Rukun Advani is the most unsung prose stylist in India. A few months ago I had said this to one of my most favourite teachers, who is also a good friend of Rukun Advani, and it is time I said this in public. It took me many years to get hold of a copy of Beethoven among the cows, but I have alsways followed his column Loose Cannon, thanks to the delightful chance that I was living in South India those days. To all those to whom Rukun Advani sounds like a rather unfamiliar name, I suggest go get hold of a copy of Betthoven among the cows or come borrow it from me, and then I am sure there will not remain much to disagree. This is a most delightfully all over the place kind of a novel, one that celebrates the autonomy and rootedness of the human mind at the same time. I am in no mood to write a review of the book for I started this post for a very different reason.
I have lately come to know he published a small book called History from Above and Below, taking uproariously funny potshots at some of the high priests of the postmodern and postcolonial school of thought in relation to history of India in colonial times, who incidenatlly also happen to be mostly Bengali, and generally based in the US of A. This is one book I want to read right now. If any one of you out there have a copy or know anybody who does, please let me know at the earliest, as they say. If you suggest I go to a bookshop first, let me confess that that has not yielded any positive result, yet. I am ceratinly dumb, but not totally. So, all out there, help me get hold of the book please.
2 comments:
hi, this is rukun here. neeladri said you'd said all these flattering things about me: thank you! entirely undeserved, however. and beethoven among the cows is actually (in my view at this point of time) rather embarrassingly juvenile in parts, though i still like some other bits of it. the parodies you're looking for i'd be happy to courier to you -- send me your name and address and i'll post a copy. or if you prefer i can give it to neel to give you. you can also read the parodies on the net -- the link is
http://ticklishsubject.wordpress.com/
all the best,
rukun
I have already found them in that blog of yours, four five days ago. They are great fun, leaves one gobsmacked. will write about them in a future blog, one that will attempt a similar form in regard to my generation of scholars who live and die within colonial discourses. it is as though the world in and of India came into being in the nineteenth century! thank you so much for dropping by my blog. my day is made.
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