Share on TwitterWhen you're done recoiling in disgust from reading Chetan Bhagat's 'books' and somehow managed to gather the courage to read more books after having completely seared your eyes out, but what to keep it within the country and be exposed to some of the best literature in the world, don't worry, I've got this list for you.
India is - and will remain - a country with plenty of anomalies. English as a language is not our own, yet we adopted it, we shaped it, we even gave it a unique flair that people recognise us with. It is no surprise then that we also mastered it enough to win awards for our books and praise for the stories we told.
Just writing about 5 is a gross injustice to the wealth of literary treasures that exists in the country, especially the ones that came from the country itself, but since time is money and I don't want to overwhelm you guys, this is what we have to work with. Starting with the ever classic...
1. The Guide by R.K. Narayana:
Not very long ago, the associate editor of stuMagz wrote an article about how one never forgets their first R.K. Narayan book. He was right on the money, because if The Guide is your first Narayan book, you will remember his writing style, his flair for simplicity and the honesty in his storytelling quite compelling. Narayan makes, over the course of the book, you care about the characters he's written about in a way that is simple yet so very unique to him. It is a must read for any Indian.
2. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy:
Your opinions on Roy's politics aside, The God of Small Things is a fantastic book that takes you through a range of human emotions in a way only text can. No movie, video game or song is going to touch your soul the same way as books do, and The God of Small Things is one such book: it reaches for your heart and rips it out, holding it in front of your eyes and mocking you to take it back as you turn page after page only to find the next more heartbreaking. An unparalleled work of literary fiction, her first book and of course, 1997's Man Booker Award winner.
3. India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha:
I cannot stress nearly enough times the importance of this book. Not only is this one of the most important books of the last decade, it is also a book that takes you through some of the toughest times our country went through post-independence. The text is a testament to the fact that, despite all odds, despite the whole world expecting us to fall apart, India survived, India moved forward.
While there is still gross inequality in the country and we need to fix our society, we still have a long way to go, and go we will, to a better future. Penned by eminent historian Ramachandra Guha, whose zeal to uncover the complete truth has taken him to some really weird places, this is a book that will change your perspective on India today, and equip you with knowledge enough to participate in political discussions about the country.
4. Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh:
Khushwant Singh's wit was legendary. The writer's appearance dulled with age but his wit remain as sharp as ever, liable to cut anyone it merely came in contact with. Train to Pakistan, however, was not a witty book.
I've known Singh as a funny man and a poet more than a story teller, but that is what he was and that is what is displayed in it's full glory in the book Train to Pakistan. In the backdrop of religious violence between Muslims and Sikhs and a train full of dead bodies, an unlikely love story develops between the very two camps busy killing each other. What will happen? Does this story have a happy ending? What exactly is a happy ending in a story like this? I highly recommend reading to find out!
5. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A story as old as time itself. 5 brothers, one exile, one mother, one wife.
As you flip through the pages of this fantastically written book, Chitra holds your hands and puts you in the shoes of Draupadi, wife to all five Pandavas. Nobody really talks about what the women in Mahabharata go to, unsurprisingly considering we only just started accepting women with equal rights. In this twist on the tale always told through a man's eyes with notions of honour being a man's notions, let Chitra Banerjee take you through a tale of jealously, joy, horror and redemption as the Mahabharata is told through the eyes of Draupadi, the omnipresent yet never given a voice character in epic that we all know by heart.
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