Rating James Joyce’s "linguistically innovative" Ulysses as this century’s best book (Ulysses Revisited, August 3) reminds me of Jean Cocteau’s timeless quote: "The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order." And while the inclusion of Rushdie is heartening, the omission of authors like R.K. Narayan and G.V. Desani smacks of a bias towards western authors.
A. Krishna Pillai, Chennai
Who’s Jaideep Varma to write that France is the worst team ever to lift the World Cup and to suggest that France won it by design (Letters, August 3)? According to him, France won all its matches because of its opponents’ lapses! You can’t discredit the French by such unfounded arguments. Around the world, this event is being celebrated as a great victory of fair play, by a solid and offensive team. Besides, no country can barter the pride of winning the World Cup. It was unusual of Outlook to publish such a one-man opinion letter.
Fridiric Jeantet, Bangalore
Tandoori chicken? Butter chicken? Salwar Kameez? Parantha? Roti? Objects of Punjabi origin? The two Bengalis and one Maharashtrian who wrote Punjabi Passions (July 27) might believe it, along with millions of southern, western and eastern Indians misinformed by magazines brought out by Punjabi editors. Before I read this story, I did not think plush interiors, matar-paneer, rajma and lobhia, dancing and hiding jooties at weddings, or the name ‘Raj’ were Punjabi gifts to the rest of India. I still don’t. And, without attempting a double-entendre, just what did you think the women of Bhopal wore under their burkhas before they went out of fashion?
Manish Udar, New Delhi
The article Daylight Robbery (July 27) couldn’t have come a moment sooner. With evasion of taxes being the reigning culture in this country, the salaried class hasn’t had an opportunity to partake in that pie because of the stringent imposition of tax deducted at source. To rub salt on injury the rationale of taxing meagre allowances remains irrational. How much more can the helpless taxpayer be squeezed? The previous regime floated VDIS ’97 that in a way exonerated chronic tax evaders and made the honest taxpayer a dolt.
A lack of faith in the system encourages and emboldens people to find ingenious ways to beat the rulebook. Our undeserving MPs and MLAs, whose service to the nation is there for all to see, enjoy benefits as if their pelf wasn’t sufficient.
Anand Srinivasan, Mumbai
I was amused by your Allahabad diarist’s ingenious, though somewhat gory explanation of ‘chappan chhuri’—56 daggers (The Town India Forgot, June 29). The sobriquet isn’t unfamiliar to those who know the racy idiom of old Delhi-Lucknow. It means a belle who has 56 daggers of beauty and coquetry to wound gallants.
R.A. Wajid, Bareilly
I picked up The Guardian recently while on work in London and the name Arundhati Roy printed boldly caught my eye instantly. I don’t know Ms Roy personally but I did read The God of Small Things. The book was all right, the marketing brilliant. I admired her...after all, good marketing does account for success. I then read her article on India’s nuclear status in Outlook (The End of Imagination, August 3). Laced with her style, packed with her fear and anger, her views were understandable, albeit debatable. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Ms Roy too, but with a difference. She’s a globally recognised writer. When she decides to write on Pokhran, people are bound to read it—for the nuts in the cake. Her viewpoint not being as important as the manner in which she brings it across.
So we have a truthful, sarcastic look at the ridiculous thinking and workings of India. Why not? There are a lot of ridiculous things happening in the country. In fact, one could easily feel as she does. You may feel "trapped in an asylum" called India where all the doctors are deranged. Or, you may even "find Coke in the ancient Indian texts" as she believes.
There are points on which I could agree with her; others on which I wouldn’t. It’s a matter of personal choice, as long as it remains personal. And that’s what I’m trying to say.
Now, the same article has appeared in The Guardian, a British daily. I’ve always felt proud to be an Indian, all my experiences have given me enough reason to feel that way. Yet, after reading this piece in a foreign newspaper, I was confronted with a strange feeling. I felt exposed as an Indian. Not because of its contents but for the fact that they were made public internationally by another Indian. I couldn’t imagine a British writer disapproving of his country’s ways in such a sardonic fashion in our dailies. How India feels and acts, how the politicians behave, is our business alone. India needs to sort out a lot of things, there’s no denying that. Splashing them in foreign dailies won’t help. The contents that spoke of India’s drawbacks, hypocrisy and stupidity were meant for Indians, not foreigners.
How is a family problem treated? Not by telling the whole world about it, certainly. What purpose does that serve? I don’t think the British or the Americans care a bit about what’s happening in India. They’re not interested in letting us know about their stupidities. So what’s an article describing the wrongs of India selling abroad? Ms Roy should’ve known better than to allow its publication. The one identity a person gets after one’s name is nationality. Individualism at the cost of one’s country reflects arrogance and irresponsibility. Ms Roy’s first book was a fiction drawn from a reality called India. It was positive. Suddenly the same reality looks ugly to those who found it beautiful. Anyhow, whether India has a bomb or not, the world could still end in an afternoon. Because someone else has it anyway.
Anupam Kher, Mumbai
The hysterical tone of Arund-hati’s piece makes me wonder if it was she who wrote GOST. Like most Indians abroad, I welcome Pokhran. Instead of keeping their N-programmes clandestine, India and Pakistan have come out in the open.
Would she rather that we kept our nuclear prowess a secret?
Like any sane individual, I don’t believe in the N-option. I too want a world sans nukes. But I’ll say no to a world where a few countries have all the nukes they want and deny my country the option on the grounds that we’re ‘backward’ and ‘irresponsible’. Would Roy rather that only a few countries be N-powers and a country of a billion people be told what to do and what not to do?
Nitin Rao, Helsinki, Finland
As I sit here in isolation reeling under the majority view of fellow Indians, Roy’s passionate, significant "grovel" as she puts it, lands in my hands. A scream in the right direction amid weapons with holy names (Trishul et al), looming mushroom clouds and, to quote Vinod Mehta, "an arrogance borne out of ignorance masquerading as self-confidence".
Dear Arundhati, I believe "it could all end in an afternoon." I recognise my own insignificance—I have no need for men who aspire to lift mountains or take Viagra; I abhor the ones who twist beautiful stories to poison tender minds and I happen to like eunuchs. Can I help you design a flag, a blank flag to our insignificance?
Varsha Nair, Bangkok
Dear Arundhati, 50 years ago when the British government went in for nuclear weapons I shared your agony, indignation and realisation that individuals have to make their protest public. I picketed rocket bases and marched to Alder-maston. Then I came to live in India because I imagined you guys were slightly less insane.
My travels, familiarising my insular understanding with the cosmic process—teach me that love is too great a thing for mere nuclear weapons to destroy.
Bill Aitken, Mussoorie
Because of GOST, I fell in love with the writer; because of her piece in your magazine, I’m in love with the human being. Not just because of what the author says specifically about the bomb, but because of her many insights along the way. As a Kashmiri, I’m grateful for the refreshing simplicity of her statement that in Kashmir, "surely there must be flames to fan in the first place?" What a contrast to the Indian media’s imperiously nationalistic rhetoric on Kashmir! However, I find one conjunction of hers a bit disconcerting. She says: "I’m female, but have nothing against eunuchs." Why "but"?
Agha Shahid Ali, Srinagar
With India going nuclear, Aru-ndhati’s world has suddenly died. Where was she when the US, UK, Russia, France and China detonated their devices? Why the hue and cry now?
S.K. Lamba, Noida
Arundhati Roy won the Booker for GOST. The End of Imagination should get her a nomination for the Nobel peace prize. It’s a powerful, eloquent essay on the short-sighted folly of our present rulers. Delhi is within a seven-minute range of a nuclear-tipped missile. It’s not possible to react and retaliate against a pre-emptive strike. Even if it were, the result would be mutually assured self-destruction of the subcontinent. Is this the security our government will provide?
Inder Jit Singh Bassi, New Delhi
I couldn’t avoid Arundhati Roy on the pages of your magazine. In future do warn us about the ‘what happened to a girl in Kerala’ genre of writing about N-technology. It could save precious time for those who read Outlook without hoping to start a revolution the next time they drink a cup of tea.
S. Roychowdhury, New Delhi
Since now we have a sentimental reaction to the nuclear issue from one famous Arundhati, how about an article by the other Arundhati (Ghose)? She could tell the layperson about the intricacies of international nuclear disarmament,
CTBT and India’s security.
Promod Kapoor, received on e-mail
It’s great that someone as famous as Roy has finally spoken candidly about how disgusted she’s with the recent N-blasts. It’s amazing how not one industrialist of repute has come out against the deed which has wrought havoc on India’s economy. Everyone condemns the act in private, but saying so in public is perhaps perceived as unfashionable or unpatriotic.
K.K. Sarup, Delhi
Some of the points Arundhati raises are relevant, but is she? Who’s she but a one-book wonder (even if it got her a Booker)? She has nothing more to her credit, no proven concern or background to merit such space.
P. Bidappa, Bangalore
Many Indians, both at home and abroad, are in complete agreement with the views Roy has expressed so eloquently. Our priorities should be decent housing, food, clothing and education for our masses, not the so-called Hindu bomb.
S. Sivaraman, received on e-mail
Bomb or no bomb—I don’t see why people like Arundhati Roy need a country at all. They’ve got their millions, gained international recognition and laid the ground for acquiring their next million. Statements declaring one as "an independent mobile republic" undoubtedly help to garner an international readership which might come in useful for her next release.
Jayant Gaur, received on e-mail
While I don’t agree with all that Arundhati Roy says, I do want to echo the thought she emphasises—that there’s truly something amiss if a country like India needs a nuclear bomb to demonstrate its pride and assert its identity. This government’s stance that to be patriotic one essentially has to belong to a particular religion is dangerously reminiscent of fascism as Hitler saw it.
Dr Bijoy Koshy, Delhi
One doesn’t doubt Arundhati’s ability as a novelist. She also has every right to air her views on Pokhran. Since she happens to be a Booker-prize winner, it’s fair enough for newsmagazines and newspapers to publish what she has to say. But to put her on the cover?
If she had to, Roy should’ve seceded in 1974, when the first test was carried out in Pokhran. Had she seceded then, no one would’ve noticed. She wasn’t a novelist or a Booker winner then. I wonder if she would’ve used the words ‘anti-Hindu’ and ‘anti-national’ then?
Bishwanath Ghosh, New Delhi
Arundhati says nature would never forgive us if we were to start a nuclear war. Nor would India’s future generations if we didn’t give China or Pakistan a fitting reply to any nuclear misadventure they might indulge in.
N. Ganesh, Bangalore
Roy may be sincere in her dread of a potential N-holocaust. But her essay seems an exercise in professional virtuosity, ranging in matter from bungee-jumping to bananas and civilisation to cinnamon; and in manner from the fatuous ("I hereby declare myself an independent, mobile republic") to the arrogant ("Who the hell is the Prime Minister?"). He is India’s head of government, selected through democratic processes of the Constitution that don’t distinguish between a Booker winner and the ‘illiterate’ Indian whose understanding she derides.
S. Venkatesan, Delhi
Arundhati Roy isn’t an architect for nothing. The bricks are loaded on one side in baroque style. The rhetoric gets sickening after a point. Why the hysterics of death and destruction, of a looming doomsday? Why this self-hatred of one’s own success, of one’s culture and country?
Malathi Rao, Bangalore
Arundhati Roy has a powerful pen. Why has she chosen to use it now? She should thank the prime minister for bringing this theme again and again on the pages of Outlook.
Siladitya Ghosh, New Delhi
I don’t understand why Outlook is so anti-BJP. Our country gives its citizens a right to air their opinions but Arundhati’s views definitely don’t deserve to be on the cover. Could Vinod Mehta stop making a mockery of our intelligence?
A few weeks back you did a cover on one Amitabh Bachchan. Who’s he? And who’s next—Javed Jaffrey?
Manoj Nair, Mumbai
Apropos the outpourings of the Great Peace Crusader and Booker winner Arundhati Roy regarding her desire to secede. Who’s stopping her? But let her first give up her award and the money that came with it, for it came from countries responsible for the Original Sin who now wish to punish India for daring to do what they’ve been doing all along.
