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It was supposed
to be a literary festival, but moved beyond the realm of writing. In the
post-September 11 attack scenario, the free-wheeling debates at the second
South Asian Literary Festival in Washington D.C. on November 9 covered
various issues affecting Indians in America today. "We must understand
that for the first time we are experiencing what the blacks have been
experiencing for a long time-racial profiling," said Vijay Prashad,
who wrote the highly-acclaimed The Karma of Brown Folk, which takes a
look at South Asians in America.
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THE GOOD DOCTOR: Abraham Verghese spoke of
his work with aids patients
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The writer, who is known for his cutting-edge pieces about race relations
in America, recalled being stopped, along with other Asian and non-white
immigrants, to be questioned by authorities at a train station immediately
following Black Tuesday. Prashad questioned why the Oklahoma City bombing
in 1995 by Timothy McVeigh didn't lead to a similar hunt for all young
white men. His new book, Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections
and the Myth of Cultural Purity, released at the festival, examines the
400 to 500 years of cultural and political links between Blacks and Asians
the world over.
Prashad told the 200-odd Indians who attended the festival that he chose
to write the book because "Africans and Asians have a great history
of solidarity." In his book he explains that he wanted to write about
both races "not only because they are important to me, but because
they have long been pitted against each other as the model versus the
undesirable."
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RAISING ISSUES:Sukhetu Mehta and S Desai;
Ghosh and Prashad (below)
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Prashad apart, the festival-organised by the Network of South Asian Professionals-saw
the likes of Amitav Ghosh, winner of a string of distinguished literary
awards, and Abraham Verghese, author of the widely-acclaimed My Own Country
and also known for his work with AIDS patients, attending the celebration
of the diversity and wealth of South Asian literature available in English.
This year, however, the focus extended beyond literature. So there was
Suketu Mehta, who co-wrote the screenplay for Mission Kashmir, to talk
about filmmaking in India. "This form of media has just as much of
a dominating presence and influence as books do," explained the organisers.
For many Indians at the conference, it was an opportunity to interact
with famous writers. Ghosh was asked why he had refused to be considered
for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for his most-recent novel, The Glass
Palace. His book was named the Eurasia regional winner for the prize on
March 12 and was a contender for the final prize to be announced in April.
"I thought about it very long and hard and realised that often
you develop a complicity with the Empire through English," replied
Ghosh. He has publicly stated his objections to the classification of
his books as "Commonwealth Literature". This, explained the
author of The Circle of Reason, The Calcutta Chromosome and Shadow Lines,
among others, since the "phrase anchors an area of contemporary writing
not within the realities of the present day, nor within the possibilities
of the future, but rather within a disputed aspect of the past".
Another in the audience questioned if there is a difference between
what the reader wants and what they wished to write about. To which Mehta
explained, "The screenwriter never writes for himself. The screenplay
is just a blueprint for others to construct a house upon." Mehta's
works have been published in Granta, Harper's Magazine, Time, Conde Nast
Traveler and The Village Voice.
Meanwhile, Verghese, who was the keynote speaker at the festival, spoke
about his work on aids and how it transformed him and eventually led him
to take a break from medicine to write about his experiences in My Own
Country. Like his debut book, his second one-The Tennis Partner-also became
a national bestseller. Verghese is currently working on a third book,
which is to be published by Knopf. Others who attended the festival included
Nisha Ganatra, a filmmaker best-known for her film Chutney Popcorn, and
Kiran Nagarkar, novelist and playwright who won the prestigious Sahitya
Akademi Award (2001) for his novel Cuckold.
-Vandana Mathur
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CURRENT
ISSUE DEC 3, 2001
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