, Binoy is already present, disappointing and angering Gora. There, Gora is introduced to Haran alias Panu Babu, who is Bengali but has special affection for the British. Haran Babu is a special head of the Brahmo Samaj, and is going to marry Sucharita. Due to Gora's being Hindu, he does not get the same respect at Paresh Babu's house as Binoy did. He gets into an argument with Haran Babu. Sucharita, who earlier saw Gora as inferior because of his fanaticism, supports Gora by not supporting Haran Babu in the debate. Gora is then very angry with Binoy, but due to his special affection for him cannot leave him. Later, Gora has to go to Paresh Babu's house once again, where Gora's love for Sucharita awakens; Sucharita reciprocates those feelings. Gora, who has sworn that he will never marry, feels deeply guilty about this and immediately sets off on an unknown journey. Varadasundari gets along well with Magistrate Brownlow, and she chooses Binoy and Lalita to star in a show at his house. Gora travels to a village which is haunted by the atrocities of the magistrate and the superintendent. He vows to bring justice to the village and rebels against the magistrate. Enraged by this, the magistrates send Gora to jail for a month without trial for any crime. Hearing this, Lalita, who cannot tolerate injustice, is enraged. Due to this she comes home overnight on a steamer with Binoy. The steamer incident — that a Brahmo girl has come alone with a Hindu boy at night — stirs up the Brahmo Samaj. Lalita becomes notorious, so Varadasundari blames Binoy. Binoy agrees to join the Brahmo Samaj under societal pressure, but Gora objects to it, with Lalita also forbidding Binoy from doing so. After being released from prison, Gora starts visiting Sucharita's house. Sucharita accepts Gora as her guru. Meanwhile, Binoy and Lalita get married. When one day, when Krishnadayal falls ill, he informs Gora of the truth about his origins. He explains that Gora is not actually his son, but the son of a Christian Irishman. They had met when he lived in Etawah; when war broke out there, Gora's military father was killed. Gora's mother was dependent on Krishnadayal's goodwill and gave birth to Gora in his house, dying in the process. Krishnadayal has raised him since. In that one moment, Gora's whole life is destroyed, the religion for which he sacrificed his whole life having rejected him. Eventually, Gora accepts Paresh Babu as his guru, after drinking water from Lachmiya's hand. 1.4 Sarojini Naidu: (13 February 1879 – 2 March 1949) was an Indian political activist and poet. She was the former Governor of Uttar Pradesh. A proponent of civil rights, women's emancipation, and anti-imperialism, she played an important role in the Indian independence movement against the British Raj. She was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and to be appointed governor of a state. A poetess and freedom fighter, Naidu's poetry collection, "The Golden Threshold," earned her recognition as the "Nightingale of India." Naidu began writing at the age of 12. Her play, Maher Muneer, written in Persian, impressed the Nizam of Kingdom of Hyderabad. Naidu's poetry was written in English and usually took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism, which she was sometimes challenged to reconcile with her Indian nationalist politics. She was known for her vivid use of rich sensory images in her writing, and for her lush depictions of India.She was well-regarded as a poet, considered the "Indian Yeats". Her first book of poems was published in London in 1905, titled "The Golden Threshold". The publication was suggested by Edmund Gosse, and bore an introduction by Arthur Symons. It also included a sketch of Naidu as a teenager, in a ruffled white dress, drawn by John Butler Yeats. Her second and most strongly nationalist book of poems, The Bird of Time, was published in 1912. It was published in both London and New York, and includes "In the Bazaars of Hyderabad". The last book of new poems published in her lifetime, The Broken Wing (1917).It includes the poem "The Gift of India", critiquing the British empire's exploitation of Indian mothers and soldiers, which she had previously recited to the Hyderabad Ladies' War Relief Association in 1915. It also includes "Awake!", which was dedicated to MA Jinnah and with which she concluded a 1915 speech to the Indian National Congress to urge unified Indian action. A collection of all her published poems was printed in New York in 1928. After her death, Naidu's complete poems, including unpublished works, were collected in The Feather of the Dawn (1961), edited by her daughter Padmaja Naidu. Naidu's speeches were first collected and published in January 1918 as The Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, a popular publication which led to an expanded reprint in 1919 and again in 1925. 1.5 Mulk Raj Anand: (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R. K. Narayan, Ahmad Ali and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an International readership. Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of classics of modern Indian English literature; they are noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and for their analysis of impoverishment, exploitation and misfortune. Anand studied at Khalsa College, Amritsar, graduating with honours in 1924 before moving to England. While working in a restaurant to support himself, he attended University College London as an undergraduate and later studied at Cambridge University, earning a Ph.D in Philosophy in 1929 with a dissertation on Bertrand Russell and the English empiricists. During this time he forged friendships with members of the Bloomsbury Group.He became known for his protest novel Untouchable (1935), followed by other works on the Indian poor such as Coolie (1936) and Two Leaves and a Bud (1937). He is also noted for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English, and was a recipient of the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan. Anand was a lifelong socialist. His novels attack various aspects of India's social structure as well as the legacy of British rule in India; they are considered important social statements as well as literary artefacts. Anand himself was steadfast in his belief that politics and literature remained inextricable from one another. He was a founding member of the Progressive Writers’ Association and also he helped in drafting the manifesto of the association. His work includes poetry and essays on a wide range of subjects, as well as autobiographies, novels and short stories. Prominent among his novels are The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1939), The Sword and the Sickle (1942), all written in England; Coolie (1936) and The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953) are perhaps the most important of his works written in India. He also founded a literary magazine, Marg, and taught in various universities. Untouchable The book was first published in 1935. Later editions carried a foreword written by E. M. Forster. In 2004, a commemorative edition including this book was launched by Indian then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Set in the north Indian cantonment town Bulashah, Untouchable presents a day in the life of a young Indian sweeper named Bakha. The son of Lakha, head of all of Bulashah's sweepers, Bakha is intelligent but naïve, humble yet vain. Over Bakha's day, various major and minor tragedies occur, causing him to mature and turn his gaze inward. By the end of the novel, Anand makes a compelling case for the end of untouchability because it is an inhumane, unjust system of oppression. He uses Bakha and the people populating the young man's world to craft his argument. Bakha's day starts with his father yelling at him to get out of bed and clean the latrines. The relationship between the father and son is strained, in part due to Bakha's obsession with the British, in part because of Bakha's laziness. Bakha ignores his father but eventually gets up to answer the demands of a high-caste man that wants to use the bathroom. This man is Charat Singh, a famous hockey player. At first, Singh also yells at Bakha for neglecting his cleaning duties. However, the man has a changeable personality. It isn’t long before he instructs Bakha to come to see him later in the day so he can gift the young sweeper with a prized hockey stick. An overjoyed Bakha agrees. High on his good fortune he quickly finishes his morning shift and hurries home, dying of thirst. Unfortunately, there is no water in the house. His sister Sohini offers to go fill the water bucket. At the well, Sohini must wait behind several other outcasts also queued up. Also waiting for water is Gulabo, mother of one of Bakha's friends and a jealous woman. She hates Sohini and is just barely stopped from striking the young woman. A priest from the town temple named Pundit Kali Nath comes along and helps Sohini get water. He instructs her to come to clean the temple later in the day. Sohini agrees and hurries home with the water. Back at home Lakha fakes an illness and instructs Bakha to clean the town square and the temple courtyard in his stead. Bakha is wise to the wily ways of his father but cannot protest. He takes up his cleaning supplies and goes into town. His sweeping duties usually keep him too busy to go into town, and so he takes advantage of the situation by buying cigarettes and candies. As Bakha eats his candies, a high-caste man brushes up against him. The touched man did not see Bakha because the sweeper forgot to give the untouchable's call. The man is furious. His yelling attracts a large crowd that joins in on Bakha's public shaming. A traveling Muslim vendor in a horse and buggy comes along and disperses the crowd. Before the touched man leaves he slaps Bakha across the face for his impudence and scurries away. A shocked Bakha cries in the streets before gathering his things and hurrying off to the temple. This time, he did not forget the untouchable's call. At the temple, a service is in full swing. It intrigues Bakha, who eventually musters up the courage to climb up the stairs to the temple door and peer inside. He's only standing there for a few moments before a loud commotion comes from behind him. It is Sohini and Pundit Kali Nath, who is accusing Sohini of polluting him. As a crowd gathers around, Bakha pulls his sister away. Crying, she tells him that the priest sexually assaulted her. A furious Bakha tries to go back to confront the priest, but an embarrassed and ashamed Sohini forces him to leave. Bakha sends his sister home, saying he will take over her duties in town for the rest of the day. Distraught over the day's events, Bakha wanders listlessly before going to a set of homes to beg for his family's daily bread. No one is home, so he curls up in front of a house and falls asleep. A sadhu also begging for food comes and wakes him. The owner of the house Bakha slept in front of comes out with food for the sadhu. Seeing Bakha, she screams at him and refuses to give him food. She finally agrees to give him some bread in exchange for him sweeping the area in front of her house. As Bakha sweeps, the woman tells her young son to relieve himself in the gutter where Bakha is cleaning so he can sweep that up too. A disgusted Bakha throws down the broom and leaves for his house in the outcasts' colony. Back at home, it's only Lakha and Sohini. Rakha, Bakha's younger brother, is still out collecting food. Bakha tells his father that a high-caste man slapped him in the streets. Sensing his son's anger, Lakha tells him a story about the kindness of a high-caste doctor that once saved Bakha's life. Bakha is deeply moved by the story but remains upset. Soon after storytime, Rakha comes back with food. A ravenous Bakha starts to eat but then is disgusted by the idea of eating the leftovers of the high-caste people. He jumps up and says he's going to the wedding of his friend Ram Charan's sister. At Ram Charan's house, Bakha sees his other friend, Chota. The two boys wait for Ram Charan to see them through the thicket of wedding revelers. Ram Charan eventually sees his friends and runs off with them despite his mother's protestations. Alone, Chota and Ram Charan sense something is wrong with their friend. They coax Bakha to tell them what's wrong. Bakha breaks down and tells them about the slap and Sohini's assault. Ram Charan is quiet and embarrassed by Bakha's tale, but Chota is indignant. He asks Bakha if he wants to get revenge. Bakha does but realizes revenge would be a dangerous and futile endeavor. A melancholic atmosphere falls over the group. Chota attempts to cheer Bakha up by reminding him of the hockey game they will play later in the day. This reminds Bakha that he must go and get his gift from Charat Singh. Bakha goes to Charat Singh's house in the barracks, but cannot tell if the man is home. Reluctant to disturb him or the other inhabitants, Bakha settles under a tree to wait. Before long, Singh comes outside. He invites Bakha to drink tea with him and allows the untouchable to handle his items. Singh's disregard for Bakha's supposed polluting presence thrills Bakha's heart. Thus he is overjoyed when Singh gives him a brand-new hockey stick. Ecstatic about this upswing to his terrible day, Bakha goes into the hockey game on fire. He scores the first goal. The goalie of the opposite team is angry over Bakha's success and hits him. This starts an all-out brawl between the two teams that ends when a high caste player's younger brother gets hurt. Bakha picks up the young boy and rushes him home, only to have the boy's mother accuse him of killing her son. The good mood destroyed, Bakha trudges home, where his father screams at him for being gone all afternoon. He banishes Bakha from home, saying his son must never return. Bakha runs away and takes shelter under a tree far from home. The chief of the local Salvation Army, a British man named Colonel Hutchinson, comes up to him. He sees Bakha's distress and convinces the sweeper to follow him to the church. Flattered by the white man's attention, Bakha agrees, but the Colonel's constant hymn singing quickly bores him. Before the two can enter the church the Colonel's wife comes to find him. Disgusted at the sight of her husband with another "Blackie", she begins to scream and shout. Bakha feels her anger acutely and runs off again. This time Bakha runs towards town and ends up at the train station. He overhears some people discussing the appearance of Mahatma Gandhi in Bulashah. He joins the tide of people rushing to hear the Mahatma speak. Just as Bakha settles in to listen, Gandhi arrives and begins his speech. He talks about the plight of the untouchable and how it is his life's mission to see them emancipated. He ends his speech by beseeching those present to spread his message of ending untouchability. After the Mahatma departs, a pair of educated Indian men have a lively discussion about the content of the speech. One man, a lawyer named Bashir, soundly critiques most of Gandhi's opinions and ideas. The other, a poet named Sarshar, defends the Mahatma passionately and convincingly. Much of what they say goes above Bakha's head, so elevated are their vocabulary and ideas. However, he does understand when Sarshar mentions the imminent arrival of the flushing toilet in India, a machine that eradicates the need for humans to handle refuse. This machine could mean the end of untouchability. With this piece of hope, Bakha hurries home to share news of the Mahatma's speech with his father. Post-Independence Era (1947-present): 2.1 R.K. Narayan: (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001) was an Indian writer and novelist known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. Narayan's mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan's first four books including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. The fictional town of Malgudi was first introduced in Swami and Friends. The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951 and Sahitya Academy Award winner The Guide was adapted for the film (winning a Filmfare Award for Best Film) and for Broadway. In a career that spanned over sixty years Narayan received many awards and honours including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third highest civilian awards,and in 1994 the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour of India's national academy of letters. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament. Swami and Friends is the first of a series of novels written by R. K. Narayan, is set in British India in a town called Malgudi. The second and third books in the trilogy are The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. The novel follows a ten-year-old schoolboy, Swaminathan, and his attempts to court the favour of a much wealthier schoolboy, Rajam. Malgudi Schooldays is a slightly abridged version of Swami and Friends, and includes two additional stories featuring Swami from Malgudi Days and Under the Banyan Tree. Swaminathan is a lazy schoolboy who lives with his father, mother, and grandmother in Malgudi. He attends the Albert Mission School with his friends Samuel, Sankar, Somu, and Mani. The arrival of a new student, Rajam—the son of a wealthy police superintendent—threatens Swami's popularity. After an initial rivalry, Swami and Rajam reconcile and become friends. A protest, part of Gandhi's non-cooperative movement, erupts through the town. Swaminathan, participating in the protests, breaks the window of the headmaster's room. Rajam's father leads a violent crackdown of the protest. The next day, a distressed Swami runs away from the school after the headmaster vows to punish participating students. He is subsequently expelled from Albert Mission and is compelled to enroll in the stricter and more rigorous Board High School. Rajam and Swaminathan start a cricket club, gathering friends together for practice after school, in which Swami is chronically tardy due to his relatively late-afternoon dismissal from Board High School. With a match scheduled, Swami pleads with his new headmaster to allow him to leave class early; he refuses. An undeterred Swami is caught committing truancy after asking a doctor to write a note of absence and is beaten and expelled by the headmaster. Now expelled from two schools, and fearing his father's wrath at home, Swami runs away from town. Becoming lost and hungry, Swami regrets his decision. Meanwhile, Swami's father attempts to locate his missing son. Swami is discovered by a man carrying a cart who promptly contacts his parents. Swami's relief at returning home turns to dismay when his friends report that they have lost their cricket game, and Rajam declares the end of their friendship. One night, Mani informs Swami that Rajam and his family are relocating to another city. Swami wakes up early the next day to attempt to reconcile and bid his farewell to Rajam, gifting him a copy of Hans Christen Anderson's Fairy Tales. He asks Rajam, as the train speeds away, if he would ever return, but his reply is drowned out by the sound of the locomotive. Swami weeps, wondering if Rajam would ever think of him again. 2.2 Vikram Seth: (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novelsand poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Academy Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon. Seth has published eight books of poetry and three novels. In 1980, he wrote Mappings, his first book of poetry. The publication of A Suitable Boy, a 1,349-page novel, propelled Seth into the public limelight. His second novel, An Equal Music, deals with the troubled love-life of a violinist. Seth's work Two Lives, published in 2005, is a memoir of the marriage of his great-uncle and aunt. In addition to The Golden Gate, Seth has written other works of poetry including Mappings (1980), The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985), All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990) and Three Chinese Poets (1992). His children's book, Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) consists of 10 stories about animals. He has written a travel book, From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983), an account of a journey through Tibet, China and Nepal. A sequel to A Suitable Boy, A Suitable Girl, was announced in 2009. 2.3 Anita Desai: (born 24 June 1937), is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. She received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. She won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea (1983). Her other works include The Peacock, Voices in the City, Fire on the Mountain and an anthology of short stories, Games at Twilight. She is on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London. Clear Light of Day is a novel published in 1980 by Indian novelist and three-time Booker Prize finalist Anita Desai. Set primarily in Old Delhi, the story describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family, starting with the characters as adults and moving back into their lives throughout the course of the novel. While the primary theme is the importance of family, other predominant themes include the importance of forgiveness, the power of childhood, and the status of women, particularly their role as mothers and caretakers, in modern-day India. The novel is split into four sections covering the Das family from the children's perspective in this order: adulthood, adolescence and early adulthood, childhood, and a final return to an adult perspective in the final chapter. The story centres on the Das family, who have grown apart with adulthood. It starts with Tara, whose husband Bakul is India's ambassador to the US, greeting her sister Bimla (Bim), who lives in the family's Old Delhi home, teaching history and taking care of their autistic brother Baba. Their conversation eventually comes to Raja, their brother who lives in Hyderabad. Bim, not wanting to go to the wedding of Raja's daughter, shows Tara an old letter from when Raja became her landlord, in which he unintentionally insulted her after the death of his father-in-law, the previous landlord. The section closes with the two sisters visiting the neighbours, the Misras. In part two of the novel, the setting switches to partition-era India, when the characters are adolescents in the house. Raja is severely ill with tuberculosisand is left to Bim's ministrations. Aunt Mira ("Mira-masi"), their supposed caretaker after the death of the children's often absent parents, dies of alcoholism. Earlier, Raja's fascination with Urdu attracts the attention of the family's Muslim landlord, Hyder Ali, whom Raja idolizes. After recovering from TB, Raja follows Hyder Ali to Hyderabad. Tara escapes from the situation through marriage to Bakul, leaving Bim to provide for Baba alone, in the midst of the partition and the death of Gandhi. In part three Bim, Raja and Tara are depicted awaiting the birth of their brother Baba in pre-partition India. Aunt Mira, widowed by her husband and mistreated by her in-laws, is brought in to help with Baba, who is autistic, and to raise the children. Raja is fascinated with poetry. He shares a close bond with Bim, the head girl at school, although they often exclude Tara. Tara wants to be a mother, although this fact brings ridicule from Raja and Bim, who want to be heroes. The final section returns to modern India and shows Tara confronting Bim over Raja's daughter's wedding and Bim's broken relationship with Raja. This climaxes when Bim explodes at Baba. After her anger fades, she decides that family love is irreplaceable and can cover all wrongs. After Tara leaves, she goes to her neighbours the Misras for a concert, where she is touched by the unbreakable relationship they seem to have. She tells Tara to come back from the wedding with Raja and forgives him. In Custody (1984) is a novel set in Delhi, India by Indian American writer Anita Desai.It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984. Deven earns a living by teaching Hindi literature to college students. As his true interest was in Urdu poetry, he jumps at the chance to meet the great Urdu poet, Nur. Under the advice of his friend Murad, an editor of a periodical devoted to Urdu literature, Deven procures a secondhand tape recorder so that he can help transcribe Urdu's early poetry, as well as conduct an interview or even write the memoirs of Nur. However, things do not happen as he expects them to. Devens' old friend Murad visits Deven unexpectedly with an offer for him to interview a great Urdu poet Nur Sahjahanabadi who lives in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi for his magazine. Deven is fond of Urdu poetry. He accepts the offer. At first, he thinks that he is getting a chance to sit before a great Urdu poet but after reaching his house he notices the unbearable condition of Nur's house. When he meets Nur, he refuses to give an interview by saying that Urdu is now at its last stage and soon this beautiful language will not exist. But he shows some trust in Deven. But Deven gets annoyed by the condition of Nur's house and drops the idea of interviewing Nur. Murad again convinces him to interview Nur with the help of tape recorder so that it can be further used for audio learning by Urdu scholars. Deven, who is a poor lecturer, asks for money from the college for a tape recorder. He goes to a shop to buy, where the shopkeeper, Jain, offers him a second hand tape recorder. At first Deven refuses to purchase it but later Jain convinces him that it is a machine with good quality and his own nephew Chikua will help them to operate it while recording the interview. Unwillingly, Deven agrees to purchase it. Nur's first wife promises Deven that she can arrange a room for Deven if he gives her some money. Deven arranged the money for the payment to her by the college authority with the help of his colleague-cum-friend Siddiqui. He then goes to Delhi with Chiku for recording, but he fails to record the interview. Now, he not only has no recording but also has to bear the expenses like payment demanded by poet, his wife, nephews of Jain, etc. 2.4 Salman Rushdie: (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. Rushdie's first novel, Grimus (1975), a part-science fiction tale, was generally ignored by the public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children (1981), catapulted him to literary notability. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years. Midnight's Children follows the life of a child, born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who is endowed with special powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn of a new and tumultuous age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the birth of the modern nation of India. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie. After Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote Shame (1983), in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhuttoand General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Shame won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Kashmiri diaspora. Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called The Jaguar Smile. This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. His most controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988. It was followed by Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990. Written in the shadow of a fatwa, it is about the dangers of story-telling and an allegorical defence of the power of stories over silence. In addition to novels, Rushdie has published many short stories, including those collected in East, West (1994). The Moor's Last Sigh, a family epic ranging over some 100 years of India's history was published in 1995. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) is a remaking of the myth of Orpheus that presents an alternative history of modern rock music. Following the novel Fury, set mainly in New York and avoiding the previous sprawling narrative style that spans generations, periods and places, Rushdie's 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown, a story about love and betrayal set in Kashmir and Los Angeles, was hailed as a return to form by a number of critics. In his 2002 non-fiction collection Step Across This Line, he professes his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, among others. His early influences included Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, Lewis Carroll, Günter Grass and James Joyce. Rushdie was a personal friend of Angela Carter's and praised her highly in the foreword of her collection Burning your Boats. 2008 saw the publication of The Enchantress of Florence, one of Rushdie's most challenging works that focuses on the past. It tells the story of a European's visit to Akbar's court, and his revelation that he is a lost relative of the Mughal emperor. His novel Luka and the Fire of Life, a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, was published in November 2010 to critical acclaim. 2015 saw the publication of Rushdie's novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, a shift back to his old beloved style of magic realism. This novel is designed in the structure of a Chinese mystery box with different layers. Based on the central conflict of scholar Ibn Rushd (from whom Rushdie's family name derives), Rushdie goes on to explore several themes of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism by depicting a war of the universe which a supernatural world of jinns also accompanies. In 2017, The Golden House, a satirical novel set in contemporary America, was published. 2019 saw the publication of Rushdie's fourteenth novel Quichotte, inspired by Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel Don Quixote. In 2021 Languages of Truth, a collection of essays written between 2003 and 2020 was published. Rushdie's fifteenth novel Victory City, described as an epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, was published in February 2023. The book is Rushdie's first released work since he was attacked and injured in 2022. Midnight’s Children Midnight's Children is a loose allegory for events in 1947 British Raj India and after the partition of India. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as well as an enormous and constantly dripping nose with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. The novel is divided into three books. The first book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to the fall of British Colonial India and the partition. Saleem is born precisely at midnight, 15 August 1947, therefore, exactly as old as independent India. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. on that date are imbued with special powers. Saleem, using his telepathic powers, assembles a Midnight Children's Conference, reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts. In particular, those children born closest to the stroke of midnight wield more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva "of the Knees", Saleem's nemesis, and Parvati, called "Parvati-the-witch," are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem's story. Meanwhile, Saleem's family begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent. During this period he also suffers amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythological exile in the jungle of Sundarban, where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the Indira Gandhi-proclaimed Emergency and her son Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's over-reach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation, a chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by history. 2.5 Arundhati Roy: (born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, in June 2017 was published and the novel was chosen for the Man Booker Prize 2017 Long List. She is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. God of Small Things The story is set in Aymanam, part of Kottayam district in Kerala, India. The novel has a disjointed narrative; the temporal setting shifts back and forth between 1969, when fraternal twins Rahel, a girl, and Esthappen, a boy, are seven years old, and 1993, when the twins are reunited. Ammu Ipe is desperate to escape her ill-tempered father, known as Pappachi, and her bitter, long-suffering mother, known as Mammachi. She leaves Ayemenem, and to avoid returning, she marries a man only known by the name of Baba in Calcutta. She later discovers that he is an alcoholic, and he physically abuses her and tries to pimp her to his boss. Ammu gives birth to Estha and Rahel, leaves her husband, and returns to Ayemenem to live with her parents and brother, Chacko. Chacko has returned to India from Englandfollowing his divorce from an English woman, Margaret, and the subsequent death of Pappachi. The multi-generational, Syrian Christian family home in Ayemenem also includes Pappachi's sister, Navomi Ipe, known as Baby Kochamma. As a young girl, Baby Kochamma fell in love with Father Mulligan, a young Irish priest who had come to Ayemenem. To get closer to him, Baby Kochamma converted to Roman Catholicism and joined a convent against her father's wishes. After a few months in the convent, she realized that her vows brought her no closer to the man she loved. Her father eventually rescued her from the convent and sent her to America for education. Because of her unrequited love for Father Mulligan, Baby Kochamma remained unmarried for the rest of her life, becoming deeply bitter over time. Throughout the book, she delights in the misfortune of others and constantly manipulates events to bring calamity. The death of Margaret's second husband Joe in a car accident prompts Chacko to invite her and their daughter, Sophie, to spend Christmas in Ayemenem. On the road to the airport to pick up Margaret and Sophie, the family visits a theater, and on the way, they encounter a group of Communist protesters who surround the car and humiliate Baby Kochamma. Rahel thinks she sees amongst the protesters Velutha, a servant who works for the family's pickle factory, Paradise Pickles and Preserve, and does extra chores for Mammachi. Later at the theater, Estha is sexually molested by the "Orangedrink Lemondrink Man", a vendor working at the snack counter. Estha's traumatic experience factors into the tragic events at the heart of the narrative. Rahel's assertion that she saw Velutha in the Communist mob, causes Baby Kochamma to associate Velutha with her humiliation at the protesters' hands, and she begins to harbor enmity toward him. Rahel and Estha form an unlikely bond with Velutha and come to love him. Ammu soon gets attracted to Velutha mainly because of her children's love towards him, and eventually, they begin a short-lived romantic affair. Velutha is a Dalit, the lowest caste, meaning his romance with Ammu is forbidden, and culminates in tragedy for the family. When her relationship with Velutha gets exposed by Velutha's father, Vellya Paapen, Ammu is locked in her room and Velutha is banished. In a fit of rage, Ammu blames the twins for her misfortune and calls them "millstones around her neck." Distraught, Estha and Rahel decide to escape. Their cousin, Sophie also joins them. During the night, as they try to reach the History House, an abandoned house across the river, their boat capsizes and Sophie drowns. When Margaret and Chacko return from a trip where they had gone to arrange Margaret's and Sophie's return trips, they see Sophie's corpse laid out on the sofa. Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of being responsible for Sophie's death. A group of policemen hunt Velutha down, savagely beat him for crossing caste lines, and arrest him on the brink of death. The twins, huddling in the abandoned house, witness the horrific scene. Later, when they reveal the truth to the chief of police Thomas Mathew, he is alarmed. Not unknown to the fact that Velutha is a Communist, he is afraid that if word gets out that the arrest and beating were wrongful, it will cause unrest among the local Communists led by Comrade K.N.M Pillai. Mathew threatens to hold Baby Kochamma responsible for falsely accusing Velutha. To save herself, Baby Kochamma tricks Estha and Rahel into believing that the two of them would be implicated as having murdered Sophie out of jealousy and would surely be incarcerated with Ammu. She thus convinces them to lie to the inspector that Velutha had abducted them and had murdered Sophie. Velutha dies of his injuries overnight. After Sophie's funeral, Ammu goes to the police to tell the truth about her relationship with Velutha. Afraid of being exposed, Baby Kochamma convinces Chacko that Ammu and the twins were responsible for his daughter's death. Chacko kicks Ammu out of the house and forces her to send Estha to live with his father. Estha never sees Ammu again. Ammu dies alone in a motel a few years later at the age of 31. After a turbulent childhood and adolescence in India, Rahel gets married and goes to America. There, she divorces before returning to Ayemenem after years of working dead-end jobs. Estha and Rahel, now 31, are reunited for the first time since they were children. They had been haunted by their guilt and their grief-ridden pasts. Toward the end of the novel, Estha and Rahel engage in incestuous sex, and it's said that "what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief." The novel comes to an end with a nostalgic recounting of Ammu and Velutha's love affair. Contemporary Authors: 3.1 Jhumpa Lahiri: (born July 11, 1967) is an American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian. Her debut collection of short-stories Interpreter of Maladies (1999) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. Unaccustomed Earth (2008) won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, while her second novel, The Lowland (2013), was a finalist for both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction. In these works, Lahiri explored the Indian-immigrant experience in America. 3.2 Amitav Ghosh: (born 11 July 1956) is an Indian writer. He won the 54th Jnanpith award in 2018, India's highest literary honour. Ghosh's ambitious novels use complex narrative strategies to probe the nature of national and personal identity, particularly of the people of India and South Asia. He has written historical fiction and also written non-fiction works discussing topics such as colonialism and climate change. Ghosh studied at The Doon School, Dehradun, and earned a doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Oxford. His first novel The Circle of Reason was published in 1986, which he followed with later fictional works including The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace. Between 2004 and 2015, he worked on the Ibis trilogy, which revolves around the build-up and implications of the First Opium War. His non-fiction work includes In an Antique Land and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Ghosh holds two Lifetime Achievement awards and four honorary doctorates. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest honours, by the President of India. In 2010 he was a joint winner, along with Margaret Atwood of a Dan David prize, and 2011 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Blue Metropolis festival in Montreal. He was the first English-language writer to receive the award. Ghosh's notable non-fiction writings are In an Antique Land (1992), Dancing in Cambodia and at Large in Burma (1998), Countdown (1999), and The Imam and the Indian (2002, a collection of essays on themes such as fundamentalism, the history of the novel, Egyptian culture, and literature. His writings appear in newspapers and magazines in India and abroad. In The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), Ghosh discussed modern literature and art as failing to adequately address climate change. In 2021, The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis was published. In it, Ghosh discussed the journey of nutmeg from its native Banda Islands to many other parts of the world, taking this as a lens through which to understand the historical influence of colonialism upon attitudes towards Indigenous cultures and environmental change. 3.3 Arvind Adiga: (born 23 October 1974) is an Indian writer and journalist. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Booker Prize and has been adapted into a Netflix original movie The White Tiger. He is the fourth Indian-born author to win the prize, after Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, and Kiran Desai. V. S. Naipaul, another winner, is ethnically Indian but was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. (More recently, Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker Prize for her novel Tomb of Sand). The novel studies the contrast between India's rise as a modern global economy and the lead character, Balram, who comes from crushing rural poverty. The White Tiger Balram Halwai narrates his life in a letter, written in seven consecutive nights and addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. In his letter, Balram explains how he, the son of a rickshaw puller, escaped a life of servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as an entrepreneur. Balram was born in a rural village in Gaya district, where he lived with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. He is a smart child but is forced to leave school in order to help pay for his cousin's dowry and begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working there he begins to learn about India's government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad servant but a good listener and decides to become a driver. After learning how to drive, Balram finds a job driving Ashok, the son of one of Laxmangarh's landlords. He takes over the job of the main driver, from a small car to a heavy-luxury described Honda City. He stops sending money back to his family and disrespects his grandmother during a trip back to his village. Balram moves to New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Throughout their time in Delhi, Balram is exposed to extensive corruption, especially in the government. In Delhi, the contrast between the poor and the wealthy is made even more evident by their proximity to one another. One night Pinky Madam takes the wheel from Balram, while drunk, hits something in the road and drives away; we are left to assume that she has killed a child. Ashok's family puts pressure on Balram to confess that he had been driving alone. Ashok becomes increasingly involved in bribing government officials for the benefit of the family coal business. Balram then decides that killing Ashok will be the only way to escape India's Rooster Coop – Balram's metaphor for describing the oppression of India's poor, just as roosters in a coop at the market watch themselves get slaughtered one by one, but are unable or unwilling to break out of the cage. Similarly, Balram too is portrayed as being trapped in the metaphorical Rooster Coop: his family controls what he does and society dictates how he acts. After killing Ashok by stabbing him with a broken bottle and stealing the large bribe Ashok was carrying with him, Balram moves to Bangalore, where he bribes the police in order to help start his own taxi business. Just like Ashok, Balram pays off a family whose son one of his taxi drivers hit and killed. Balram explains that his own family was almost certainly killed by Ashok's relatives as retribution for his murder. At the end of the novel, Balram rationalizes his actions and considers that his freedom is worth the lives of his family and of Ashok. And thus ends the letter to Jiabao, letting the reader think of the dark humour of the tale, as well as the idea of life as a trap introduced by the writer. 3.4 Kiran Desai: Kiran Desai (born 3 September 1971). Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award. Kiran Desai is the daughter of novelist Anita Desai. The Inheritance of Loss The story centres around the lives of Biju and Sai. Biju is an Indian living in the United States illegally, son of a cook who works for Sai's grandfather. Sai is an orphan living in mountainous Kalimpong with her maternal grandfather Jemubhai Patel, the cook, and a dog named Mutt. Her mother was a Gujarati and her father a Zoroastrian orphan himself. Author Desai alternates the narration between these two points of view. The action of the novel takes place in 1986. Biju, the other character, is an illegal alien residing in the United States, trying to make a new life for himself, and contrasts this with the experiences of Sai, an anglicised Indian girl living with her grandfather in India. The novel shows both internal conflicts within India and tensions between the past and present. Desai writes of rejection and yet awe of the English way of life, opportunities to gain money in America, and the squalor of living in India. Through critical portrayal of Sai's grandfather, the retired judge, Desai comments upon leading Indians who were considered too anglicised and forgetful of traditional ways of Indian life. The retired judge Jemubhai Patel is a man disgusted by Indian ways and customs -- so much so, that he eats chapatis (a moist South Asian flatbread) with knife and fork. Patel disdains other Indians, including the father with whom he breaks ties and the wife whom he abandons at his father's home after torturing her. Yet Patel never is fully accepted by the British, despite his education and adopted mannerisms. The major theme running throughout The Inheritance of Loss is one closely related to colonialism and the effects of post-colonialism: the loss of identity and the way it travels through generations as a sense of loss. Some characters snub those who embody the Indian way of life, others are angered by anglicised Indians who have lost their traditions; none is content. The Gorkhaland movement is used as the historic backdrop of the novel. Poets: 4.1 Nissim Ezekiel: 16 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was an Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor and art critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian Poetry in English.He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his collection, "Latter-Day Psalms", by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Ezekiel's poetry, collected in "Night of the Scorpion" and "Hymns in Darkness," explored themes of identity, spirituality, and the complexities of modern life. 4.2 Kamala Das: (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. Kamala Das was a confessional poet whose poems have often been considered at par with those of Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell. Das, also known as Kamala Surayya, challenged societal norms through her bold and confessional poetry, as seen in "The Descendants" and "The Old Playhouse." 4.3 Agha Shahid Ali: (4 February 1949 – 8 December 2001) was an Indian-born poet, of Afghan and Indian descent, who immigrated to the United States,and became affiliated with the literary movement known as New Formalism in American poetry. His collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, and Rooms Are Never Finished, the latter a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001. Ali expressed his love and concern for his people in In Memory of Begum Akhtar and The Country Without a Post Office, which was written with the Kashmir conflict as a backdrop. He was a translator of Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems), and editor for the Middle East and Central Asia segment of Jeffery Paine's Poetry of Our World. He also compiled the volume Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals, and his poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and other anthologies. Known for his lyrical and evocative poetry, Ali's collections like "The Beloved Witness" and "The Veiled Suite" explored themes of love, loss, and the Kashmir conflict. 4.4. Arun Kolatkar: (1 November 1932 – 25 September 2004) was an Indian poet who wrote in both Marathi and English. His poems found humour in everyday matters. Kolatkar's poetry collection, "Jejuri," blended mythology, spirituality, and everyday observations to paint a vivid picture of Indian society and culture. The poem sequence deals with a visit to Jejuri, a pilgrimage site for the local Maharashtrian deity Khandoba (a local deity, also an incarnation of Shiva). 4.6. Meena Kandasamy: Ilavenil Meena Kandasamy (born 1984) is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and activist from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Meena published two collections of poetry, Touch (2006) and Ms. Militancy (2010). From 2001-2002, she edited The Dalit, a bi-monthly alternative English magazine of the Dalit Media Network Dramatists: 5.1 Girish Karnad: (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019)[was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee. He wrote his first play, the critically acclaimed Yayati (1961), while still at Oxford. Centred on the story of a mythological king, the play established Karnad’s use of the themes of history and mythology that would inform his work over the following decades. Karnad’s next play, Tughlaq (1964), tells the story of the 14th-century sultan Muḥammad ibn Tughluq and remains among the best known of his works. 5.2 Vijay Tendulkar: (6 January 1928 – 19 May 2008) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. His Marathi plays established him as a writer of plays with contemporary, unconventional themes. He is best known for his plays Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe (1967), Ghāshirām Kotwāl (1972), and Sakhārām Binder (1972) 5.3 Mahesh Dattani: (born 7 August 1958) is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara, Thirty Days in September and The Big Fat City. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award Dattani's plays like "Final Solutions" and "Dance Like a Man" tackled themes of religious tensions, gender roles, and the complexities of identity in contemporary India. Conclusion: The history of Indian Writing in English encompasses a wide array of authors, poets, and dramatists who have contributed significantly to the literary landscape, both in India and globally. From the colonial era to the present day, these literary figures have captured the essence of Indian society, culture, and the human experience through their diverse and thought-provoking works. Their contributions have shaped the narrative of IWE and continue to inspire future generations of writers to explore and express their unique perspectives. The rich tapestry of Indian Writing in English reflects the ever-evolving nature of Indian literature, ensuring its relevance and influence in the years to come.