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Bangalore in books |
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30th March 2010 |
Recently I read two books set in Bangalore, Neti Neti by Anjum Hasan and Monkey-man by K R Usha. While the former is a Munch-esque scream at the horror of the new Bangalore, the latter is an elegy to a lost time in the city's history. Reading them together is perhaps unfair to both of them, they both have their individual qualities, and failings. But they both made me think of the different kinds of responses that people, and writers are also people I suppose, have to change. And what Bangalore has been going through appears, from this distance, to be a major transformation, not just a gentle meander in the stream of history.
Clearly the responses to such change can range from grief to anger to disappointment, and perhaps they can go on to acceptance. But what does it mean to accept something that is ugly, that clearly threatens to demean human life and eat into the structure of relationships that sustains a population? And how is this acceptance rendered in fiction? Difficult questions, not easy to approach. But it is good to know that Bangalore has a couple of writers who are working on their answers. |
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