Most devout readers usually end the year with a wish list, and your humble correspondent is no exception. There are many things I hope to see in 2004, and here's a sample: - The Swedish Academy will come to its senses and award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Mario Vargas Llosa or Milan Kundera, who have been waiting in the wings for far too long. No offence meant to Coetzee, who deserved it despite perhaps the weirdest acceptance speech in the history of the Prize.
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| (There are two versions of this: Coetzee accepted the Prize itself after a long ramble about how we do what we do for our mothers, and how tragic it is that our mothers have inconveniently passed on by the time we get around to winning the real laurels. In subsequent speeches, he eliminated himself from the scene entirely and chose to speak behind the mask of two of his characters "" Robinson Crusoe and then Elizabeth Costello. Baffled audiences and pundits everywhere were left wondering whether they were witnessing a first: the Nobel laureate as performance artist.) The second volume of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's memoirs will not only arrive in time for Christmas 2004 but will be as wonderful a read as Volume One. The world will discover, slowly but surely, that there is more to read in bookshops than The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's runaway bestseller which continues to dominate the charts. The word "Pottermania" will be wiped from all Muggle dictionaries as of this moment. It will be illegal to use the phrase "the boy wizard" more than once a week in all magazines and newspapers. And perhaps some enterprising manufacturer will revive the Nimbus replica that was hastily pulled off the market after parents discovered that teenage girls were employing the broomstick in the same manner that a previous generation used to employ horseback rides. In a logical corollary, readers will discover the wealth of children's books by writers other than J K Rowling. There's already been a lot, from Jonathan Stroud's The Amulet of Samarkand to Manjula Padmanabhan's Mouse Attack and a whole selection of contemporary retellings of old tales from both Penguin India and Rupa. To all aspiring children's writers, especially those who can think beyond wizards and magic, may the force be with you. Diaspora writers will quit writing lyrical paragraphs of the kind that deserve subheads: How To Cook Lentil Soup, Commonly Known In Hindoostan as Dholl; Spices (Exotic), A Selective Listing; The Inner Workings of Arranged Marriages (Complete With Humorous Selection of Matrimonial Ads). Indian writers "" in, let me be absolutely clear, any one of the languages officially recognised by our Constitution ""will quit moaning about the fact that they aren't, yet, players in the global marketplace and get on with the business of writing better books. Indian biographers and memoirists will take their cue from the Seths, mother and son, and begin injecting a dose of candour into the unfolding of their lives. Right now, most of the biographies and autobiographies on the shelf "" with a few exceptions, thanks to the efforts of Ram Guha and company ""read like extended CVs. I have a hard enough time bringing a fitful attention span to bear on the average resume, and when it stretches to 450 pages, I'd rather read something else. Even, she said with gritted teeth, the latest Danielle Steele. Emerging talent from India unbacked by the magic mantra of A Big Advance will get its due. Siddhartha Deb, Meera ("Video", not "Monsoon Wedding") Nair and Indrajit Hazra are prime examples of the breed. But perhaps the most important item on my wish list concerns Murli Manohar Joshi and his inadvertent contribution to a second freedom movement. Many of us watched with dismay as the minister's diktats froze donations for the IITs. This happened in the same year that Dilbert paid homage to the Indians who graduate from that elite set of institutions. His character, Asok, announced that since he was from IIT, he was mentally superior to most people on Earth. "At the Indian Institute of Technology, I learned to use my huge brain. But I try not to frighten ordinary people with any gratuitous displays of mental superiority. "For example, I no longer reheat my tea by holding it to my forehead and imagining fire." The Joshi blueprint would destroy the independence and autonomy that the IITs and the equally respected IIMs enjoy. Even as IIT discussion boards heated up, Joshi pushed hard on his proposals. He wants a common admission test for the IITs and IIMs to replace the CAT, the post-test interview and the group discussion. |
| He's also put paid to donations from abroad by setting up the Bharat Shiksha Kosh, which effectively forces would-be donors to hand over their cash without any say over where the money will go to and how it will be spent. |
| The same strategy was unleashed on the IIMs, but last week IIM Ahmedabad ran up a flag of mutiny. The institute has declined to accept the government's money, which puts pressure on it to raise the necessary funds, but will also render it independent of the pressures that will otherwise be exerted on it. |
| IIM alumni say they have no wish to allow the government to have a say in changing the curriculum, or changing the bar for future students. |
| With my humanities-obsessed mind, I never applied to either of these institutions: but over the years, they've become a source of pride for me as for other Indians. And in 2004, what I hope for most of all is that the legacy of the IITs and IIMs will survive the Joshi juggernaut. nilroy@lycos.com |
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