Top 10 Stories of Modern India | Fiction

MParents sometimes call me modern. They do that when they want to make fun of me. More recently they called me modern when I told them that my girlfriend, her ex and I are co-parenting the two cats they have together so the cats spend half the year with us and the other half in ex. “Modern Relationships.” The fact that they can joke about it makes them “modern parents”. There are also “modern jobs”, “modern clothes”, “modern girls” and the “modern generation”.

Modern India is a combination of many of these things and also things less healthy than feline lifestyles – like a failing democracy and growing social tensions. To be honest, the exact lineup changes depending on location, people, and mood. The same goes for books about the country – which, to me at least, seem to have become more varied, but surely not enough.

A year ago, I wrote my novel Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors, in which a family grapples with the consequences of a secretly filmed sex video featuring the eldest son and his girlfriend. Most of the characters try to understand the boundaries of modern India – who thinks what, what is acceptable, what is important and what is not.

In this list, I have tried to mention other books on modern India – although there are many that I must have forgotten due to gaps in my reading, the size of the country and my questionable tastes.

1. A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee
Neel Mukherjee’s third novel is so rare and brilliant that it paints a comprehensive picture of the country without losing any of the bristling and painful details. Five interconnected stories are about – among other things – class, poverty, migration and ambition, through characters facing very different circumstances: from an NRI man and his son to a wanderer and his bear. I still remember reading this for the first time and being stunned by the extent of empathy and beauty that Mukherjee discovers even in the most brutal moments.

2. When I hit you by Meena Kandasamy
Our narrator is trapped in a terrifying marriage. To the outside world, her husband is a university professor and an intellectual communist. At home, he is a dictator who physically and mentally tortures his new wife in the name of re-education. But the narrator is determined not to break up, even if she is beaten. What we get is what the subtitle promises – Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife: A Fiercely Captivating Portrait of Herself, Marriage, Violence and the Male Ego Told in the most clinical, acerbic and implacable voice.

3. The machine learns from Tanuj Solanki
Solanki’s second novel is narrated by a sharp upper management insurance employee named Saransh. Saransh hails from a small town in Uttar Pradesh. Having had to work hard to rise to a high-level position, he is a businessman, until he is put in charge of an AI project that will render entire departments superfluous and many unemployed. He suffers from a crisis of conscience, helped at least in part by his wealthy liberal girlfriend. This book is less about technology, however, and more about corporate life and the essence of being a cog in the machine. Even more brilliant is its examination of courage and indifference, and how they intersect with class.

4. Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag
Originally written in Kannada and translated into English by Sreenath Perur, this novel follows the fracture of a joint middle-class family after the business they started together becomes a quick success. In just 115 pages, Shanbhag and the book’s anonymous narrator show how family ties can strangle you as easily as they hold you back. The story is also a great demonstration of how it can sometimes be impossible to understand where self ends and family begins – a very common Indian phenomenon.

5. Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar
A mysterious paying guest starts living with the Joshi family in their traditional Marathi house. Before long, the Joshi siblings – brother and sister – fall in love with him. The stranger seems to have feelings for them too. What draws you to the book, more than the plot, is the modest, honest tone with which the story tackles family, sexuality, scandal, and love in India today. Cobalt Blue is now a cult classic, and understandably so.

6. Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi
In this short novel, Zaidi is busy assembling a bomb. The setting is a small town in southern India. Religious tensions, caste differences, labor exploitation and mistreatment of migrants all provide excellent material for making bombs. As the novel progresses, a quiet gloom settles over much of the city and continues to grow. No one seems to have the power to stop him. Bigots, on the other hand, are industrious. They form committees, organize marches, send letters to the editor of the local newspaper and buy weapons. While the book has humor and beauty, the urgent narrative that Zaidi creates – very carefully crafting each character’s soliloquy – is one that will make you feel terrified and outnumbered.

7. The Adivasi will not dance: stories of Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
Set primarily in Jharkhand, the stories in this intense collection feature characters rarely seen in Indian fiction: the Adivasis. That’s not the only reason you should read this book, though. Shekhar is a doctor based in Pakur district, Jharkhand and a member of the Santhal Adivasi community. His writing is charged with an unusual brutality, and the stories here are as gripping as they are decidedly political. The title story is about troupe leader Mangal Murmu who is protesting the state sponsored tribal land grab by refusing to perform for the President of India. In another story called They Eat Meat! – one of my favorites – a Santhal family moves to Gujarat and has to change their eating habits to suit the caste feelings of the neighborhood.

8. One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan
This one isn’t exactly modern – the book is actually set in colonial times in rural southern India. The story is timeless, however, and its themes are still fresh in India today. The novel traces Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child, as well as the stigma they face when they fail. Despite an extremely loving relationship, they gradually find themselves towards increasingly precarious methods. A plan is hatched. Ponna is forced to attend the last night of a float festival, during which the otherwise orthodox rules surrounding sex are relaxed. There, as she forces herself to meet another man for one night, you might hear your heart breaking.

9. A Fire by Megha Majumdar
Majumdar’s first novel is not a thriller but sometimes reads as such. It follows the intersecting lives of three characters – Jivan, a Muslim woman accused of terrorism following a Facebook comment she leaves; Lovely, a young hijra who dreams of being an actress; and PT Sir, a sports teacher who wants to fit into a powerful political party. Lovely and PT Sir have the chance to help Jivan – even if it’s not as easy as it seems. A Burning is short enough to read in one sitting and yet captures much of the current mood.

10. Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories by Nisha Susan
Susan’s debut collection features 12 very witty and very fluid stories in the here and now. Most of them revolve around young women as they navigate love, loss, intimacy and boredom. What really sets the collection apart is its effortless voice. The stories are also surprisingly subtle. My Favorite, Trinity, features three college girls who think they’re going to set the world on fire, only to graduate and find, much to the narrator’s surprise, that they’re settling in like that’s the plan. from the beginning.

Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors by Aravind Jayan is published by Profile Books. To help the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.