VOICE OF THE MONTH | In an interview to Spark, Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, publishing consultant and columnist talks to Anupama Krishnakumar about interesting trends in the Indian publishing industry including the popularity that commercial fiction is enjoying in India these days, the growing trend of buying books online and the advent of e-books in the Indian market.
Pramila, mother of convent-educated and Engleesh-speaking Jyothi, often goes down the memory lane in her extended monologues. N.Shobhana pens a story that touches on the role of English in upward mobility for Indians, the concerns of urban, nuclear families and the pride of a parent in her child.
As the number of Indian families living outside India increases, there is a new category of parents that emerges. Parth Pandya talks about the IBCP –the Indian Born Confused Parent – whose biggest dilemma is about how to appropriately mix the culture of the homeland and the culture of the place they live in and present it to their children, the American Born Confused Desi (ABCD) being a case in point.
India is often referred to as a bundle of contradictions. Through her poem, Vinita Agrawal discusses the exquisite textile that her homeland, India, is, while also pointing out some of the knots in this colourful fabric that need to be untangled.
An expression of the complicated relationship that the “mainland” shares with the north-east, sparked off when Ngo te kher – a bracelet of beads – travelled to the mainland and found itself a place, first at a mela and then on the wrists of a few tens. A poem by Shraddha Vinod Kutty.
Deepa Venkatraghvan talks about ‘The Story of India,’ a PBS-BBC documentary that leads her to discover sides to India she never knew about, and what we as Indians can learn from our own history as our country grows in clout internationally.
Ameena is taken by Sadashivan’s commitment to the revolution, the ‘book with the red cover’ and his ideas about the capitalist institution of family – she becomes Mrs. Revolution. Read on to know their story, written by Jenny Sulfath in Malayalam and translated by N.Shobhana.
Priya Gopal laments the abysmal levels of censorship in our country and wonders what our kids will turn into if we encourage them to only see, hear, speak and think as we want them to.
Philip John attempts to capture the disillusionment and confusion that seems to be characteristic of men in their thirties in urban India. A poem on and for the ‘lost generation.’