T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan: How perhaps to write English

If you choose to write in a language other than your own, you must also try and adopt the nature of its native users

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For nearly about two decades now I have been grappling with a question to which there seems to be no satisfactory answer: why is it that only Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officers write fiction?

The IFS fellows are more prolific. Less work during the day, possibly, or none at all.

Also, why don’t the other oppressors — policemen, taxmen, auditors, accountants etc — do so? Or do they?

From the IAS we have Upamanyu Chatterjee with his English August and Mammaries of the Welfare State and maybe one more title. There is Bhaskar Ghose, also an IAS, but writing after retirement. His first novel, The Teller of Tales, was a masterpiece of subtle writing but it went somewhat unrecognised.

From the IFS we have Kiran Doshi with his Birds of Passage and Diplomatic Tales. (The latter was a novel in verse, so I had reviewed it for this paper in verse. You can read that outstanding effort here "Ya chatur bolo, ya goda bolo".)

There are some others from the IFS whose novels I have yet to read but I am sure they are very good: Vikas Swarup, whose book, Q&A became the film, Slumdog Millionaire and Pawan Varma or Abhay K who writes poems also.

Some of these IAS and IFS officers write their novels and poems while they are still in service, which makes me wonder: (a) do they sleep at all, and (b) if they do, when do they do what the taxpayer paid them to do? Indeed, do they do it at all or just goof off?

But never mind such impertinent pedantry and thank your god for small mercies. Imagine how much worse things would be if their novels had not been written. An unread file or a delayed visa is small price to pay.

Two more for the flight

Now Kiran Doshi has written his third novel, of which more when it is published, soon. All I can tell you now is that it will be quite fat and that it is hugely entertaining. And of course, it is delectably written.

For the moment, though, I want — as the babus say — to “draw your attention” to Bhaskar Ghose’s second novel, Parricide. It is yet another example of textured writing, a difficult story well told by an excellent teller of tales.

It has a strange theme: a son finds his bride having sex with his father on her wedding night. It turns out that the father had been having sex with the girl for a while before. Indeed, he marries her only so that he can continue to do so, which, if you think of it, was quite clever of them.

Mr Ghose’s skill lies in shocking you with just the one sentence about the scene. Or two. He then proceeds to tell the story of how the son copes with the problem of a lusting father and lustful wife — who becomes his mother because the community forces the father to marry the girl.

And of course, the dilemma of the central character — should he forgive his father or not — is unique. It has to be, don’t you think? Gosh!

It is an Oedipal tale. But far from being gross, Mr Ghose writes it ever so delicately. It is not often that you find an Indian who lives in India and writes in English doing that.

Then there is the setting and the characters. Familiar people float through the novel and they speak in a very recognisable language, all South Delhi types. If you come from a certain background like Delhi University (North Campus, please), Oxford and Cambridge, you identify with them immediately.

A matter of style

While reading Mr Ghose’s book the thought occurred to me: is this very English way of writing a better way for Indians than the style invented by Salman Rushdie and copied by so many others? You know, trying to sound Indian in English? All those silly literal translations and audio devices like thummak, thummak, etc?

I’d rather be a performing monkey.

So I prefer Mr Ghose’s approach: if you are thinking in English, as so many of us still do, then write it in English rather than some verbal pidgin. Otherwise don’t try. English, in spite of its limitations of vocabulary, can be fairly versatile even without words from Indian languages.

If you choose to write in a language other than your own, you must, to the extent possible, also adopt the outlook and nature of its native users. It is only fair. To the reader, I mean.

After all, a Tamilian writing in Bengali will never sound right if he tries to sound like a Tamilian writing in Bengali. He must, if he wants to sound credible, make the effort to sound like a Bengali; you know, self-obsessed, self-indulgent — and intelligent.