We are


The IDG is one of the oldest and most respected societies of St. Stephen's College, Delhi. It looks to broaden perspectives by discussing a variety of issues with eminent personalities.

Our talks often throw up some very unexpected answers and, even more often, some very unexpected questions.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Mukul Kesavan

R A: Looking Through Glass argues so much history it seems very much as if a historian took on the novel genre.

M K: I make historical points but I write novels because I've always liked reading them.I didn't write a historical novel where a whole world in the past is recreated. E.L Doctorow (the American novelist) does that, and when I finish reading his books I am exhausted. My narrator in Looking Through Glass is a twenty-something who travels back to the world of the 40's. That world is seen through his eyes. But what historical points are you talking about? What was your Akbar S. Ahmed thinking casting Christopher Lee as in the movie! You know that Rushdie, in an essay or article years ago when the movie came out, said Attenborough's looked like Count Dracula! For your generation I don't know what means, but for us the time is here to take apart. I respect that man for so many things but he was wrong about a lot. Nehruvian was like a salon. If you said the right things you could be a member. If you were from some, say, UP qasbah there was a lot you had to leave behind to be a member. You couldn't say, for example, my was from Faizabad and it was wiped out during Partition. Now that secular ideology is threatened those people who never really felt at ease with it are not around to defend it either.
(From an interview with Rehan Ansari.)

No comments: