Indian Science Fiction and Fantasy, According to Samit Basu

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Since Ennis mentioned superheroes, I wanted to point out that Samit Basu has put together a wonderful series of essays and interviews on the subject of contemporary Indian speculative fiction (“speculative fiction” is an umbrella term, which includes sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and alternative history).

It’s really a small encyclopedia rather than a blog post, so here are a couple of pointers to start you off. First and foremost, Samit deals with the question of Indian speculative fiction in the context of the recent flourishing of “literary” Indian Writing in English here. He deals with the question of “authentic” Indian superheroes (as opposed to the bad, but familiar, ripoffs of western superheroes) here. Both are highly recommended links. Basu also gets into some questions about the publishing industry and the current dominance of diasporic writers here, though that may be of interest more to people interested in publishing questions.On the definitional and generic question, the highlight of Basu’s essay are the following paragraphs:

This set of essays, however, is fundamentally flawed on many levels – it is about a nascent, hard-to-define sub-section of literature, the as-yet-mostly-nonexistent sub-genre of Indian speculative fiction in English, which is itself a bastard child of two parents who, not being dead, are difficult to analyze as they are not only infinitely complex at any point, but, to complicate things further, change all the time as well. . . . (link)

Note that the “two parents” are Indian Writing in English and Western speculative fiction. To continue:

What is Indian/South Asian literature in English? Even if we get past the tricky question of origin, which has obsessed scholars since the term came into being, and include the non-resident and the genetically partially South Asian, in recent years the growing diversity in South Asian English literature should lead to more questions –- having overcome the ‘South Asian’ part of the question by being all-inclusive, how do we now define ‘literature’? Do we include comics and graphic novels, speculative fiction, thrillers, chick-lit, campus novels and crime fiction, all of which have reared their heads in India over the last decade? This should prove a lot more difficult for the sagacious and scholarly to do, given that literary snobbery is far more acceptable than racism -– and that Indian-origin writers abroad might have very thin connections with India, but large advances and literary awards add a great deal of density to the study of the field -– build its brand, in other words, however gut-shrinking that might sound, while diversity in the form of new, not necessarily mainstream writing increases the number of spices in the curry, but, in the eyes of many not-so-neutral observers, does not necessarily add to its taste. (link)

I think Basu is on the right track here. It doesn’t make that much sense to rail against the “Opal Mehta’s Arranged Monsoon Marriage Under the Curry-Smelling Mango Trees” school of masalafied Indian fiction (which has been discussed quite a bit here at Sepia Mutiny), partly because such fiction does possibly “strengthen the brand,” as Basu puts it. Writers like Basu himself may potentially benefit even by some irksome predecessors, partly because those predecessors carve out space on bookshelves for the next generation of writers, and raise the awareness of both publishers and readers. (Though that holds only if the reputation of the whole isn’t permanently overwhelmed by the reek of rotting pulp.)

In his “Indian Superheroes” essay, Basu talks about the bad Indian copies of western superheroes (“Mr. India”; “Indian Superman”) as well as the Indian connections of some western figures like The Phantom, before moving on to the real subject at interest, which is the emergence of real, homegrown “Indian superheroes,” whose stories and cultural context is identifiably Subcontinental. To some extent the idea of authenticity means the symbolism of the superheroes may be derived from traditional Indian mythology — though I think even simply grounding those figures realistically in the modern Indian cultural context probably goes a long way.

As a final note, I picked up a few things from Samit’s discussion of the growing number of western comics series that have introduced Indian superheroes and supervillains. Of them, my current favorite is the baddie called “Commcast,” who is defined on Wikipedia as follows:

Garabed Bashur, a native of India, is a cyberpath who possesses the mutant ability to psychically retrieve, interpret and store data from any form of electronic media (essentially a highly potent electronic form of telepathy). He was trained in this ability by Professor Charles Xavier, but Xavier rejected Bashur upon learning of his criminal tendencies. (link)

In an era of outsourcing and the explosion of Indian high tech, it’s not at all surprising to see Marvel Comics go this route. I think it’s funny that they gave him a name (“Commcast”) that essentially rhymes with the name of my current Cable/Internet company (“Comcast”) — actually a pretty good name for a villain. And while he is a bit on the geeky side, at least they didn’t give him the name “TeeVo”!

16 thoughts on “Indian Science Fiction and Fantasy, According to Samit Basu”

  2. “Opal Mehta’s Arranged Monsoon Marriage Under the Curry-Smelling Mango Trees”

    Amardeep, you’d better slap a trademark on that title quick, before some packaging house rips it off and makes a brown Sweet Valley High series of it…

  3. Ah so this gunda is the one responsible for sneaking hidden fees into my bill, thus forcing me to endure countless hours with customer care as they ‘assist’ me in crediting these unauthorized charges.. Curse you Commcastbhai!

  4. Desidancer, I don’t care if they rip off my title — as long as they include a Sikh character in the series named Amardeep, who is the dreamy hunk type.

    And Mayur, the only hero who can stop the evil Commcast is “Dishnet,” known to the world at large as “Drrish.”

  5. Damnit, Amardeep, I demand a special widget which automatically collets all your posts in a downloadable file that I can carry on my phone to the bookstore and library. You always provide the most interesting information, but of course too busy to digest this now. I think you could make good money running a summer bookcamp. 🙂

  6. What I want to know is: Where is The Manticore’s Secret?
    It’s part II of the Game World trilogy. I bought Simoquin Prophecies on a visit to India and loved it. But the second book is not available here. Does Samit Basu mention any trouble with getting the book published here? It seems to be well reviewed.

  7. Rasudha, I haven’t seen it either — and the importers aren’t carrying it.

    But it looks like you can order it from an online bookstore in India and have it shipped. OxfordBookstore.com is selling it for Rs. 265 ($5 US) + shipping.

  8. Thanks Amardeep

    Samit Basu should have it online as a downloadable e-book. Wont have to bother with shipping across continents and I can keep it safe from my dog. He loves books too 🙂

  9. What is Indian/South Asian literature in English?

    The phrase “diasporic fiction” is more descriptive and concise, methinks. And it need not apply strictly to Pakistani/Indian/Sri Lankan/Bangladeshi writers writing in takes deep breath Urdu Punjabi Hindi Tamil Marathi Assamese Oriya Bengali oh yeah and English.

  10. Are ‘Garabed’ and ‘Bashur’ actual desi names, or are they just more ganked-up Western mutations like ‘Taj Mahal Bandaladabad?’

    It doesn’t make that much sense to rail against the “Opal Mehta’s Arranged Monsoon Marriage Under the Curry-Smelling Mango Trees” school of masalafied Indian fiction (which has been discussed quite a bit here at Sepia Mutiny), partly because such fiction does possibly “strengthen the brand,”

    Sure, if you want the brand to evoke cliche. By that logic, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, Nitin Sawhney et al are diluting the brand instead of extending it.

  11. I’m a Swedish SF writer. I have tried to follow the growth of the Indian SF “scene”… and I’ve also contributed fiction to the (now defunct) Indian webzine ADBHUT (see “Sins Of Our Fathers,” also published at http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue113/sins_fathers.html).

    Now, the development of Swedish Science Fiction in my country went through challenges similar to those facing Indian SF (and still does):

    1. Heavy influence from British and American writers/publishers;

    2. The problem of finding an “authentic voice” in a genre already so dominated by the English language (can you imagine a Swedish superhero? I can’t! ;-));

    3. Being a marginalized genre — the Swedish “cultural establishment” has often treated SF as merely an American “invasion”, or dismissed it as trash;

    4. How to “strengthen the brand” in one’s own country (still a challenge, even in 2007).

    May I offer a suggestion?

    In much SF, the meaning of what is “authentic” is always being questioned. (Some writers, such as Philip K. Dick, specialize in “fake realities” that are often indistinguishable from “reality”). See also THE MATRIX.

    How about using science fiction to discuss the meaning of what is “authentically Indian”?

    Picture this story scenario: “India2”.

    At first, the character X appears to be living in India hundreds of years ago, fighting a foreign invasion. Against impossible odds, the invading army is defeated and X’s people celebrate their miraculous victory against the foreign empire.

    Then it suddenly appears to X: “This can’t be real. The odds were truly impossible. If this was an authentic war, we should have lost.”

    And gradually he wakes up in the real world of 2060, and realizes that he has spent days in a computer-simulation called “India2,” where history is rewritten. In the simulation of “India2,” played by millions of players at once, all crises and problems of the past are reversed — and this “fake past” is now so popular, it’s regarded as the “authentic India.”

    But X rebels against “India2;” he is sick of living in the past. And he starts to sabotage “India2” by smuggling contemporary (simulated) objects into the simulated world: cars, contraceptives, computers, political reform, spaceships, modern clothes…

    Other players follow his example, and eventually the “fake” world changes into a rough imitation of the real, contemporary India: The past, present and future all mixed up in one place.

    X wakes up from “India2”, walks into the street and thinks: “Did I really wake up? It looks almost the same…”

  12. Good article on Indian Science Fiction

    Udankhatola Redux

    Dhoti-clad robots and the birth of Karna as explained by Einstein. ARSHAD SAID KHAN explores the growing world of sci-fi in Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi and other anguages

    Illustration: Sudeep Chaudhuri
    DNA-ALTERING experiments, moody robots, strange mutations from failed cloning projects, wonder machines and nano-gadgetry, and, of course, aliens playing peek-a-boo with humans — science fiction writing in Indian languages has this all and more. And its popularity is growing steadily, especially in the eastern and southern regions of the country. Most science fiction (SF) writing in regional languages is in the form of serialised stories in magazines, but novels and short stories are also gaining popularity. Says Dinesh Goswamy, the well-known Assamese SF writer, “SF is very popular in our state. During Durga Pooja, magazines bring out special SF issues.”

    It all began in 19th century Bengal. The first example of modern Indian SF was probably a Bengali story, Shukra Bhraman or ‘Travels to Venus’, by Jagananda Roy in 1879. Or, depending on your perspective, much before that. “Science Fiction has been a part of Indian literature since the Puranas and the Mahabharata,” says MH Srinarahari, General Secretary of the Indian Association for Science Fiction Studies (IASFS). “There was the palace of wax made by the Kauravas and Ram faced Mrigmarichika, which was nothing but an illusion.”

    Many Bengali writers were inspired by and imitated pioneering western SF writers like Jules Verne and HG Wells. The scientist Jagdish Chandra Bose, who also wrote SF, seems to have been an original though. His story, Polatok Toofan or Runaway Cyclone, describes how a storm was averted with the aid of that quintessentially Indian ingredient — hair oil. The likes of Satyajit Ray carried the torch forward with stories like Haba, which allegedly inspired Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood SF blockbuster, E.T.But Bengal seems to have been overtaken by other states and there aren’t many prominent Bengali SF writers today. Shirshendu Mukhapadhyay is probably the most famous, best known for his Patal Ghar or ‘The Basement’ in which extra-terrestrial creatures are incarcerated for trying to steal a scientist’s formula for immortality. Samarjit Kar, editor of the Science and Culture magazine and noted Bengali SF writer, sees this as part of a general trend. “Even regular [non-fiction] science writing has not really started in West Bengal,” he says. “Television channels and newspapers show little interest unless something big happens.”

    With writers like Amar Sidhu and DP Singh, whose stories have been well received, Punjab is the only state in the north where SF is emerging as a popular genre with a dedicated readership. In the west, Maharashtra boasts of many SF writers, though none have attained the celebrity status of Jayant Narlikar. It is in the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu that regional language SF writing has the most following. Murli Krishna, former director of Police Forensic Laboratory, Kerala, and author of many SF detective novels has an explanation. “Kerala is more literate than say Gujarat, Rajasthan or Punjab,” he says. “I studied in the north, and in Rajasthan, for instance, even general reading among people is very limited. Scientific temperament comes later.” According to Geetha B, SF scholar and professor of language at BITS in Pilani, Rajasthan, there are other reasons why SF readership in regional languages is limited. “The ideas are good but characterisation is lacking. Indian SF writers do not lack quality though. They also need more exposure,” she says.

    Another indicator of SF’s popularity in the south is the Mysore based IASFS which organises annual conferences to popularise the kannadasahitya. com have also helped. “South Indians have a very academic and developed sort of orientation,” concedes Kar. What is it about regional language SF that makes it distinct from its mainstream Western counterpart? The Assamese writer Shakeel Jamal has penned two novels Neela Neela Vedana, a romance in which genetic engineering plays a major role, and Silikonor Buddha, which is about artificial intelligence. He feels that the local flavour in his novels is very important, much more so than the SF jargon. “The Indian reader is biased against hardcore SF,” he says. “The Western reader wants to learn. We don’t.” Srinarahari feels that students here mostly read SF to relax between exams and semesters. Pranoti Daga from Delhi is studying analytical chemistry at Kerala University in Thiruvananthapuram. She enjoys reading Malayalam SF for its simple language. “The themes are closer to what Isaac Asimov and Clarke used to write about. So there is a sense of nostalgia. Something you miss in the hitech Hollywood SF.”

    Ashish De from Dhanbad, Jharkhand, is in his early twenties and likes to read Bengali SF stories in the Anandmela magazine. He recalls a favourite from his childhood where a household robot wore dhoti and kurta. These days, De is reading Atrish Bardhan and Anil Baranbhunai. “I like Baranbhunai for his juvenile sensibility,” he says. Asked what keeps his interest in Bengali SF, he says he reads to “chill”. “I enjoy it mostly for its simplistic answers and naive utopian visions,” he says. “I haven’t come across any tragedies.”C. Radhakrishnan, the eminent Malyalam writer, sees no point in borrowing too much from Western SF. “We enjoy Western fantasy as Western fantasy. Too much extrapolation can become farfetched. Science fiction should satisfy our cultural ethos,” he says. Which is also why he is not fond of SF translations. “Translations don’t agree with our cultural background,” he adds.

    “Western SF deals more with fantasy. It is difficult to compare the two,” says the Kannada SF writer Santosh Kumar Mahendale. Srinarahari points out that unlike Western alien invasion stories, Indian writers never let extra-terrestrials take over planet earth. He feels that contemporary American and British SF is actually modelled to editors’ specifications, whereas Indian authors have all the freedom they want. “Each [regional] language is an ion and not an atom,” he says, and goes on to explain that, “there is no unification in the Indian thought.” There are very few English translations of regional SF writing, barring a couple of anthologies.Mahendale declares that there is a clear line separating story-writing and pure whimsy. “Science fiction is about what may happen,” he says. YH Deshpande, noted SF playwright and writer, cites Arthur C. Clarke’s famous prediction of the geo-stationery satellite much before it became a reality. He feels that scientific principals should be the basis of SF. “In my story Tejas Bal or ‘The Smart Child’, I used Einstein’s equation e = mc2 to explain Karna’s birth. It is not possible for the Sun god to descend and bestow a child. Hence, it was energy that got converted into matter,” he says.

    INDIAN SF also often comes with a moral message. “It should have a social purpose,” says Srinarahari. “If a writer is speaking of an imaginary world or change in his environ, how can he cope with it? Reading about it will educate a person.” Deshpande agrees. “There has to be a mission,” he says. In his story, the protagonist dreams that a bacteria is speaking to him, saying that increasingly powerful antibiotics are not the way to get rid of pathogenic bacteria. Peaceful coexistence between humans and the bacteria is the need of the hour. The subtext here, says Deshpande, is about nuclear weapons and terrorists.

    So how many Indians are out there enjoying regional language SF? There are no established surveys but IASF is keen to take one in the coming year. An English speaking Indian — read “cosmopolitan” — reader might find some of the themes and descriptions quaint and even dated. But there is a growing, though still nascent, readership for the regional language SF, which — much like SF fans across the world — signals the arrival of a curious mind with an appetite for both science and storytelling

    From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 47, Dated Dec 08 , 2007

  13. Why is it that Punjabi ( not just sci-fi) is considered Inferior to other Indian languages? Surely all languages are good?