Divya Shankar’s Reviews > The Book of Indian Essays: Two Hundred Years Of English Prose > Status Update

Reading essays from the second page of table of contents - very few favourites. RK Narayan's Elephant in the Pit and M Krishnan's Jellicut were good. Buddhadeba Bose recounts his meeting and equation with author Henry Milker and there is Qurratulain Hyder writing about My Aunt Gracie, two good essays again.

I liked the essay titled The Colonisation of India, it was insightful. Other than this one, almost all essays on the first page of table of contents by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Nehru, Nirad Chaudhuri felt too erudite or elitist sounding to my tastes. There is no doubt that all these people are masters of their crafts, they excel in so many of them but their words and style feels hard to absorb.

Gautam Bhatia's essay on Art and sculpture being used as tools of political agenda, Dom Moraes's sharp views on God and Religion are good. Wish Irwin Sealy's essay on Anglo Indians was more insightful. Chitrita Banerji's Patoler Ma is a favorite.

Amitav Ghosh's The Imam and the Indian feels more like fiction. Pankaj Mishra's Mashobra and essays by Adil Jussawalla and Ruskin Bond set in Bombay and Delhi have a strong sense of place.

Reading Shohini Ghosh's Sky Above and Grass Below right after the Indian women won ICC cricket world cup felt really good. Sheila Dhar moved me to tears with a beautiful essay on her mother whom she called Baua. Her writing flows smoothly like gentle music.

Started reading this backwards - till now, I am a fan of essays written by women, mostly. In very short space, Shama Futehally's essay titled March impressed me that I wanted to read her more and have her collection of stories. Sara Rai, granddaughter of Munshi Premchand, writes beautifully about language and writing and linking your identity with them. I sure want to read her memoir next.