Essentially Indian

Twenty writers whose 20 essays piece together and bring alive from the nation’s collective memory what it means to be truly “Indian”. Indian Essentials is a book that has been in the making for many years, authored by us all in one way or another. It was brought out to celebrate 60 years of the Indian Republic. And it holds as true a mirror as there could be to this vast and often chaotic subcontinent we call “home”.

Through the essays, the authors express their personal recollections of the matter at hand, garnished with liberal doses of scholarship or speculation, as the case may be. The subjects are the usual suspects, for all the obvious reasons — politics, religion, cricket, our near obsession with sex and our refusal to acknowledge it, Bollywood, our voracious appetite for the yellow metal, the way we have appropriated and, more often than not, mangled the English language, and the like. Personal memory serves as the starting block for most of the authors. So, while Vidya Subrahmaniam begins from her coverage in June 1988 of the “parliamentary by-election that posterity would record as a turning point in Indian politics” in The Great Indian Election; Jerry Pinto refers to how his “first time was marked only by boredom” before his “full-fledged love affair with Hindi cinema” in Talking Bollywood; and Seema Goswami remembers that “the saris worn by the heroines of Amar Chitra Katha comics rode treacherously low on the ir slim waists” (Tradition in Six Yards), unlike those of the ladies around her! (As an aside, this reviewer was in for quite a rude surprise when the text read “you feel more of a woman when you wear a sari”! Goswami usually writes balanced, reasoned prose.) The personal, of course, goes on to embrace the nation; soon enough, we begin to nod our heads in agreement as we recognise our own actions and points of view in the text.

There are connections between the essays, something that is not very difficult to trace. Let us take up one such instance. The Great Indian Family (Geeta Doctor) would fully endorse the Matrimonial Nation (Namita Gokhale), which, in turn, would give rise to Gold’s Fools (Srividya Natarajan) who, having forgotten our more liberal past and in spite of many social changes, would still believe that “sex in India is about saving the species” (Hum Log, the Sex Log, Samrat). The invisible, hard-to-define thread that binds us all runs through this narrative as well.

It is a Herculean task to truly represent and give voice to the entire Indian nation. This book tries valiantly and succeeds most of the time. However, it does falter in some places. The authors, while they do their best to provide a bird’s eye view of their subject, betray their areas of expertise or preference. So, Vikram Doctor writes in his usual effortless manner about mouth-watering street food but mainly in Mumbai (Finger-lickin). Gokhale begins by commenting that “an Indian marriage is a display of kinship, caste and community status”, but then goes on to linger around north India. Is it because there are no ostentatious displays of wealth in a south Indian marriage? Nothing akin to garlands of fake currency, brass bands in full blare, the groom atop a pitiable ghodi? This reviewer for sure is curious. The north-east of India is conspicuous by its absence. Is the region completely different from the rest of “mainstream” India? Surely some north-eastern traits and customs deserved inclusion.

The book is described as “a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek ode to India”. It is “quirky” alright (wouldn’t any book on any race be?), but it does not fully merit the first description. The authors do dish out wit in subtle ways, but these lead to mere chuckles. The humour is mainly understated and irony seems to be the forte of most of the contributors. Maybe some of the truths within the subjects are quite unpalatable and do not lend themselves too easily to “light-heartedness” — widows being dumped in “holy” sites (Pilgrimagetirtha.com, Devdutt Pattanaik), the fact that “we are filthy people... (only) textually... squeaky clean” (Going against the Flow, Indrajit Hazra), baby girls’ lives snuffed out cruelly (Gold’s Fools), and marriages that “spawn cruelties like dowry and bride-burning”. A Short Dictionary of [Other] Things Indian, that comes purportedly free with the book, meanwhile, is quite hilarious. (This reviewer went through that slim booklet first!)

Indian Essentials is a well-thought-out book and most of the authors are familiar names. However, the inclusion of Chalta Hai could have been more vigorously debated and scrutinised. Although the attitude is a malaise that shows no sign of correction, even a seasoned writer like Bachi Karkaria cannot help but sound repetitive in the essay. After all, it is a subject that can be illustrated by three to four examples. And unlike the other topics, there is hardly any scholarly scrutiny as to why we Indians wallow in it.

The book, however, is an enjoyable read, whether done so voraciously over long stretches of time or by dipping in and out of it as desired. It could very well find itself on many summer reading lists, appealing as it will to a vast range of sensibilities and preferences. There’s something in it for everyone.

INDIAN ESSENTIALS
Penguin Books, 2010
526 pages; Rs 450