ajay124
Well-Known Member
Any one on the forum interested in,what is normally referred to as 'Literature'?
I seldom use that word,because in the context of the Indian education system (heavily science oriented,to the point of completely ignoring the arts) 'Literature' means that one,solitary play of William Shakespeare and a handful of poems of M/S Wordsworth,Keats and Shelley,which are rammed into the reluctant,indifferent minds of most school children.
Literature for me simply means good fiction..Fyodor Dostoevesky,Gustave Flaubert,Franz Kafka or in the modern context Vladmir Nabokov,Gabriel Garcia Marquez,Ismail Kadare...
I became a member (in my dad's name.i was deemed too young) of the Simla Munucipal Library at the age of 11,and dived headlong into the world of Alistair Maclean,Oliver Strange,Agatha Christie,PG Wodehouse,James Hadley Chase.In the next few years I revelled in the best sellers of those times...Robert Ludlum,Arthur Hailey,Leon Uris,Wilbur Smith,Ken Follet,Jeffrey Archer,Harold Robbins,Mario Puzo,Jacqueline Susann...finishing of my school years with a manic obsession for the 'philosophy' :sad: of Ayn Rand.
For 'higher' education
I left Simla for Chandigarh.Ostensibly,I was supposed to be graduating in Commerce,but I spent less time in college and more in the Central State Library and the Rose Garden,smoking and reading.
From the moment I first entered a library in Simla,I stopped paying attention to my teachers,parents,elders,preachers and those silly pieces of obnoxious,yellow paper called newspaper and magazine.Whatever 'education' I have received,I credit to the great fiction writers of Europe,America and Latin America.And later to the poets and philosophers of the West.
I seldom use that word,because in the context of the Indian education system (heavily science oriented,to the point of completely ignoring the arts) 'Literature' means that one,solitary play of William Shakespeare and a handful of poems of M/S Wordsworth,Keats and Shelley,which are rammed into the reluctant,indifferent minds of most school children.
Literature for me simply means good fiction..Fyodor Dostoevesky,Gustave Flaubert,Franz Kafka or in the modern context Vladmir Nabokov,Gabriel Garcia Marquez,Ismail Kadare...
I became a member (in my dad's name.i was deemed too young) of the Simla Munucipal Library at the age of 11,and dived headlong into the world of Alistair Maclean,Oliver Strange,Agatha Christie,PG Wodehouse,James Hadley Chase.In the next few years I revelled in the best sellers of those times...Robert Ludlum,Arthur Hailey,Leon Uris,Wilbur Smith,Ken Follet,Jeffrey Archer,Harold Robbins,Mario Puzo,Jacqueline Susann...finishing of my school years with a manic obsession for the 'philosophy' :sad: of Ayn Rand.
For 'higher' education
I left Simla for Chandigarh.Ostensibly,I was supposed to be graduating in Commerce,but I spent less time in college and more in the Central State Library and the Rose Garden,smoking and reading.From the moment I first entered a library in Simla,I stopped paying attention to my teachers,parents,elders,preachers and those silly pieces of obnoxious,yellow paper called newspaper and magazine.Whatever 'education' I have received,I credit to the great fiction writers of Europe,America and Latin America.And later to the poets and philosophers of the West.
and Magazines.
