Q and A

there is a friend of mine who is quite, i'd say prejudiced, against indian authors. she isn't against indians writing, she just doesn't have the same inclination to read them as she would agatha christie or jeffery archer. i don't subscribe to this view because for me that's like putting yourself down. so if wrote a book in my name and not a psuedo then the number of my readers would would be short of her. but that's inconsequential here as she would read a book written by me in any case, because it would be written by me- thats just how friendships work.

but there are cases where the indian writers make you want to slap them. arundathi roy and shinie anthony.i happened to try the god of small things and kardamom kisses. terrible. i couldn't get through five pages. sure there probably are people who like them, otherwise ruskin bond wouldn't be praising shinie anthony and arundathi roy wouldn't have got the booker. but really...those are two unbelievable books..

but there are some indians who can write and write rivetingly well at that. one of them is vikas swarup. he isnt brilliant...he is good.

Q and A, for those who haven't heard of it, is a book that is about how an eighteen year old waiter at a bar wins a quiz show and wins a billion rupees. but he isnt given the money but arrested for winning the show. you get curious. then you find that his name is ram mohammed thomas. an uneducated boy, whose orphaned life sees him through situations that are hard but not so hard to imagine.

i read the book over the day yesterday. it wasn't the amount he was winning at the quiz show that made me read the book in a few hours but the tales of how knowledge assimilated in fragments through life serves a purpose. it isnt profound or a book that is heavy reading. it just lets you see what things can be and sometimes are in today's world. just because we don't experience them or see them doesn't mean incidents and things don't exist. though a bit cinematic, i'm glad for the ending.

well...i happened to read the book..really like it and wanted to write about it...so there...