Indian Authors - Fathima Shirin

                  

More often than not we find Indian authors being thrown into oblivion to make way for their international counterparts. Our childhood was mostly Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew rather than Sudha Murthy. But there had always been authors from the Indian subcontinent who had immensely breathtaking stories to share. Authors from our neighborhood had to take a hard road towards popularity, appreciation, and acceptance from around the globe.

On account of that, the book club had a session named  'Desi Tadka', fully devoted to Indian writers and their writing style. We began with The Chetan Bhagat genre - filmy writing style and moved backward to Khushwant Singh, R K Narayan, Arundhati Roy, and Kamala Das, who had more serious themes. 
There was also a short audio story session, where we listened to 'Khol Do', a very breathtaking short story by Sadat Hasan Mantro. The audio storytelling style is one with which most are not familiar with. But the impact that gives to stories and their emotions happen to be very peculiar. 

 Our session got very interesting when we got into the novels that bring a shadow of lifestyle, issues, and concepts that matter lurking between lines. Each and every author we encounter leaves something behind to be discovered by the later contemporaries. That seemed to be a very notable method of the portrayal of India, its people, and their stories. Each story is a legend in itself which has not only amazed us but also readers from all around.



Below are some of the books by Indian authors we discussed during our session:

 God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Books by Chetan Bhagat
Alchemy of Desire - Tarun Tejpal
Malgudi Days, The Guide - R K Narayan
My Story - Kamala Das
Train to Pakistan - Khushwant Singh
Ladies Coupé - Anita Nair


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