Civil Lines New Writing from India

by Rukun Advani

Advani, Rukun

170 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

Reviews

[Dakshesh Thacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I discovered the existence of the Civil Lines series in an essay by Ram Guha in his collection, Democrats and Dissenters. Recently while looking for another book I stumbled upon three editions of Civil Lines available on Amazon and went on to buy them, knowing full well that this is out of print and in all likelihood will become a relic of a bygone era.
Of the seven essays, I resonated with at least five. The collection, released in 1994, is a reflection of life in an India which now certainly doesn't exist in most parts and is waning in the rest. The highlight for me are the essays by Amitav Ghosh and A.K. Mehrotra. Ghosh maps the timeline of the Indian short story and has clearly researched material we won't otherwise seek or have access to. He lucidly manages to string together the history of language along with the advent of short stories, providing logic for the same as he moves from era to era. Mehrotra's essay on his early tryst with poetry is pure slice-of-life. After R.K. Narayan's Bachelor of Arts which richly describes the experience of students preparing for the examination, this essay has reminded me of that much troubled era and the herculean effort students back then had to put before the Internet revolutionized the availability of information. Mehrotra intersperses poetry, examination preparation and friendship in youth seamlessly and ends up tugging at your heart string as you read on.
Radha Kumar's essay on her experience of staying in a Bhopal prison for three weeks is new territories for me, but the description of experiences seem repeated and I did feel largely weary reading the essay towards the end. Khushwant Singh's essays which are essentially extracts from his autobiography are the breezy reads, peppered with his regular dose of humor. The highlight from Singh's essay was the description of his childhood living in a desert town in pre-partition India. This too is a canvas new to an urban 21st century Indian.
On the whole I do believe that this is worth a read for anyone looking to explore the India of the 19th and 20th century from the near infinite lens of visualization that exist out there. One may dissent with the opinion of some of the writers and also not resonate with the setting of some of the essays but its definitely a must if you wish to broaden your thinking and view of the subcontinent and the world at large.

[Vaishnavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will have to return to some of the works.

[Aditi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat random collection of short non-fiction pieces by Indian authors. Published by Ravi Dayal publishers and edited by Rukun Advani, Ivan Hutnik, Mukul Kesavan and Dharma Kumar, the collection and its subsequent volumes were meant to showcase 'new writing from India'. Some made for fun reading, like the one by Radha Kumar, but the rest were about average. The contributors are all really well established in their field now, so it also makes for some nice retrospective reading. Rukun Advani is now a big name in Indian academic publishing, owning the publishing house Permanent Black, and he worked with OUP India for nearly 20 years, so the choice of authors is quite good. The pieces themselves are strictly ok.