Another Indian, another Booker Prize. ‘The White Tiger’ by Arvind Adiga has won the elite Booker prize this year.
Keeping aside the suspicion it has created –it is largely seen as an attempt of west to use the ‘The white tiger’ as a mirror to us Indians- I want to again come back to language issue and take it further from where I had left in my post, ‘Status of Hindi in contemporary India’.
It’s quite paradoxical that the Indian writers in English who write about India have their readership mostly in other countries and despite that they get better recognition and appreciation globally including India than their counterparts who write in their mother tongue.
Although these writers write about India but they have hardly any connection with the true India. I have my doubt if Adiga, who grew up in Australia and went to England and US Universities, had any soul connection with India. And they write about the pains and sufferings, the class divide and the widening social gap of this country and get the accolades in the form of ‘Booker Prize’!
What about the Indian writers who did so with true and self experiences and not as a tourist? There are dozen of books published in various Indian languages about the darker side of the Indian society and with much more authenticity. But I doubt if these books or their authors will ever shine like the ones who write about Indian disparity in English and go home with the Booker along with the rave reviews.

The job security

Oh!how I secretly wished for my husband to leave his government job and go for that high flying, high paying job which his friends were lapping up! As I had opted to stay at home, and he being the bread winner, occasionally things did seem difficult but more or less it was a smooth running affair, barring a few times when I wished to shop without bothering about the price tag and have a cozy dinner at the best eating joint without looking at the price list and yes wished to go on that star cruise.
But this was all before September, before the melting down American economy engulfed almost the entire world in a chain reaction, before the pass outs from IIT, Kharagpur got a regret letter instead of joining letter from US companies (it happened for the first ever time in the history of IIT Kharagpur) before IIM students looked worried for their loans which they had taken for their education , before ‘pink slips’ became the norm in private sectors and when living out of credit card was fashion.
After September, the old government job which had lost it’s sheen to the shiny corporate sector regained its lost glory and my husband seemed to have the last laugh who always loved his defence job.
Although my wish list is still intact, I can at least go to bed without worrying about tomorrow, paying any EMI or how to pay the necessary bills .Every morning I get up with a sense of security for my family and this is much bigger than any wish I ever had.