There’s been quite a raft of South Asia-related coverage in the New York Times this past week or so.
Perhaps most importantly, the Times finally gets to Musharraf’s ugly confrontation with Pakistan’s legal establishment. Perhaps what’s most striking in the current instance is the fact that Pakistan’s rioting lawyers are only now getting the message that Mushie may not be good for business.
In business news, New York’s Citigroup offices are going to see a major round of layoffs soon, while the company’s Indian back office is going to continue to grow. A few thousand formerly well-paid bankers have suddenly grown quite enthusiastic about Lou Dobbs’ brand of anti-outsourcing populism, and are suddenly pining for John Kerry.
Third, unrelated to outsourcing, it seems the Indian publishing industry has been doing quite well in the past couple of years, even as conventional publishing in the U.S. has struggled. There is an editorial in the Hindustan Times by Peter Gordan to that effect, but more importantly, see the article in the Business Standard from a couple of weeks ago on the subject. Apparently blogs have been part of the growth of the industry:
What has given the industry the much-needed charge and brought about these changes? Says Pramod Kapoor, publisher, Roli Books, “The reading habits of people are seeing a lot of change and there is more thirst for gaining knowledge.” Kapoor feels a lot of the credit for this should be given to the media as well as the Internet boom.
“People on blogs talk about books and there is more awareness about the titles released. The media too has played its role by giving more space to the publishing industry.” Literary festivals too have helped interest in books and authors grow. (link)
This is good news. Societies with vibrant book publishing are generally ones with bright futures. (Yes, I am saying something upbeat about India. Someone must have put something in my Kool-Aid.)
As for the positive role played by blogs, I am sure that Manish’s exhaustive coverage of the effect of Shakira’s abdominal muscles on the Mumbai stock exchange must be the culprit.
Fourth, speaking of publishing, Amitava Kumar has published a novel (only available in India at present), called Home Products. He has a nice personal account of how he wrote it at The Hindu (which seems to me to be India’s best paper when it comes to giving a serious place to books and literature). Amitava also happily talks intelligent smack with Jai Arjun Singh in an interview on Jabberwock.
And lastly, the film Gandhi is finally out on DVD, and Reihan Salam has a nice piece in Slate where he looks over the highs and lows of the classic 1982 philum. My favorite line might be this:
For my family and thousands like it, Gandhi was a landmark event that announced, in a strange way, our arrival on the cultural scene. Apart from tiny figures fleeing some massive cyclone, South Asians were vanishingly rare on American television in those dark days. Gandhi was pretty much the only game in town when it came to big-screen brown man rabble-rousing.
Isn’t it funny how, 25 years later, people still stay stuff like this every time a major desi-related project is in the works? In place of Gandhi, insert [Bride and Prejudice], [The Namesake], [Monsoon Wedding], [Bend it like Beckham], [Panjabi MC & Jay Z], [Russel Peters], [Naveen Andrews], etc.
In short: Yes! We have finally arrived! (Ok, when are we actually getting there?)
