Amitava Kumar, in the course of
an interview, says:
[I]n some respects, Bihar really is the nadir of civilisation. And therefore it is the future that awaits the rest of India.
Read the rest of
the interview, it's short but sharp, with excellent bits on writing, perceptions of superiority, and the village in Indian literature, about which he says:
More popular than the pathologising of the village, particularly in metropolitan fiction, is a misleading romance about the village. It’s all folkloric, with no sense, really, that people are shitting in the fields or dying of cholera. Or dying to get away and become a badly-paid security guard in a Delhi suburb.
Exactly. By the by, Amitava's book, "
Home Products," should be out soon, so watch out for it.