How sinful of me to forget Trinidadian Shiva Naipaul, whose birthday was on the 25th of last month. Shiva Naipaul, trapped in his older brother's shadow, is one of my favorite writers. Some of his short stories are even funnier than Vidia's. Indeed, my favorite story by Shiva is the tale of a Hindu thief who exploits a children's choir on Christmas to make money, making for the best humorous Christmas story one could ever need. Shiva Naipaul's novels are also tragicomedies of the most gravity, imbuing meaning to 'small islands' in a way most would choose to ignore. Christopher Hitchens also thought highly of Shiva, praising "Fireflies," a masterpiece, which I believe surpasses A House For Mr. Biswas. Unlike his famous big brother, Shiva Naipaul could write fully developed female characters and avoid some of the more Negrophobic tendencies of Vidia's fiction and travel writing. In fact, according to Paul Theroux, Vidia used to mock his younger brother, who went to Oxford and studied Chinese, as believing in the liberal talk of racial equality and interracial unions.
As for his travel writings, I have only read here and there, but Shiva offered, through his nonfiction, similarly dark musings that fans of Vidia will appreciate. Who could forget Shiva's daytrip between Africa and Europe, Islam and Christianity, ending so sourly? Shiva's experience with an English woman who could not fathom an East Indian from the West Indies? Or his potent observation on the function of Bollywood as the opium den of Bombay? Of course, anything the Naipauls ever wrote in their travel writing should be taken with a grain of salt, but Shiva struck me as less devoted to the imperialist gaze.
I remember to have read Shiva's short story Mr.Sukhoo and the Carol Singers in "The Illustrated Weekly of India "perhaps in 1969 or 1970. Very lucid every line from every day experience. Dishonest men around very nook and corner. Dishonest men are masked. They wear mask of friendly smile and can cheat even the children. Mr. Sukhoo cheats school girls and the society at large simultaneously. Shiva's pen effectively depicted every step a dishonest man can take by manipulation of norms and expectations
ReplyDeleteThat also happens to be one of my favorites of his short stories.
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