“The essay, like a penknife, can be put to many uses; like a newspaper aeroplane, it can fly and crash and fly again; as a literary genre, ...
“The essay, like a penknife, can be put to many uses; like a newspaper aeroplane, it can fly and crash and fly again; as a literary genre, it is unfussy. An essay gathers no dust.”
Unless you’re a literary buff who seeks out good non-fiction writing, especially essays, written by Indians, the chances of your having read something outside of your school and college syllabi (which somehow includes mostly British and American essay writers) are low. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, poet, writer, and critic puts it rather bluntly: “We’ve certainly not paid as much attention to the essay as we should have. Actually, there’s a lack of historicity in the way we think and talk and write about Indian literature.”
Range and style
And so, when you pick up The Book of Indian Essays: Two Hundred Years of English Prose, edited by Mehrotra, you find within the purview of the anthology the sparkle of academic intellect alongside humour, personal opinions and reflections that engage both the critical eye as well as a non-academic audience. To reflect on Mehrotra’s introduction, the curation is symptomatic of a dual progression, where the stress is not only on stylish prose, but also on a delectable range of subjects.
While the inclusion of a few...
