Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games.
Did you know that English literature as an academic discipline was invented in colonial India?
While schooboys in Britain were still having Latin and Greek beaten into their backsides, in British India the locals were being taught the classics of English literature, as a way to create a class of people with an appreciation for the culture of their northern rulers. And could this be the reason that two of the best examples of novels that promise to become classics of our time were written by people named Vikram? For I think the least interesting point of comparison between Seth’s A Suitable Boy and Chandra’s Sacred Games is their common Indian setting since the plots that unfold in each are so different. Much more interesting is the way they both felt like classics the moment I started reading them. By classics I mean novels that are widely popular in their own day and have the quality of writing, depth of theme, and breadth of vision to speak to each generation anew. I fully expect Sacred Games to be read by my great-grandchildren. I think a conscious or unconscious awareness of this kind of enduring appeal is what has earned the novels of these Vikrams comparisons to Tolstoy and Dickens, more than their intricate plots or their length.
Yes, I liked this book. And I would love to see it made into a movie, which is a first for me since I shun movies made from books I love. In fact, I’d like to see it filmed three different times. The first should be a big Hollywood blockbuster, fast-paced and dramatic. The second should be a meticulous BBC production in many, many parts so every scene and every line of dialogue of Chandra’s could be lovingly represented and we could savour it over months. And the last, of course, is a big, splashy Bollywood number with an intermission, and songs and dancing, and tragedy and despair, followed by love and a happy ending and everyone in the audience, men and women, crying.
I did not know that, about the genesis of English Lit as a discipline. It makes sense, though.
So how did it spread to, say, here?
Now you’ve made me want to go and dig up this book. A friend of mine sent it to me over the summer and neither me nor my mom was inclined to pick it up for some reason.
I’m so glad I stopped in this evening. Thanks for the rec!
Virginia Lee, I’d be curious to hear what you think of it.
Mike, that’s a really good question, and I don’t know the answer. I suspect it spread first to other British colonies and to the States before England. I also read something that said it was a discipline in Scotland before England.