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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes any of its artistic features or narrative style. All that matters is the graphic account of the sordid,
sinking and dark and debased picture of different aspects of India, the land of what be calls the
"half baked men" and "human spider". Hence it is the description of various faces of India that is
said to have any merit. Thus while describing the tea shops on the bank of Ganga, he looks at the
men working in the tea shop - "men, I say, but better to call them human spiders that go crawling
in between and under the tables with rags in their hands, crushed humans in crushed uniforms,
sluggish, unshaven, in their thirties or forties or fifties but still 'boys'. But that is your fate if you
do your job well - with honesty, dedication, and sincerity, the way Gandhi would have done it, no
doubt." Similarly to him there are two kinds of Indian: 'Indian' liquor men and 'English' liquor
men. 'Indian' liquor was for village boys like me-"toddy, arrack, country hooch. 'English' liquor,
naturally, is for the rich. Rum, whisky, beer, gin-anything the English left behind." Close to this
he comes to give an interesting history of the poor and rich which is full of bitter irony: The history
of the world is the history of a ten-thousand year war of brains between the rich and the poor.
Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of
time. The poor win a few battles (the peeing in the potted plants, the kicking of the pet dogs, etc.)
but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years. That's why, one day, some wise
men, out of compassion for the poor, left them signs and symbols in poems, which appear to be
about roses and pretty girls and things like that, but when understood correctly, spill out secrets
that allow the poorest man on earth to conclude the ten-thousand-year-old brain-war on terms
favourable to himself. The irony becomes all the more pungent when he says : See, the poor
dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich
dream of ? Losing weight and looking like the poor. Similarly the dogs of the rich people are
different from the dogs of the poor. The dogs of the rich are treated as more than servants of the
rich houses because: The rich expect their dogs to be treated like human, you see - they expect
their dogs to be pampered, and walked, and petted, and even washed! And guess who had to do
the washing? I got down on my knees and began scrubbing the dogs, and then lathering them,
and foaming them, and then washing them down, and taking a blow dryer and drying their skin.
Then I took them around the compound on a chain while the king of Nepal sat in a corner and
shouted, 'Don't pull the chain so hard! They're worth more than you are! Talking of his upbringing,
he demonstrates how every successful entrepreneur in India is incomplete: Fully formed fellow,
after twelve years of school and three years of university, wear nice suits, join companies, and take
orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made half-baked clay. To him
politics to Indians is a game played through media and All India Radio. The health minister announces
to eliminate malaria, the chief minister announces to eradicate malnutrition, and the finance minister
announces especial budget for the entire electrification of India. The author however, comments.
This is the kind of news they feed us on All India Radio, night after night: and tomorrow at dawn
it'll be in the papers too. People just swallow this crap. Night after night, morning after morning.
Amazing, isn't it?
His accounts of the cities of India are full of bitter ironical remarks that reveal the real condition
of the people living here. Talking of the city of Delhi, he comments: And all the roads look the
same, all of them go around and around grassy circles in which men are sleeping or eating or
playing cards, and then four roads shoot off from that grassy circle, and then you go down one
road, and you hit another grassy circle where men are sleeping our playing cards, and then four
more roads go off from it. So you just keep getting lost, and lost, and lost in Delhi. Thousands of
people live on the sides of the road in Delhi. They have come from the darkness too- you can tell
by their thin bodies, filthy faces, by the animal-like way they live under the huge bridges and
overpasses, making fires and washing and taking lice out of their hair while the cars roar past
them. And about the jails of Delhi, he says:
The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind bars because they are taking the blame
for their good, solid middle-class masters. We have left the villages, but the masters still own us,
body, soul and …

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