Post colonial fiction

Fiction in its myriad forms has brought the South Asian world to life for readers around the world. The Grand Master of this field is no doubt Salman Rushdie. His MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN (pub: Alfred A. Knopf 1980) brought him international attention and the subject matter of many of his subsequent works has kept him in the public eye ever since. There is no doubt that the English language quails under his imperious command and marches as obediently as Caesar's legions to his will. But I must confess that with two notable exceptions I find his work arrogant, capricious and indigestible.

The first of these exceptions is SHAME (pub: Jonathan Cape 1985). This is a difficult book to appreciate or even understand for those not familiar with the times and mores of the sad country it depicts, but those who know a little about the machinations and internal intrigues of that era of Pakistani politics, appreciate the savage, even wicked, but nevertheless incisive political irony and satire in this novel. I found the savagery cruel and disturbing but accurate therefore acceptable and read it with some appreciation for its political insight.

My second exception is that little gem of a fable, HAROON AND THE SEA OF STORIES (pub: Penguin 1990). Not as widely read as it should be, because of the adverse publicity which surrounds Mr. Rushdie, it is exquisite in its wit and wordplay. Mr. Rushdie owes much to Lewis Carroll and even Shukumar Roy for the delightful personalities which people the story; however, much of the enjoyment comes with a working knowledge of Urdu and Hindi. Like all good fables though, it operates on many levels and draws from many genres, languages, stories and characters to create the enchanting world of Haroun and to give him his happy ending.

Unfortunately that is it for me, because as I mentioned earlier, I find Mr. Rushdie's other work much too obscure, convoluted and elliptical to enjoy or even read through to the last page. A plebian taste, my more erudite friends will say, but there it is -- Honesty is all.

Rushdie may be the Grand Master of South Asian fiction but the star that shines brightest in my firmament is definitely Vikram Seth. It is difficult to write about Mr. Seth's work without using superlatives and because everything I can say has already been said and written, but that is not reason enough to omit mention of Mr. Seth's very significant contribution to fiction in English.

His most widely read and best known work is, of course, THE SUITABLE BOY (pub: HarperCollins 1993). It is the splendid Dickensinian quality of this novel that makes it for me quite the most outstanding work of fiction of modern times. If one can get past the length and weight of this book -- and many cannot -- one is rewarded by the most comprehensive fictional account of the post colonial era in the subcontinent. The only other work that matches it in scope, depth and quality, albeit set in an earlier period, is Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and that is four books not one novel!

I admit that the size is a problem -- the hard cover version is almost too difficult to hold comfortably and can certainly not be read in bed as I soon found out. Seth himself apologises at the very start in A Word Of Thanks, "Buy me before good sense insists/ You'll strain your purse and sprain your wrists." Once begun it is unputdownable and Seth's mastery of plot and characters soon overcomes the painful wrists and the aching shoulders.

This is not just a riveting story, it is a door into South Asian life that provides enduring terms of reference and a deep understanding of much of the complex cultural, historical, social and political baggage that has been inherited by the three countries which exist contiguously on the same subcontinent.

This tale of suitable boys and comely girls struck a very personal chord with me. I stepped into the world of post independence India with a dawning sense of familiarity and identified so closely with some of the characters that even ten years after reading the book, they stand out in my mind almost like people I had met and known. The interplay of politics and religions that was soon to erupt in all its bitterness, the demise and dismemberment of the zamindari system, the sophisticated Calcutta sahib society, the old fashioned Muslim world slowly disintegrating into squalor, the subtle conflicts between communities and classes which coexist within the social fabric of India -- I recognised them all, if only because of an inherited memory of a time that was.

Because, of course, I had heard it all from my parents and grandparents -- their generation had personal experience of many of the events described in the book. My father, who was as avid a reader as I, read the book through one long summer which he spent with me. He belonged himself to the sophisticated Calcutta-British firm-Saheb set of the forties and he remarked that it was as if the particular dispositions of many people he once knew had been brought vividly to life once again.

Seth's genius has been proved, if indeed proof was ever needed, with his next book. One cannot imagine a novel more different in setting than AN EQUAL MUSIC (pub: Phoenix House 1999) which is another outstanding work in its own genre. As delicately wrought as any fugue, its theme of music and the love of music intertwines with a haunting, adult love story told with charm and sympathy. What more can one say except that true art transcends the barriers of distance and experience to connect lives as diverse as ours and the Europe of the novel.

To anyone who has not read these books, and there cannot be many such readers, one can only repeat that cliché -- you don't know what you are missing. Anyone else with time on their hands cannot do much better than reread both these books once every decade!

meen Murshed is a full-time bookworn and a part-time educationist. She is also the founder of Scholastica School.