Editorial Column Music & Art Travel Women & Society Humour Earth Day Special Reflections Book Review Poetry Prev Issue Next Issue

Many Indians Excel In English By- Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

Is this the golden age of Indian literature in English? Perhaps not, but in honor of Indian jewelers everywhere, we should at least call it the gold-plated age.

In recent years, so many writers of Indian descent have produced superb novels and exposed more people to Indian culture than Hollywood and Bollywood combined.

Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize, Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize and Salman Rushdie won an even bigger prize: Padma Lakshmi. (The Chennai-born model isn't as prestigious as the Booker, but as Rushdie knows from experience, it isn't that much fun kissing the Booker.)

The list of fine Indian writers includes V.S. Naipaul, Vikram Chandra, Anita Desai, Rohinton Mistry, Chitra Divakaruni, Amit Chaudhuri and Amitav Ghosh. And let's not forget about Vikram Seth, whose book "A Suitable Boy," was BIG. So big, I needed two cranes to lift it.

The latest Indian to join this esteemed group is Manil Suri, whose debut novel "The Death of Vishnu" transformed him from an obscure mathematics professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County to an instant star at bookstores everywhere. Last I heard, his book was flying off shelves so fast, Boeing wanted to hire him as a consultant.

Yes, Indians have stormed the world of English literature and taken at least a few publishing companies hostage.

Agent: "My client, Mr. Suri, is looking for a new publisher for his second book. What is your company willing to offer?"

Publishing company editor: "Mr. Suri? You mean the great Manil Suri? For him, we're willing to offer a million-dollar advance, a book tour to 98 countries, including Afghanistan, and a lifetime supply of Horlicks. We're also willing to change our name from Simon & Schuster to Simon, Schuster & Suri."

Agent: "Mr. Suri will be delighted. He didn't think there'd be so much interest in his textbook on partial differential equations."

I'm excited about the success of Indian writers partly because it helps squash the widespread assumption, in America and other countries, that English is a foreign language to Indians. I noticed the assumption as soon as I arrived in America almost two decades ago. Many of my fellow college students were overly impressed with my English.

American student: "Where did you learn to speak English so well?"

Me: "On the plane."

Student: "Wow! That's pretty amazing."

Me: "Thank you. Please fasten your seat belts and extinguish your cigarettes. We're about to land in New York."

Even after I had earned two degrees in America, a university dean suggested that I take an English proficiency test to enter a master's program. I wanted to scream: "Do you think all my courses in America were in Hindi? I've been speaking English all my life and could probably teach you a thing or two."

With the success of Roy, Lahiri and others, perhaps more people will realize that Indians can excel in English. And more publishing companies will pursue Indian books.

Agent: "I just signed a new client. She's very talented."

Simon & Schuster editor: "Does your client have any connection whatsoever to India? If so, we're willing to offer an advance of $500,000."

Agent: "Any connection whatsoever? In that case, I'd like to introduce you to another client, Bill Jones. When he was in college, he roomed with a student from India. Bill learned all kinds of neat things about Indians, which he has detailed in a fascinating book called 'Keep Your Hands Off My Chapattis.'"

View and Post comment on this article