Exploring Contemporary Voices: A Glimpse into India's Vibrant Literary Landscape

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 27: India, while still a few years short of its 80 years of Independence, remains young and ever so bustling and so does our literature, while traced back centuries and sights, remains as vibrant and young as our country. We’re going to highlight a few contemporary writers that have caught our eye this year, enjoy their stories and their many books if you get a chance.

      1. Amit Chaudhuri
Amit Chaudhuri as his Wikipedia profile tells us is all of 61 years young, he’s a novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, singer, and music composer from India. He also happens to be professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia. He’s written 8 novels thus far and the latest of them is ‘Sweet Shop’. Chaudhuri is a writer, engaging, thought provoking, like many we read, but it’s his ability to question the rhetoric and ask of us to pulse into the mundane. He uses his own life as an example in his works and often uses art and literature as strong forms of architectural and literary activism. His first novel A Strange and Sublime Address, and in his two recent works, The Immortals and A New World still stay with all readers, fresh as blood. He was born and raised in Calcutta, as we can tell by his writings where Chaudhuri was born and partly raised, his recent non-fiction book Calcutta: Two Years in the City gives us a glimpse into his growing up years. There’s a lot already written and said about him, but to remember him would be to read him. We’ll leave you with his poem and let you explore the rest.

Sweet Shop
The whole universe is here.
Every colour, a few on the verge of being barely tolerable. 
Every shape as well as minute flourishes created in the prehistory of each sandesh by precise pinches.
The horizontal trays brim (but don't tremble) with mass and form.
The serrations are near-invisible.
You'd miss them if they were deeper or clearer. 
The soft oblongs and the minuscule, hard pillow-shaped ones are generated so neatly that instinct alone
could have given them shape, and no mould. In the harmony shielded by the glass
is an unnoticed balance of gravity and play.

⦁      2. Janice Pariat 

Janice, as many of us have heard of, lives with many cats and between the cities of Shillong and New Delhi. She was born in Assam and her work reflects her geographical grounds, there’s an earthiness to her works which brings us to hands with a woman born in between forests and its forms. She is the author of "Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories" and "Seahorse: A Novel". She was awarded the Young Writer Award from the Sahitya Akademi and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction in 2013. Her book, ‘Nine Chambered Heart’ is beautiful, there’s deep compassion in her work without losing the brilliance of a writer writing about nine men, writing about a woman they have loved and she’s doused them back in love. As a writer, to regain marital monogamy after that as her recent wedding tells us is a celebration in itself. Her last book, ‘Everything the Light Touches’, is the art of science, magic, literature, and philosophy and we’re transported through time with the four people who’s lives and separation makeup the beauty and binding of this book. Her poignancy and tenure can only be understood when you peg your eyes to her book and read through. While her last book is excellent, what keeps taking us back to her is her poetry, the softness of the pictures she posts on Instagram and the elegance she brings to everything she does, whether it be lay flowers on a table or drink tea from a cup you’d find ordinary, but only, it was held by Janice. 

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⦁      3. Devangana Mishra

I met Devangana in the lobby of Soho House, Mumbai. She was waiting to chaperone a teenager up to the lobby, he’s on the autism spectrum of autism. She teaches him English and math as work for her foundation, Brain Bristle, for autistic kids. I wouldn’t have thought Devangana is a writer, but then she softly held my elbow as I approached her and she whispered, ‘When you meet him, you’ll never believe he can study all this stuff, (pointing to the books in her hand) but he can and that’s why I love doing what I do’

Writers dawn on writers, it was early evening, the April sun was warm on our faces, Devangana’s pale, slightly jaundiced skin, her big brown eyes, her long eyelashes, her unkempt curls, her eyes wrote when she spoke, her perfectly pink mouth made me want to ask her about what she wrote. She explained, ‘I teach writing and reading and math and science to high schoolers, middle schoolers, kids on the spectrum, now for my foundation, but I guess I’m also a failed author of my debut book of poetry, Deseirto Florido. I failed at writing good poetry, at selling the book, so I wrote a second one, 26, Kamala Nehru Rudge, Civil Lines, Delhi, set in pre-independence India about a muslim girl making her way through. Ever since the book’s release, many see me as a writer, as an artist, I’m still finding my way out of my shell, stuck between sand and sea, both covering my skin. I could listen to Devangana all day long, she was very animated, but the kid she was waiting for arrived and so I bought 26, Kamala Nehru Ridge, Civil Lines, Delhi. The book is spell bindingly excellent. 

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⦁      4. Ira Trivedi

Ira is a yoga enthusiast, teacher, and runs a not-for-profit, Namani Yoga, which aims to make a million people yoga teachers. He yogic lifestyle and yogic prayers seep into her books now published globally by leading publishers. These include the critically acclaimed "India in Love," (Aleph Books,) which featured on the cover of Outlook magazine, "The Great Indian Love story (Penguin Books,)" "Nikhil and Riya (Harper Collins,)" " The 10 minute Yoga solution ( Harper Collins,)" The Om the Yoga Dog series ( Scholastic,) and many more. Her last book, Om The Yoga Dog, is excellent if you want to raise young and happy kids, who live breathing lives. Ira’s work embodies the idea, if you want to live free, mindfully, breathing and strong, then yoga is a journey into oneself and there’s only peace and pranayam at the end. Her books make us want to read more but also quickly look up her classes and sign up for a mat, right about now. 
If you’re sitting on an office chair, twirling around, then Ira Trivedi is the woman you’re looking for. 

We hope this was a fun little glimpse into the bustling and bold India we breathe in today!

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