The last few books of Indian authors that I have read have been pretty interesting and similar in certain aspects. It is like the Indian author wants to tell a story, but is scared of telling it out as his own story. So, they take cover behind a shield. Maybe they feel that the Indian audience is immature and/or likes to be told only true stories.
The last two books, of Indian authors, that I remember reading are – ‘3 Mistakes of my Life’ by Chetan Bhagat and ‘Dork’ by Sidin Vadukut. Do you notice something very very similar in those two books?
In both the books, the author is writing someone else’s story, as told, or as written by that someone else. Also in both cases, the author tries his best to prove the authenticity of the story by introducing himself in the story in one way or the other.
I have a feeling that the author is scared to write a story and starts off with an excuse that this is just something that I picked up from someone, so if you don’t like this, then don’t blame me. I just write ‘em as I read/hear ‘em. I think the Indian authors should become more mature than this and write stories the way they are played out in the author’s mind.
Oh yes, I did read ‘2 States’ by Chetan Bhagat, and what was that about? The story of the author’s life, obviously. Well, so was Five point someone, which was again the author’s story(written in first person – I used to write my English exam’s essays that way), and wasn’t ‘One Night at a Call Center’ too the story that the author was told in a train? Or something to that effect. I think Chetan Bhagat has gone and hid himself behind a shell. He might as well release a collection of stories titled ‘The stories I have heard during my Journeys’
After the runaway success of Chetan Bhagat’s first book, are the Indian authors thinking that attributing the impeding story to someone else is a sure shot recipe for success. I feel this is extremely immature and I too can write awesome essays and publish it as a piece of fiction. Looking for some better stuff from our authors.
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Tagged: authors, fiction, heresay, indian, mature, story, true
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2 Comments
Not all of them are like that. There are so many good Indian authors.
You should read R K Narayan, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shashi Tharoor to name a few.
Title should be Chetan Bhagat – an Unsure and scared lot
@Bharathi: Yes, but of course. The unsure lot are the latest next-gen authors. The older ones were much better. This seems to be a new fad among the newer authors.