'I don't think you have anything to say to me and I certainly don't have anything to say to you.' Bharat Bhushan recalls his encounters with V S Naipaul.
Nikhil Lakshman remembers the times he spent with the legendary writer who passed into the ages six days before his 86th birthday.
Naipaul wrote more than 30 books of fiction and nonfiction during his career with a sharp critique of established religion and politicians characterising much of his work.
Naipaul's views against the commonplace perception towards colonised countries and their people were not the only thing controversial about the famed author.
Sonny Ramadhin, the mystery spinner from Trinidad who bamboozled England in 1950 and the first Indian to play for the West Indies, passed into the ages on Sunday, February 27, 2022.
What is a migrant going through today on the walk home? What is it like to be a Muslim and watch the news on television every night in India? Is there a bureaucrat who is noting down the absurdity of what is announced and what is actually happening in her domain? A medical resident who has gone through three weeks of 12-hour shifts while her seniors abstain from coming to the Covid hospital? They may be our everyday experiences, but they are how history will understand what happened to us all in this strange and surreal time, points out Aakar Patel.
'On both sides of our cultural divide, it roused strong emotions that had very little to do with the language and its literature.' 'I felt Sanskrit had been removed from the realm of thought, and made an object of politics and piety, of oppression, of reverence and contempt.' 'It was my aim to avoid these things, and go straight to the language which, as an object for the mind, is among the most exquisite ever made.'
'The more I lived in India, the more I realised that America was my home too.'
India has undermined its own credibility.
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