Indian writers in English are rank individualists. Even among the progressives, there is a strain of anti-leftism, or at least a suspicion of any organized politics. Amitava Kumar More Quotes by Amitava Kumar More Quotes From Amitava Kumar Michael Ondaatje’s work taught me how to be at home in fragments, and how to think about a big story in carefully curated vignettes. All his books were odd, all of them ‘unfinished’ the way Chopin’s Études are unfinished: no wasted gestures, no unnecessary notes. Amitava Kumar home book thinking There is no beginning that is a blank page. Amitava Kumar blank-pages blank pages The border is a marketplace. The invisible hand of the powerful governs the crossings. Amitava Kumar invisible-hand powerful hands India allows you the luxury of a million inequalities. You can be a schoolboy selling tea to passengers sitting in a state transport bus, but you are royalty when compared to a shirtless, barefoot village boy, from what was traditionally considered an untouchable caste, living on snails and small fish - and sometimes rats. Amitava Kumar fish you village tea Culture survives in smaller spaces - not in the history books that erect monuments to the nation's grand history but in cafes and cinema houses, village squares, and half-forgotten libraries. Amitava Kumar village cinema culture history I should not romanticize the simplicity of a village. For instance, the place from where I used to buy a packet of glucose biscuits in my village is now selling cellphones. Amitava Kumar place now village simplicity Each employed immigrant has his or her place of work. It is only the taxi driver, forever moving on wheels, who occupies no fixed space. He represents the immigrant condition. Amitava Kumar place moving-on space work Mistaken identity, of course, has been the province of much postcolonial fiction. An important feature of this writing is the manner in which misrecognition has haunted all cognition. Amitava Kumar been important identity writing The writer will write in his or her words, but the readers, even when they are not reading you, will take it elsewhere entirely. Amitava Kumar words will you reading Imagination makes us shape better stories, sure, but it also allows us to multiply possibilities. Amitava Kumar possibilities us better imagination Criticism is, or ought to be, a judicious act. Amitava Kumar judicious act ought criticism For some members of the radical Left, particularly in the West, people in developing countries are an ideological abstraction, on whom fantasies of liberation are projected from a comfortable distance. Amitava Kumar some left distance people Muslim anger has, of course, been stoked by America's war in Iraq and by Israel's brutal policies toward Palestine and Lebanon. Amitava Kumar palestine anger war america Long ago, when I was in higher secondary school in Delhi, I read an essay by George Orwell in which he said there was a voice in his head that put into words everything he was seeing. I realised I did that, too, or maybe I started doing it in imitation. Amitava Kumar words voice long school Hemingway's short story 'Hills Like White Elephants' is a classic of its kind. It illustrates Hemingway's 'iceberg theory,' which requires that a story find its effectiveness by hiding more than it reveals. Amitava Kumar short story classic white It is clear from Salman Rushdie's writing that politics and literature cannot be separated. Everything is political. Amitava Kumar politics political literature writing A long, negative review I wrote of Rushdie's novel 'Fury' earned me a rebuke from the writer: He told an administrator at the college where I teach, and who had invited Rushdie to come speak, that he wouldn't share the stage with me. Amitava Kumar me speak long negative No civilization has a monopoly on tolerance; each is capable of bigotry. Amitava Kumar each capable tolerance civilization In the way in which we are living in a much more explosive and more tension-filled society, a society that is driven with more and more contradictions, it is but unavoidable that some of this will also come into cinema. I would, in fact, argue that a part of it is borrowed from Hollywood. It's as if Quentin Tarantino has come to Mumbai. Amitava Kumar will cinema society way Neither the writer nor the reader can save the world by themselves. Or escape it entirely. Amitava Kumar save escape save-the-world world
