The God of Small Things; by Arundhati Roy.

First and foremost it is a good read and a racy one, and a good piece of writing too. That much is obvious - it won the Booker prize, after all. It was a sensation when it arrived, not the least because it was already portrayed as a sensation on distant shores, slated to go win much - and it did win the booker, giving us an elation.

In India though there were opinions as diverse as could be, with the most innocent detractors pointing out that writers in India had written much greater stuff and while this one was good it was hardly the best of Indian writing or even representative of India either in social terms or in quality of our best.

At one small gathering of friends at our place it was suggested that we should do something, make efforts at social and national levels, to bring out best of our literature to the notice of those that were holding up this as our best. While I don't think there is anything to be said against such an effort I thought it was not a "should" - it could be done but was rather of questionable relevance.

It was only those who gave importance to bookers and oscars and other "foreign" fame and notice and acknowledgement forms that were disturbed by the phenomena that this book had become, I thought (and said) - if "they" like rock and we have great music of Bhimsen Joshi and Jasraj and Amir Khan and Hirabai Badodekar, "them" not noticing our best does not change the fact of our classical being superior, unless we have a psychological need of approval from "them" to certify our rich heritage in its superiority.

Now remembering the distant memory - it was a storm in a teacup really, so ten years or so is a lot - one can see another side of it, too.

Pather Panchali was a much heralded film, with awards galore, and fame that went on and on. Part of it was due to its being more accessible to a sensibility that was linear and strictly of mind level, while more complex sensibilities are perhaps of our preference, with inputs from the worlds of heart and music and earth's or world's visual spectacular bounty, and dance. For a while there was a distinct divide - with those that preferred Ray considering themselves superior and those that preferred average Indian cinema apologetic or uncaring. Now, we have come to terms with our own. And meaniwhile there has been all along every kind of cinema in between, too.

So why was Ray the heralded one in west, while we ignored the phenomenal and much - very much - deserved popularity of Awara in Russian, east European and much of other parts of the world? The latter had to do with our colonial past still shadowing us in our need of approval, now a past. The former is another story and connects to the booker prize of Roy in a distant link.

Awara was a beautiful film with a story and appeal that were universal in nature, applicable to any society with injustice against women in suspecting them of fall from virtue and discarding them while innocent, and the consequent social ills. It touched hearts and won them - Russians could sing the theme en masse, and did when they gave a thundering ovation to the star director - and even today Russia knows us by his name more than anything, as casual visitors testify time and again, with their being given friendly smiles and help with the name of India to which they respond with "Raj Kapoor, Awara".

Pather Panchali on the other hand could be applied to poor anywhere, but is visually very much identifiable with India, and so is a story of India identified as a poor nation in the western psyche, a story of poverty. That there is such poverty in their own backyards is swept under the rug, and this stark film is comfortable in their view for applauding. It is only India, and does not remind them of anything nearby. And it is easier to deal with, being much more if not exclusively on levelof mind rather than of a more integral perception.

The parallels are hardly anywhere near exact. Roy's work is on more levels than merely mind, and both the virtue of this work as well as the truth of there being better works even then in Indian (and therefore inaccessible to west) languages - I have met westerners that did not know we had languages, much less literature, and some thought we all speak English! - fact is this one in its value of literary virtue as well as sensational stuff that could be a silent pointing finger at India was more comfortable for rewarding with a much valued prize.

There is no denying this is good work, only, readers from elsewhere are likely to take it as representative of not only a specific story of a place and people or even some of society but of all India. Which is not the writer's fault really.

Roy is brilliant and fearless and has gone on to do superior work, which has gone unnoticed comparatively. Dams are still being built.

I am afraid (the last phrase and the last word can be taken literally only by disassociting it from the subject of the verb, in that everyone should be afraid of such a possibility) that major disasters of far more than environmental and ecological nature are likely.

This is all the more so when sensitive parts of Earth such as Himaalaya and other tectonic dynamic are being played with - without thought of anything other than power and profits.