By The Book
by Tracy Staton
You could say something similar about the
United States and India:
The Indian subcontinent has already found its place in the American
imagination. Indian fiction is hotter than a
Mumbai summer's day.
True, the fascination began with Salman Rushdie's
Midnight's Children two decades ago,
but just in the past several years, U.S. readers have caught
on to Jhumpa Lahiri (
Interpreter of
Maladies); Arundhati Roy (
The God of
Small Things); Vikram Seth (
A
Suitable Boy); Rohinton Mistry (
A
Fine Balance); Kiran Desai (
2006 Man
Booker Prize winner for The Inheritance of Loss); and
Chandra, whose first novel,
Red Earth and
Pouring Rain, caught the attention of critics and
readers alike. But it's
Sacred Games
- and the reported $1 million-plus Chandra was paid for it -
that's made him a media darling in America.
ALTHOUGH CHANDRA AND his wife teach
creative writing at the University of
California, Berkeley, they
spend five months a year in Bandra, a centrally located suburb of
Mumbai. A popular corner pub there is Olive Bar & Kitchen, a
chic
Mediterranean spot frequented by Bollywood stars (some of whom
live nearby in the posh Pali Hill area). Another neighborhood place
is China Gate, which serves Indian-style Chinese food. "Indians
like certain spices, a certain kind of taste - a combination of
spice and sweetness," Chandra says. "These guys have come up with
it. My wife, Melanie, says it's her favorite Chinese food in the
world."
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