Nostalgia in Amitava Kumar's BombayLondonNew York Essay

Nostalgia in Amitava Kumars BombayLondonNew York - Essay ExampleSaid emerges not just as an intellectual giant, plainly also a deeply passionate man.The requirement f leaving ones place f orign and run from the periphery towards the centre, combined with the compulsion to look back and travel homewards n a foretell to understand ones history, is the force that drives much f recent Indian writing n English. The name Kumar has selected for his support signifies the journey that both he and his fellow writers have made, the distances they have traversed and the literary signposts they have passed.It happens often that compositions f exemplary character and intuition do not receive the desired attention from their creators. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes mysteries on a lark but tired f his detective, had him killed n a story, only to refresh him agan later a public outrage. A similar overlooking f ones own talents occurs n this Kumars entertaining book. succession the title may be reminiscent f a travel brochure, the book is an exhaustive perfect(a) survey f Indian authors writing n English, living n both India and abroad. But, sifting with the literary ore, we find charming nuggets f Kumars own life, gleaming like gold. Kumars personal musings cover perchance a fourth f his book but have an impact far beyond their length. The splendid volume f his personal odyssey has enough pathos to overcome his intermittently interesting but by and large descriptive treatise on the Indian contribution to English literature.Similar to his an earlier excellent piece f writing, Passport Photos, this one is a multi-genre celebration f the fascinating literary journey that Kumar has undertaken as a reader and critic f Indian fiction. His own fiction and poetry, along with personal accounts, make this an fantastic exercise that explores many f the impulses that have helped create contemporary Indian fiction n English.The creative activity literature has slow ly awakened to the realization that Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul and Arundhati Roy are not restricted to the ethnic press any longer they are internationally renowned writers with considerable influence n the world f ideas. It is therefore oddly apt that there be a reassessment f Indian-English contribution to English literature and Kumar does this praiseworthily through the prism f his own understanding.n Bombay-London-New York, Kumar highlights at the very beginning that his pages are to be read merely as marginal entries n a book written by others. He quotes generously from novels and short stories, newspaper articles, reviews and interviews, and uses photographs to convey a sense f contemporary India and the Indian writers experience.Kumars beg is as enormous ahis reading practice which he claims to have recorded for the purpose f this book. The issues he deals with are, likewise, numerous. Kumar does not incarcerate his survey to immigrant writing. We are taken to Pankaj Mis hras Butter chicken n Ludhiana Travels n weensy Town India , where an Indian born American kid asks a perplexed hotel manager May I have a boddle f Bisleri Wadder. He ruminates on the nuclear bomb with Arundhati Roy (The End f Imagination), relives Londons Bloomsbury raft with Mulk Raj Anand ( Conversations n Bloomsbury), revels n the celebration f Hanif Kureishis sexually charged writing (My Beautiful Launderette, Sammie and Rosie Get Laid) and discusses Akhil Sharmas An docile