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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #130
Granta 130: India: Another Way of Seeing
A powerful curiosity is the hallmark of new kind of Indian important questions about the country's past and present have found their expression in different forms of non-fiction story-telling that twenty years ago tended to be preserve of richer societies in the west. Biography, memoir, narrative history, reportage, the travel all these forms now have their interesting and original practitioners in India. In this Granta issue they tackle questions ranging from rape in the paddy fields of Bengal to the end of the Delhi intelligentsia. And there is room, as always, for the best of India's fiction.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2015
19 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Ian Jack
139 books10 followersIan Jack is a British journalist and writer who has edited the Independent on Sunday and the literary magazine Granta and now writes regularly for The Guardian.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
May 1, 2015
Granta 130 is everything but forgettable, few writings are better than the others though.
‘Breach Candy’ by Samanth Subramanian, easily one of the best pieces, presents a journalist’s investigation on how the Breach Candy club at Mumbai, reserved until 1959 only for the whites, before a two-tier membership allowed the Indians to become ordinary members in the mid-sixties—while the Europeans stayed as trust members—is the center of a legal battle between two groups of its members. While the narrative records only one side of the argument, as those who now steer the club’s functioning didn't meet him despite his best efforts, the murky nature of the struggle has a distinct foreground—the club sits atop prime land, which, in a congested island city like Mumbai, is too delicious a fact to be ignored.
Inventive and intense, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘Othello Sucks’ is a cataclysmic tale of an Indian family in Delhi, which is coming to terms with the growing-out of the Shakespearean stranglehold of yesteryears. Even though this is fiction and we know it all too well, it’s funny, and the starkness to experiment is all too bone-dry, and yet it is filled with an inner core of unaccustomed marginality that many middle class homes, like mine, fail to notice.
‘Pyre’ by Amitava Kumar is the journey of grief recounted from New York, where the narrator resides, to Patna, where his mother has died, through a narrative that is characteristically unembellished. The narrator’s unfamiliarity to the ceremonies mandated by the Hindu tradition turns the economics and emotions of losing a loved one into a touching and candid inquiry.
The train of logic that divides the two communities of Hindus and Muslims in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the engrossing narrative that makes up ‘Love Jihad’ by Aman Sethi, finds a hard-hitting end, when, Ramakant Chauhan, a Hindu activist in Saharanpur, one of the supporters of the love-jihad movement, declares with a flourish that Indira Gandhi was the first victim of Love Jihad. To the writer’s protests that he was a Parsi, says Ramakant, ‘Everyone know Feroze Gandhi Khan was a Muslim. It’s all over the internet.’ The question remains: The ease with which we communicate on WhatsApp and other social media now, will it bind the two communities or move them further apart? This piece has that journalistic argument, and I hope it makes the readers think, discuss probably, and move on.
Hari Kunzru’s ‘Drone’ is set in an Indian future where Seth, the rich man who controls most of the nation, wants nothing but the best: house, wives, even children. Perfection is not unmanageable in his world. In the second part of this piece, a young and well-built labourer called Jai, in order to make ends meet, gets an extra arm attached to find a balance between his basic needs to survive and the quantum of work he has to do in a dusty mine owned by Seth, but ends up contracting a virus, the cost of taming which he can’t afford. That the world has been unfair to some and will remain so is the focus here, which clichéd as it may sound, is treated with fairness by use of sharp prose, which some of you, like me, would have to read twice if you want to do more than just scrape at the surface.
‘Shoes’ by Anjali Joseph remained remote, wriggling along the periphery of my reading conscious, stagnating, lifting sometimes, but crashing downhill in the end. Stories don’t have reasons, and rightly so, but Sometimes reasons become stories, which this first person story couldn't demonstrate, though I liked the part when the narrator is having a forced break with two others, drinking local liquor and telling stories about ghosts.
The unfilled gaps of Gandhi's days in London, where he arrived to study law in 1888 onboard SS Clyde, which didn't find elaborate mention by Gandhi in his autobiography, and which, according to Sam Miller in ‘Gandhi the Londoner’, are important to understand the Mahatma, are part of this rather interesting essay. Sam travels to England in the present time and visits the places where the Mahatma stayed as a student in London.
Amit Chaudhury’s ‘English Summer’ is set in London where an aspiring Indian poet called Ananda lives on Warren Street, lonely, and with weird notions about a foreign land he has deep prejudices against. Nothing really enchanting or depressing in his life, he is consumed by the ordinariness of his own thoughts. The choice of naming him Ananda, showed, to my mind, a lack of basic care, as I read Ananda as Amanda in the first half of the story, until I had my eureka moment. But by then a lot had slipped through the cracks and a lack of spark stopped me from going all over again.
Deepti Kapoor's ‘A Double-Income Family’ I thought rambled in the beginning. There wasn't enough to pull me in, but as I laboured through, I got the drift. An old Punjabi widow buys a flat in the suburbs of Delhi. The world revolves around her domestic help, who gets married soon and brings his wife from the village after which all hell breaks loose and even the orange and gin cocktail that Mrs Mehta is used to drinking fails to dissolve her sorrows. The story ends on a rather unexpected note, thereby, lifting this clichéd plot a notch higher.
‘Breach Candy’ by Samanth Subramanian, easily one of the best pieces, presents a journalist’s investigation on how the Breach Candy club at Mumbai, reserved until 1959 only for the whites, before a two-tier membership allowed the Indians to become ordinary members in the mid-sixties—while the Europeans stayed as trust members—is the center of a legal battle between two groups of its members. While the narrative records only one side of the argument, as those who now steer the club’s functioning didn't meet him despite his best efforts, the murky nature of the struggle has a distinct foreground—the club sits atop prime land, which, in a congested island city like Mumbai, is too delicious a fact to be ignored.
Inventive and intense, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘Othello Sucks’ is a cataclysmic tale of an Indian family in Delhi, which is coming to terms with the growing-out of the Shakespearean stranglehold of yesteryears. Even though this is fiction and we know it all too well, it’s funny, and the starkness to experiment is all too bone-dry, and yet it is filled with an inner core of unaccustomed marginality that many middle class homes, like mine, fail to notice.
‘Pyre’ by Amitava Kumar is the journey of grief recounted from New York, where the narrator resides, to Patna, where his mother has died, through a narrative that is characteristically unembellished. The narrator’s unfamiliarity to the ceremonies mandated by the Hindu tradition turns the economics and emotions of losing a loved one into a touching and candid inquiry.
The train of logic that divides the two communities of Hindus and Muslims in the state of Uttar Pradesh in the engrossing narrative that makes up ‘Love Jihad’ by Aman Sethi, finds a hard-hitting end, when, Ramakant Chauhan, a Hindu activist in Saharanpur, one of the supporters of the love-jihad movement, declares with a flourish that Indira Gandhi was the first victim of Love Jihad. To the writer’s protests that he was a Parsi, says Ramakant, ‘Everyone know Feroze Gandhi Khan was a Muslim. It’s all over the internet.’ The question remains: The ease with which we communicate on WhatsApp and other social media now, will it bind the two communities or move them further apart? This piece has that journalistic argument, and I hope it makes the readers think, discuss probably, and move on.
Hari Kunzru’s ‘Drone’ is set in an Indian future where Seth, the rich man who controls most of the nation, wants nothing but the best: house, wives, even children. Perfection is not unmanageable in his world. In the second part of this piece, a young and well-built labourer called Jai, in order to make ends meet, gets an extra arm attached to find a balance between his basic needs to survive and the quantum of work he has to do in a dusty mine owned by Seth, but ends up contracting a virus, the cost of taming which he can’t afford. That the world has been unfair to some and will remain so is the focus here, which clichéd as it may sound, is treated with fairness by use of sharp prose, which some of you, like me, would have to read twice if you want to do more than just scrape at the surface.
‘Shoes’ by Anjali Joseph remained remote, wriggling along the periphery of my reading conscious, stagnating, lifting sometimes, but crashing downhill in the end. Stories don’t have reasons, and rightly so, but Sometimes reasons become stories, which this first person story couldn't demonstrate, though I liked the part when the narrator is having a forced break with two others, drinking local liquor and telling stories about ghosts.
The unfilled gaps of Gandhi's days in London, where he arrived to study law in 1888 onboard SS Clyde, which didn't find elaborate mention by Gandhi in his autobiography, and which, according to Sam Miller in ‘Gandhi the Londoner’, are important to understand the Mahatma, are part of this rather interesting essay. Sam travels to England in the present time and visits the places where the Mahatma stayed as a student in London.
Amit Chaudhury’s ‘English Summer’ is set in London where an aspiring Indian poet called Ananda lives on Warren Street, lonely, and with weird notions about a foreign land he has deep prejudices against. Nothing really enchanting or depressing in his life, he is consumed by the ordinariness of his own thoughts. The choice of naming him Ananda, showed, to my mind, a lack of basic care, as I read Ananda as Amanda in the first half of the story, until I had my eureka moment. But by then a lot had slipped through the cracks and a lack of spark stopped me from going all over again.
Deepti Kapoor's ‘A Double-Income Family’ I thought rambled in the beginning. There wasn't enough to pull me in, but as I laboured through, I got the drift. An old Punjabi widow buys a flat in the suburbs of Delhi. The world revolves around her domestic help, who gets married soon and brings his wife from the village after which all hell breaks loose and even the orange and gin cocktail that Mrs Mehta is used to drinking fails to dissolve her sorrows. The story ends on a rather unexpected note, thereby, lifting this clichéd plot a notch higher.
July 7, 2015
Ian Jack's introduction is dreadful, in my opinion. Very colonial, very paternalizing. He poohs poohs the idea that current Indian fiction is markedly inferior to the trend of narrrative non fiction that has been developing in the country. In this, he is simply incorrect. It is not merely trendy to state so; this collection stands testament to the very argument that he is trying to debunk. The stand out pieces in this collection are Breach Candy, Love Jihad and Ghost in the Kimono, all non-fiction, all written by young, dynamic journalists.
The fiction was fine - some excellent pieces, but overall bland - although I am very excited to read the Hari Kunzru book from which his contribution is excerpted.
Other reviewers have spoken to this, but there is not really a great representation of regional, translated literature in this collection. We can talk for days about whether or not English is now as much an Indian language as Oriya, but if you're going to have a collection of literature that is meant to represent modern day India, you'd best showcase a higher percentage of writers not catering to an elite minority.
The fiction was fine - some excellent pieces, but overall bland - although I am very excited to read the Hari Kunzru book from which his contribution is excerpted.
Other reviewers have spoken to this, but there is not really a great representation of regional, translated literature in this collection. We can talk for days about whether or not English is now as much an Indian language as Oriya, but if you're going to have a collection of literature that is meant to represent modern day India, you'd best showcase a higher percentage of writers not catering to an elite minority.
September 23, 2020
The contribution of Indian authors to English literature is indeed excellent. This book weaves together a tapestry of bright and beautiful short stories that are individually and collectively a joy to read. My favourites were Breach Candy Club, Ghachar Ghochar (will read the novella next), and Pyre.
April 6, 2015
Granta 130: India - not sure why some of these authors are selected to write for this issue while some good Indian voices have been left out. The issue is not really a true depiction of present Indian writers.
It’s becoming quite evident that the quality of Indian non-fiction is reaching for greater heights while the quality of fiction is still patchy. Most of the fiction pieces were extracts taken from forthcoming books of various authors and not real short stories. Granta could have included more translated works instead of having just one. Some of my favourite pieces are - The Ghost in the Kimono by Raghu Karnad, Love Jihad by Amit Sethi, Sticky Fingers by Arun Kolatkar, Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag and Gandhi the Londoner by Sam Miller. The only non-fiction piece I didn't like was Breach Candy.
It’s becoming quite evident that the quality of Indian non-fiction is reaching for greater heights while the quality of fiction is still patchy. Most of the fiction pieces were extracts taken from forthcoming books of various authors and not real short stories. Granta could have included more translated works instead of having just one. Some of my favourite pieces are - The Ghost in the Kimono by Raghu Karnad, Love Jihad by Amit Sethi, Sticky Fingers by Arun Kolatkar, Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag and Gandhi the Londoner by Sam Miller. The only non-fiction piece I didn't like was Breach Candy.
May 18, 2017
The highlight of this collection, without a doubt, is Upamanyu Chatterjee's 'Othello Sucks'. Truly original and inventive. This story alone makes the collection worth picking up, and I'm now keen to read Chatterjee's novels.
Hari Kunzru's 'Drone' is a scary, disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future. It rings frighteningly true.
The non-fiction pieces 'Love Jihad' by Aman Sethi, 'Gandhi The Londoner' by Sam Miller and 'Breach Candy' by Samanth Subramanian also stand out, as do the photographic pieces by Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad, and Katherine Boo.
All in all a strong and insightful edition of Granta.
Hari Kunzru's 'Drone' is a scary, disturbing portrayal of a dystopian future. It rings frighteningly true.
The non-fiction pieces 'Love Jihad' by Aman Sethi, 'Gandhi The Londoner' by Sam Miller and 'Breach Candy' by Samanth Subramanian also stand out, as do the photographic pieces by Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad, and Katherine Boo.
All in all a strong and insightful edition of Granta.
April 10, 2015
Altogether really enjoyable reading. At the issue launch in New York, editor Ian Jack admitted that the issue contains zero Muslim or Dalit writers-- a notable shortcoming. Still, lots of good stuff here. The non-fiction (from Aman Sethi, Raghu Karnad, Amitava Kumar) is top-notch. Newly translated works from Kannada and Marathi are great too. And seeing the photos from Katherine Boo's translators/reporting team in Annawadi was a treat too. Apart from Hari Kunzru's tale, I was less impressed with the fiction, though.
February 19, 2015
A very patchy issue. Some of the fiction is downright boring. There are some gems, though. Sam Miller writing about a young Gandhi in London, Arun Kolatkar's story, Samanth Subramanian's report on a squabble in the Breach Candy club... Still, this issue is no patch on Granta's brilliant Pakistan issue. And I quite didn't get why there was just a single story in translation... either you include translations, in which case, there should have been more, or you don't.
March 17, 2015
One of my favourite Granta issues from recent years - great choice of works.
January 14, 2023
An interesting 2014 selection of mainly stories, essays, and to a lesser degree poetry which is intended to complement a 1997 Granta issue on writing in India.
I liked the range of genres and topics covered in the stories and the essays -I must admit that the few poems included left me quite cold and I refuse to believe this is at all representative of poetry in India. As to the stories and essays, I do not know enough about contemporary Indian writing to be able to estimate how representative the selection is, so I defer to the opinion of other, better qualified Goodread reviewers.
The anthology includes a desolate William Gibson-like SF dystopian cyberpunk story (Drone), entertaining social satire (A Double-Income Family, English Summer, Shoes, Othello sucks, Sticky Fingers), The Bachelor Father), a ghost story (The Wrong Square), and the beginning of a possible love story in an arranged marriage (Ghachar, Ghochar). Most of the stories are set in present-day India or follow Indian expats abroad (in the UK and USA), or tellingly contrast Indians abroad with those who stay in India.
The more interesting essays include Gandhi the Londoner about Gandhi's years as a student in London, Pyre, the author's account of his return to India to partake in the ceremonies leading to his mother's cremation, The Ghost in the Kimono about the little known wartime Japanese interred in Delhi, and Breach Candy a rather rambling would-be exposé of corruption and discrimination in a Mumbai club set up in colonial times. The book also includes two photo-essays.
Well worth reading.
I liked the range of genres and topics covered in the stories and the essays -I must admit that the few poems included left me quite cold and I refuse to believe this is at all representative of poetry in India. As to the stories and essays, I do not know enough about contemporary Indian writing to be able to estimate how representative the selection is, so I defer to the opinion of other, better qualified Goodread reviewers.
The anthology includes a desolate William Gibson-like SF dystopian cyberpunk story (Drone), entertaining social satire (A Double-Income Family, English Summer, Shoes, Othello sucks, Sticky Fingers), The Bachelor Father), a ghost story (The Wrong Square), and the beginning of a possible love story in an arranged marriage (Ghachar, Ghochar). Most of the stories are set in present-day India or follow Indian expats abroad (in the UK and USA), or tellingly contrast Indians abroad with those who stay in India.
The more interesting essays include Gandhi the Londoner about Gandhi's years as a student in London, Pyre, the author's account of his return to India to partake in the ceremonies leading to his mother's cremation, The Ghost in the Kimono about the little known wartime Japanese interred in Delhi, and Breach Candy a rather rambling would-be exposé of corruption and discrimination in a Mumbai club set up in colonial times. The book also includes two photo-essays.
Well worth reading.
Read
May 6, 2020I wasn't sure if Granta: The Magazine of New Writing, would be included in Good Reads. How gratifying to see that it is. Given my obsession with all things India these days, I fairly flew through this volume (of mostly fiction, plus artwork and photography) and longed for more. Like the country, writers of India are varied and culturally rich. These run the gamut from sci-fi dystopian (Drone) to traditional story-telling, an everything in between.
few passages that appealed to me:
"Even the past is incomplete. My mother, for instance, comes back not as an image but a collection of sensations. The hand, warm palm of her hand against my shoulder. The smell of her neck as she bent over me; smoky like a wood fire, maybe from cooking, but also her sweat. A little sweet, like a water flower...." "Shoes" by Anjali Joseph (p 87)
"The rush of these feelings all together is too much to describe. Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented." "Ghachar Ghochar" by Vivek Shanbhag p 265.
few passages that appealed to me:
"Even the past is incomplete. My mother, for instance, comes back not as an image but a collection of sensations. The hand, warm palm of her hand against my shoulder. The smell of her neck as she bent over me; smoky like a wood fire, maybe from cooking, but also her sweat. A little sweet, like a water flower...." "Shoes" by Anjali Joseph (p 87)
"The rush of these feelings all together is too much to describe. Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented." "Ghachar Ghochar" by Vivek Shanbhag p 265.
December 20, 2025
Revisiting this as a 2014 time capsule that I had been reading for a long time. My picks:
- Double Income family: Brilliant short story by Deepti Kapoor of an elderly lady and her live-in house help in a high-rise "society" in New Delhi.
- Ghachar Ghochar: The original excerpt here that I read years ago, that led me to read the book and become a fan of both Vivek Shanbhag and Srinath Perur (translator).
- Breach Candy: Samanth explores the Breach Candy Club in Mumbai as a relic of the british Raj in modern day India. (Big fan of anything Samanth Subramanian writes)
- Vinod kumar Shukla's poems. Translated and theya re still perfect
Looking forward to Granta 183 when i can get my hands on it
- Double Income family: Brilliant short story by Deepti Kapoor of an elderly lady and her live-in house help in a high-rise "society" in New Delhi.
- Ghachar Ghochar: The original excerpt here that I read years ago, that led me to read the book and become a fan of both Vivek Shanbhag and Srinath Perur (translator).
- Breach Candy: Samanth explores the Breach Candy Club in Mumbai as a relic of the british Raj in modern day India. (Big fan of anything Samanth Subramanian writes)
- Vinod kumar Shukla's poems. Translated and theya re still perfect
Looking forward to Granta 183 when i can get my hands on it
March 12, 2024
Really enjoyed reading this anthology of Indian writing. Especially the first sci-fi story although its pretty creepy, the non-fiction on the Love Jihad, and the story of the ghost in a Kimono which reminded me of rich parts of history. Entering Indian themes such as arranged marriage and cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, through a perspective that is familiar with these concepts unknown to me, enlightened my understanding of an otherwise complex and sometimes contradictory culture. I did feel that sometimes the narration was monotonous, exploring the psychology 50 of one whose family has left India or is of a different generation to him, I wanted the narrative to turn outwards, to describe the world. I missed the voices of the likes of Arundhati Roy.
November 30, 2016
India's voice comes through loud and clear in a collection of works covering everything from the country of the future to ghostly tales of its past. Colourful.
March 13, 2017
Introduction was really good; one line especially stuck with me ("All too often, our writing is an act of translation on behalf of the west"); 'Love Jihad' really kept me engaged. it's a non-fiction piece about men who fight against Muslims 'stealing' their women; currently reading: 'A Double-Income Family' and I really like the way the story is told so far.
June 24, 2022
Print Edition: ★★★
Online Edition: ★★★★
FYI:
There is a print edition with 20 features (fiction, non-fiction, poetry and photo essays). And an online edition with another 24 features.
The Online edition is free for all. You also have access to 10 of the Print edition features online for free, and the rest of the Print edition features are available for digital-subscribers only.
The Online edition is far more interesting than the Print edition, with several thought-provoking essays related to feminism, secularism, and some light-hearted topics. I would encourage you to start there.
The only print edition features worth reading are available for free either on Granta's website or on other news websites (The article titles are fairly self-explanatory):
1. Love Jihad (non-fiction) by Aman Sethi
2. Shunaka: Blood Count (A poem) by Karthika Naïr
3. Gandhi the Londoner (non-fiction) by Sam Miller
4. Breach Candy (non-fiction) by Samanth Subramanian
5. Pyre (non-fiction) by Amitava Kumar
6. Another Way Of Seeing (Art) by Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad
The only essay worth reading in the print edition that is not available for free is The Ghost in the Kimono (non-fiction) by Raghu Karnad. It's about the Japanese Internment Camp in Purana Qila during WWII. To those who have read the article, here are some notes, photographs and references related to the article that the author provided on his website.
Here are all the features in Granta 130: https://granta.com/issues/granta-130-india/
Another cool thing: If you click on the name of the author, you can read other articles written by them. And there is also a "Related" articles section in the bottom of each article page, which will take you to essays by other writers. It's a great way of exploring all the Indian writers who contributed to Granta. Several of them are worth reading. I see myself spending a considerable amount of time on the Granta website.
Online Edition: ★★★★
FYI:
There is a print edition with 20 features (fiction, non-fiction, poetry and photo essays). And an online edition with another 24 features.
The Online edition is free for all. You also have access to 10 of the Print edition features online for free, and the rest of the Print edition features are available for digital-subscribers only.
The Online edition is far more interesting than the Print edition, with several thought-provoking essays related to feminism, secularism, and some light-hearted topics. I would encourage you to start there.
The only print edition features worth reading are available for free either on Granta's website or on other news websites (The article titles are fairly self-explanatory):
1. Love Jihad (non-fiction) by Aman Sethi
2. Shunaka: Blood Count (A poem) by Karthika Naïr
3. Gandhi the Londoner (non-fiction) by Sam Miller
4. Breach Candy (non-fiction) by Samanth Subramanian
5. Pyre (non-fiction) by Amitava Kumar
6. Another Way Of Seeing (Art) by Gauri Gill & Rajesh Vangad
The only essay worth reading in the print edition that is not available for free is The Ghost in the Kimono (non-fiction) by Raghu Karnad. It's about the Japanese Internment Camp in Purana Qila during WWII. To those who have read the article, here are some notes, photographs and references related to the article that the author provided on his website.
Here are all the features in Granta 130: https://granta.com/issues/granta-130-india/
Another cool thing: If you click on the name of the author, you can read other articles written by them. And there is also a "Related" articles section in the bottom of each article page, which will take you to essays by other writers. It's a great way of exploring all the Indian writers who contributed to Granta. Several of them are worth reading. I see myself spending a considerable amount of time on the Granta website.
Read
March 10, 2015I just read a collection of Short Stories from Europe and none of them have stuck with me. Most were good company while they were read, by left little memory of our encounter. Granta 130 has left a great impression. Wonderful stories, non-fiction pieces on the Love Jihad, the private clubs that endure in India leftover from England's colonial rule, and Gandhi in London, and photo essays.
These writings from India do reflect English rule and influence. In one story, English Summer, by Amit Chaudhuri, takes the reader into the ex-pat Indian student world of mid-80s England. Othello Sucks by Upamanyu Chatterjee uses the Shakespeare play as a foil for and reflection of a contemporary Indian high school girl's life. (English Summer had a passage on a Shakespeare sonnet.)
The Wrong Square is a beautifully descriptive travelogue with an ending reminiscent of Goethe's Der Erl-Konig.
Ghachar-Ghochar, The Batchelor Father, are enjoyable stories. Although the two pieces are fiction, Like Pyre, Amitava Kumar's remembrance of his mother's death and cremation, the stories here give insight into the lives and manner of another culture. The Ghost in the Kimono is reportage on the little known interment of Japanese in Delhi during World War Two.
These writings from India do reflect English rule and influence. In one story, English Summer, by Amit Chaudhuri, takes the reader into the ex-pat Indian student world of mid-80s England. Othello Sucks by Upamanyu Chatterjee uses the Shakespeare play as a foil for and reflection of a contemporary Indian high school girl's life. (English Summer had a passage on a Shakespeare sonnet.)
The Wrong Square is a beautifully descriptive travelogue with an ending reminiscent of Goethe's Der Erl-Konig.
Ghachar-Ghochar, The Batchelor Father, are enjoyable stories. Although the two pieces are fiction, Like Pyre, Amitava Kumar's remembrance of his mother's death and cremation, the stories here give insight into the lives and manner of another culture. The Ghost in the Kimono is reportage on the little known interment of Japanese in Delhi during World War Two.
August 26, 2015
i generally liked the journalistic pieces better than the fiction in this one. exceptions: really liked anjali joseph’s writing in shoes, which is an excerpt. arun kolatkar’s sticky fingers was also good. i liked othello sucks (upamanyu chatterjee) with reservations.
the journalistic pieces i liked:
* love jihad (about nationalism and its characters) [aman sethi]
* ghandi the londoner (biographical) [sam miller]
* the ghost in the kimono (nice cross cultural piece about japanese internment camps in india) [raghu karnad]
* breach candy [samanth subramanian]
the titular drawings/photographs by guari gill + rajesh vanguard i also liked
the journalistic pieces i liked:
* love jihad (about nationalism and its characters) [aman sethi]
* ghandi the londoner (biographical) [sam miller]
* the ghost in the kimono (nice cross cultural piece about japanese internment camps in india) [raghu karnad]
* breach candy [samanth subramanian]
the titular drawings/photographs by guari gill + rajesh vanguard i also liked
April 14, 2015
Far better return to form after 129. Best fiction (after a completely baffling first story) was Deepti Kapoor's "A Double-Income Family" and a dervish of a young bride and "The Bachelor Father" at the end of the magazine about a lonely divorcee in America. The non-fiction, as usual for Granta, was more consistent. "Breach Candy" was long, but a good guide to complexities of tradition and the new India over a battle for a private member's club, while Gandhi the Londoner shone a spotlight on Gandhi's English travels - quite a mystical minded guy even back then.
May 4, 2015
Stand outs for me were Sam Miller's 'Gandhi the Londoner' which was full of unexpected gems like Ghandi's mortification about the white flannel suit he arrived in. My other favorite was Raghu Karnad's 'The Ghost in the Kimono' about the internment of Japanese hostages in Delhi during WWII.
July 31, 2015
This was a spotty edition that was overall quite good. I really liked some of the stories, essays, and artwork like the Gauri Gill photos, "Pyre," and "Double-Income Family." Others were a bit boring, but I'm looking forward to the next issue.
January 20, 2022
This was a great edition and I especially liked the non fiction pieces; the Gandhi London stories which make you rethink how his myth got created and the 'Breach Candy' lawsuit story which as a former member I found particularly interesting
April 18, 2015
Apart from Sticky Fingers by the excellent Arun Kolatkar and Othello Sucks! by Upamanyu Chatterjee, the issue is really just okay, nothing excellent.
The essays are, as always, fantastic however.
The essays are, as always, fantastic however.
May 26, 2015
works I enjoyed very much:
Drone (too bad it's only an excerpt)
Breach Candy
A Double Income Family
Sticky Fingers
Drone (too bad it's only an excerpt)
Breach Candy
A Double Income Family
Sticky Fingers
Read
March 3, 2016Loved it for the India-centric writing that felt real.
June 5, 2016
Usual hit and miss with Granta magazines. Some very good - I particularly liked the piece about Gandhi in London - others average.
May 3, 2018
Great selection of writing but really wish Granta would have more anthologies of Indian writing than the two out there.
August 5, 2015
An excellent collection to read while traveling to India for the first time.
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