| The authors who shaped the
nought-noughts
V S Naipaul, for instance, got his Nobel Prize, at the beginning of the new millennium. But is he an Indian? Or is he Caribbean? Or is he British? And did his kind of writing shape anything in the nought-noughts? Or is it still the kind of writing to which everyone pays lip service? Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize and for once, the Indian media did not immediately go gaga over him. Instead, they bounced rather hard on the book. This, I suspect, isn’t anything to do with the representation of the poor or the marginalised. It has more to do with how Adiga has conducted himself with the Indian media. Although there is probably just cause since editors in major newspapers will toss authors and artists to the new kid on the block. This means that our cultural reporting is still amateurish and that’s the way we like it. And so here’s the choices we made, after much soul-searching.
 Arun Kolatkar
Arun Kolatkar was always an important poet. His Jejuri, a book-length narrative poem about faith from a non-believer, was hailed as a masterpiece almost as soon as it came out. It won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1977. Kolatkar was resolute about not publishing until he was ready. That was while he thought he had all the time in the world. Then cancer caught up with him and Kolatkar’s works came out with an astonishing rapidity. There was Kala Ghoda Poems, a magnificently observed love letter to the city of Mumbai and Sarp Satra, a play in verse which uses an episode in the Mahabharata to sound a warning. Then he died and suddenly everyone was reading Kolatkar, everyone loved Jejuri. Truly, seven cities claimed Homer dead, through which the living Homer begged his bread. If you’re an Indian poet, it’s a good career move to die. You're not going to be read otherwise.
 Amitav Ghosh
He was at his prolific best: Glass Palace (2000), Hungry Tide (2004) and Sea of Poppies (2008) are not just works of fiction, but documentaries of significant events, and places of the subcontinent. He backed it up with a brilliant collection of essays, Imam and the Indian, in 2002. Ghosh spends most of his time in Goa these days, a place which he thinks has better conversation than New York. He is working on a trilogy which could become the definitive work on the first movements of the Indian diaspora.
Suketu Mehta
One book old, what’s he doing on this list? The reason, of course, is that he is one book old. But Maximum City is no longer just a book. It’s the gold standard for writing non-fiction in India. Think of another book that has this kind of ambition and you'd have to work hard. That could be because Indian publishers pay peanuts as advances, not enough money to live on and to travel on. That’s because, they say, Indians don’t read enough. So you get about Rs 20,000 and you’re supposed to go away and write a book. Mehta had Random House America and Sonny Mehta backing him. He got time, space and tickets from New York. He did it.
 Chetan Bhagat
In the 1990s, everyone used the name Shobha Dé to talk about popular fiction. Now, they use the name of Chetan Bhagat who has made a career out of writing the kind of stories Indians seem to enjoy reading on local trains. This may have been because Dé herself vacated the spot, turning out a series of non-fiction works. Or it may have something to do with Bhagat inventing the 'IIM-IIT novel' genre. Since then we have had novels about almost every institution that considers itself a bastion of intellectual excellence. But then, it's only Bhagat's book which has turned into a movie.
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