A Conversation with Githa Hariharan
Arnab Chakladar: This may be a good moment to come back to one of the issues we'd placed on hold a while back: how do you feel about the various claims made for and against both Indian writers writing in English and about diasporic writers more generally, and the way in which one might say the diasporic writer has come to stand in, at least internationally, for the Indian writer?
we have to try and find ways of moving towards a point where Indian literatures are, as a matter of routine, represented by a multiplicity of voices and languages
Githa Hariharan: I don't think it is an either-or situation. Really, we should know how to live in a crowd -- for god's sake! -- given the Indian experience. I think to make one voice legitimate at the expense of another is very foolish. The problem, of course, is that it is not necessarily readers and writers who decide on this representation. There are two kinds of official lines put out about who represents "Indian" writing. One is the more powerful one, the power center of the international marketplace, what critics in the West write, what academics, again mostly in the West, say. Writing in English is more accessible there -- possibly a particular kind of writing. There's always the kind of politics you are going to have because the power centers that decide on this representation role are elsewhere. In any case, in India, you may tend to say "the best of Tamil writing" or "a Hindi writer" rather than trying to define writers as Indian.
Within India the official line on representation seems to often get reduced to writing in English versus other Indian languages. The English vs. the other Indian languages discussion -- and I'm not going to say controversy or quarrel -- has not been taken to a second phase. I don't think it is very interesting or useful to go on and on about how Indian writers in English get more attention and so on. Obviously, there is a relationship between English and power; Indian academics in English get more attention, so do papers and TV news channels in English -- it is like saying the upper class gets more attention. So it is something you should acknowledge quickly and move on to more interesting issues: such as what are some of the ways we can actually not throw out English but counterbalance it with more attention to other languages, more ways of sharing power. There's no point in just whipping English (usually in English). Remember the example of West Bengal, where people were very angry when English as the medium of instruction was thrown out -- you can't decide for people. But of course we have to try and find ways of moving towards a point where Indian literatures are, as a matter of routine, represented by a multiplicity of voices and languages. Finally, it is for Indian writers and readers and academics to achieve this. Maybe for a start we could start taking our own opinions as seriously as we take those in the Guardian or The New Yorker. If we could do this without being jingoistic we may learn some self-confidence.
Arnab Chakladar: If I may stick with this question of the "English vs. /and the others" debate: Do you think there needs to be a more concerted effort made to keep a conversation alive not just between writers in different languages but also readers in different languages? Especially given the multilingual experience that you mentioned as a crucial aspect of Indian identity. What role would you say translation might play in all this?
as a reader, as a critical reader, you have to struggle between a feeling of cynicism that something must be bad because they are making such an obscenely huge fuss about it, and the possibility - the little hope - that there really is something worthwhile there
Githa Hariharan: Readers have always found ways to talk to each other across languages. As long as there is translation, they will continue to do this. In the case of India, we must support the brave and mostly unrewarded efforts of our translators. Ideally there should be more than one translation of certain books that are considered breakthroughs in the different languages. I think we must have translation among the Indian languages, as well as into English and back into an Indian language, as part of school and college education. This is a sensible way to learn language, literature, and partake of more than one strand of our literatures. And a lot of the talk about multiple literatures would make more sense to our young people if we actually engaged in translation in a formal sense in the course of being educated. Informally, of course, we get to be translators quite often in our day-to-day lives in India.
Arnab Chakladar: Returning to the question of hype and noise and the ordaining of certain writers and books in Western power centers...
Githa Hariharan: As a reader, as a critical reader, you have to struggle between a feeling of cynicism that something must be bad because they are making such an obscenely huge fuss about it, and the possibility -- the little hope -- that there really is something worthwhile there. Personally, I resist anything that seems like the flavour of the hour. Later, of course, there is, as I said, the possibility that you will read the book and even enjoy it without the advance figure or the author's celebrity status getting in the way. Hopefully by then you can ignore all this, including where the writer lives -- in India, or for the last 50 years in some boondocks in Canada or somewhere. The point is what is the writer doing? If the writer, for example, is writing about a particular historical event in modern India and is using the realistic mode you can't help wanting a certain feel...I don't quite know how to define this...not so much an "I was there as a witness" crude thing, but certainly the way in which you use your research, what you select, what you leave out, and who you are speaking to affects how true your account sounds...
Arnab Chakladar: The American critic Fredric Jameson in a notorious article about third world fiction noted that the first world reader when reading a third world text feels the presence of another (third world) reader -- the real, intended reader of the text, the one who gets references the first world reader may not grasp easily and so on. What you're referring to makes me think of the other side of that, this sense that some Indian readers may get while reading certain Indian writers...that they can almost sense the presence of a First World reader...for whom things need to be explained that don't for them...
one of my favourite stories is that of an agent in England who once told me, many years back, that he couldn't sell The Ghosts of Vasu Master because it was not a "recognizable other"
Githa Hariharan: There should be all kinds of writing -- not every work need be a Great Work. But I think you'd have to be a somewhat mediocre writer for that to become a problem. And there are lots of those--you know they're explaining to you what, I don't know, what Sindoor is, or calling vadai or vadas...
Arnab Chakladar: ...lentil doughnuts...
(laughter)
Githa Hariharan: ...yes, that's not even worth considering, and maybe editors in publishing houses can deal with that. On the other hand, a kind of packaging of Indian "problems" as the "Indian nation" or the "Indian experience" -- that sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable. One of my favourite stories is that of an agent in England who once told me, many years back, that he couldn't sell The Ghosts of Vasu Master because it was not a "recognizable other". I was very annoyed at the time, but I must say the phrase helped me understand something of power centers, location, and the insidious ways in which you can be sold as an "Indian writer", not as a writer. In a way, it's the same thing as "woman writer" and "writer". Perhaps it's only when you get promoted to plain writer that you get a sense of equality. It's not that categories of nationality are not used for French or German writers. But they don't have either the multilingual or the formerly colonized or neo-colonised situations we have.
Arnab Chakladar: I get this reaction sometimes from some of my students to some of the books...I tend to teach Indian writers who aren't easily available in the US...they say, "this could be happening anywhere;" and I say, "well, what did you expect?"
Githa Hariharan: Yes, and coming back to the original question: another agent, a very nice one, said to me after Dreams came out, they don't really want a modern, sophisticated Indian writer...they want...you know...
Arnab Chakladar: they want the festival of India...
(laughter)
Githa Hariharan: ...with caste and the smells and sights of India thrown in and possibly a visitor from the West trying to make sense of it...but a writer cannot function like that. And finally there's that question of who you are writing for, which is a question that is going to exercise you till the last of your writing days...it is best I think to have a group in your head that you write for...people with the highest possible standards (laughs) who keep you honest -- even people you haven't met but whose work you know so well, and you think, my god, he wouldn't have passed this! I think that keeps you honest, it also keeps you from repeating yourself...it also keeps you cussed enough to keep writing.
Arnab Chakladar: ...and insulates you from all the hype around certain writers...