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English, August: an Indian Story
Agastya Sen, known to friends by the English name August, is a child of the Indian elite. His friends go to Yale and Harvard. August himself has just landed a prize government job, which takes him to Madna - a town with the highest temperatures in India - deep in the sticks. There he finds himself surrounded by incompetents and cranks, time wasters, bureaucrats, and crazies. What to do? Get stoned, shirk work, collapse in the heat, stare at the ceiling. Dealing with the locals turns out to be much easier than living with himself. English, August is a comic masterpiece from contemporary India.
The Last Burden
A fascinating portrayal of life in an Indian middle-class family by the best-selling author of English, August Upamanyu Chatterjee's second novel brilliantly recreates life in an average Indian family at the end of the twentieth century. Jamun, the central character, is a young man, unmarried, adrift. He stays away from his family, which comprises his parents, Urmila and Shyamanand, his elder brother, Burfi, his sister-in-law, Joyce, his two nephews and the children's ayah. Jamun returns to the family when his mother is hospitalized. Once there, he decides to stay on until one of his ailing parent dies. He barely admits to himself that there is another, probably stronger, reason for his extended stay in the family home— an old friend Kasturi, now married and pregnant, who has returned to the city (that she associates with Jamun) . . . Flitting back and forth in time and space, and writing in a language of unsurpassed richness and power, Upamanyu Chatterjee presents a funny, bitterly accurate and vivid portrait of the awesome burden of family ties.
Fairy Tales at Fifty
Nirip on the cusp of fifty is not happy with his life. His father is an ogre and his mother a witch. He is not happy with that either. His sort of half-sister is a sort of half-man. A really close relative turns out to be a serial killer. He is not happy sleeping with his chauffeur's wife. Neither is she. Then, for his amusement, his father arranges a cricket match between rival dacoit teams in which some of the players are shot dead. Who could be happy in such circumstances? Days before his fiftieth birthday, with Nirip still wondering whether he should go ahead and have himself kidnapped so that he can make some money, he discovers, most unexpectedly, that he is not the biological child of his parents. Witty, macabre, sad, cruel, unforgivingly insightful, Fairy Tales at Fifty is part adventure tale, part nightmare, part acid trip---and throughout a triumph of fiction.
English, August
"First published by Faber and Faber Limited, 1988"--Title page verso.
The Mammaries of the Welfare State
In This Sequel To Upamanyu Chatterjee S Debut Novel, English, August, Agastya Sen-Older, Funnier, More Beleaguered, Almost Endearing-And Some Of His Friends Are Back. Comic And Kafkaesque, The Mammaries Of The Welfare State Is A Masterwork Of Satire By A Major Writer At The Height Of His Powers.
Way to Go
Eighty-five and half paralysed, Shyamanand is on his deathbed when he goes missing. His apparent refusal to meet death in the expected way calm and accepting and lying down is a cause for great anguish to his son Jamun, who leads a life of quiet desperation, trying to balance feelings of despair and resignation since the suicide of his friend and neighbour Dr Mukherjee. After their father disappears, Jamun and his brother Burfi reconnect in their old home that builder Lobhesh Monga has his eyes on. In their quest to find out what happened to Shyamanand, they find a path out of desolation, even as TV executive Kasturi, Jamun s former lover and mother of his only child, is busy recycling the more melodramatic moments of Jamun s life for the blockbuster Hindi soap Cheers Zindagi. In powerful, austere prose shot through with black humour, Upamanyu.Chatterjee has produced an intensely moving examination of family ties and the redemptive power of love, however imperfect, in the midst of death and degeneration.
Weight Loss
Innocent and unremarkable, but for his near crippling obsessions with sex and running, Bhola goes through life falling for all the wrong people. At School, he lusts indiscriminately after his teachers, both male and female, and is equally attracted to eunuchs. While in college, he has vaguely demeaning affairs with his landlady, and a vegetable vendor-cum-nurse and her husband. Later, he marries (a woman with a voice like liquid gold), fathers a daughter and suspects he is close to balance and beauty. Then his past catches up with him. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s genius for black humour and the absurd has never been more compelling than in this unforgettable portrait of a lost life.
English, August
Agastya Sen (august) has just landed a prize government job, one which takes him to Madna, 'the hottest town in India', dep in the sticks. There he finds himself surrounded by incompetents and cranks, time wasters, bureaucrats and crazies. Feeling like a foreigner, August takes refuge in drugs and daydreams, disappearing into erotic reverie. Based on Upamanyu chatterjee's comic masterpiece, Dev benegal's film is a landmark in contemporary indian Cinema. The film won several international awards, and was among the first to break out of the main stream mould of bollywood, inspiring new genres in Indian film-making. Published for the first time, this original screenplay brings what the New York times called the 'irreverant humor, frustrated idealism and earnest compassion'of the film to a new genration of readers.
Modern Indian Writing in English
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