A 'SACRED' CONFESSION


I have a confession to make. But more on that later.

First of all i am very saddened by the decline in people's reading habits. In this world of internet and microwaves and instant noodles there are very few people who actually spend time to read. And when I say read I don’t mean surfing the internet or flipping through magazines.


I mean actually pick up a book and read.

I admit I am in the minority that I am not the biggest fan of JK Rowling’s literary skills (granted that its very interesting but not great writing) but there is one thing we have to give her credit for. She has made children (and adults too for that matter) go back to picking up a heavy book and spend some time reading. For the last 10 years Harry and his exploits have managed, in their own small ways, to wean away (even if for a short time) a whole generation from their Playstations and Xboxes. Never mind the fact that the video game companies have themselves circumvented this by coming out with Harry Potter games.

But Back to my Confession…

Many of us in the subcontinent and generally in Asia are still very feudally acquiescent in our choice of reading matter. I don’t claim to be totally exempt from it either and hence the confession.
If you were to examine the last 10 books you’ve read you will see that the authors are mainly western ones.



And if they are Asian then there’s a good chance that it is either non-fiction or some international award winner. How many of us can really name any other titles by Arundhati Roy other than “The God of Small Things”?

Is our choice of books so influenced by the western media & hype and the NY Times and lately the Amazon list of bestsellers that we have no real freedom or independence of choice? And more importantly, do we look down on Indian-Asian literature as poor cousins simply because they do not conform to the tastes of some white guy in a suit sitting in some stuffy office in London or New York?

I know many people who read Paolo Coelho’s books simply because some emotionally bankrupt suit in New York feels ‘moved’ by the fable and recommends it.
For most of us Asians our local folklores are more resonant, evocative and deeper than the pseudo-intellectual-crap that Paolo dishes out with conveyer belt like regularity. Yet we buy the Paolos and keep them in our bookcases like a trophy or drop his name in conversation to somehow impress upon the others how wise we are.

But if an Indian strives to write the great world novel, we dismiss it as mushy and filmy and worst of all, as ‘too indian’.

Why must our appreciation of asian work be dependant on the endorsement of western critics? And why for that matter, should our films be apologetic about the song and dance routines?

Now the reason I am writing this sermon… sorry blog, is because I just completed reading Vikram Chandra’s “Sacred Games”


Now I must mention that I personally decided to read this book only because of a wonderfully evocative review by Jane Shilling of The Daily Telegraph (UK) where she wrote:

“ 'All human life is here' was the old newspaper boast, and so it is in Sacred Games, delineated with a master's grandeur and scope and a miniaturist's precision and tenderness. Seven years it took Chandra to write, and such is the haunting precision of its observation and the resonant authority of its narrative voice that one could read it seven times over and still be finding new treasures; missed flourishes of virtuosity. One uses the terms 'epic' and 'classic' with caution. But if eloquence, confidence, humanity, grace and fine observation are their raw materials, perhaps Sacred Games deserves those epithets.”

Now that I have finally completed it I cannot help but share it with all of you.

I can safely say that if anyone of you do decide to pick up this book and its 900+ pages you will not be disappointed. Wrists aching maybe but certainly not dissapointed.

I personally cannot remember the last 900+ page book I read that I never wanted to come to an end. (I can see the Potter fans nod their heads in disagreement)

The sheer, unapologetic, unitalicised, ballsiness of the language is one of the most purely enjoyable aspects of this extraordinary book with 'mumbaiyya' lingo peppered throughout.

This is a book about Bombay written by a person who understands the city. It is meant for those who know Bombay and vis a vis India. It is not written for foreign audiences or American reviewers. The strength of the book is that it is set in a vastness of grey. There are no black and whites in this book. There is no simple right and wrong. No conventional heroes and villains.

He has constructed a superbly realized world of alien languages, customs and styles, presented on the page without apologies or explanations (even as I read it, I was relishing the delicious thought of a non Indian reader reading lines like “Come on Sir, let's go to his kholi and teach the madherchod a lesson” ). That fact that this world actually exists, and is, in fact, modern-day India, makes his achievement all the more astonishing.

Sacred Games, like India, is massive, intimidating, and violent, and, like India, it somehow manages to weave its many elements together, to become something altogether original and special

"If you want to live in the city you have to think ahead three turns, and look behind a lie to see the truth and then behind that truth to see a lie," says one of the characters, Gaitonde in the book.

And if you truly want to enjoy the book you need to go back and read it again and again and look between the lines and characters and you will see the vast achievement that is encompassed in this 'indian potboiler'.

Go ahead. Close the book, turn out the lights. Even then, Ganesh Gaitonde, Sartaj Singh, and their many friends and enemies will whisper in your ear, beckoning from Mumbai and its jarring, joyous madness.

Talk about an offer you can't refuse.