H-ASIA: India in the _New Yorker_

               H-ASIA
 June 20, 1997
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 Subject: INDIA in THE NEW YORKER
 
 Nearly all of the editorial content of the current THE NEW YORKER,
 a double issue dated June 23 and 30, 1997, deals with India.
 Nominally one of the magazine's twice-yearly fiction issues, there
 are, in fact, essays, poems, criticism, photography, and reporting,
 not to mention four short stories by contemporary Indian writers.
 (Only the cartoons and the crossword have nothing to do with this
 focus.)
 
 A little of the India content is--how shall we put it?--light-hearted
 and light-headed, in THE NEW YORKER's presumably urbane style; most
 of it, however, is very substantial.
 
 Here's an annotated table of contents:

    Comment: "Declaration of Independence;" fiction editor Bill Buford
        asks: why there are suddenly so many Indian novelists?
    THE TALK OF THE TOWN: India awaits THE INSIDER, the confessions of
        a former prime minister; a quest for a Nehru jacket; Indian
        pop stars at the Nassau Coliseum [Nassau County, Long Island,
        New York]; on Tunku Varadarajan, the TIMES of London's
        New York bureau chief, an engaging and eligible bachelor; on
        mehndi, a traditional form of Indian body-painting, as practiced
        in Queens, NYC.
    "Damme, This is the Oriental Scene For You," by Salman Rushdie. On
        why current Indian fiction is in English, not Hindi, Assamese,
        Bengali or one of the fifteen other national languages. This
        lively essay includes Rushdie's brief assessment of post-
        Independence Indian fiction.
    "Journals: India, For the Plain Hell of It," by G.V. Desani. Excerpts
        from the journals of the author of the important novel,
        ALL ABOUT H. HATTERR.
    "Personal History: The Cowpath to America," by Abraham Verghese.
         A very readable and insightful account of the differences between
        Indian and American medicine and medical education by an American-
        trained Indian doctor.
    FICTION:  four short stories:
       "The Sermon in the Guava Tree," by Kiran Desai
       "The Firebird's Nest," by Salman Rushdie
       "Eternal Don," by Vikram Chandra
       "Husband and Son," by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
    ANNALS OF LANGUAGE
       "Beyond Translation," by Amit Chaudhuri. An English-speaking child
        in Calcutta.
    A REPORTER AT LARGE: "India's Untold War of Independence," by Amitav
        Ghosh. In which the author tracks down the survivors of India's
        first National Army and powerfully evokes events of 1943 that led
        by 1947 to Independence.
    PERIOD COSTUME: a reproduction in color of a striking Indian court
        painting of a cheetah. From a current exhibit at the Metropolitan
        Museum of Art in New York City.
    GROUP SHOT: a photograph of a gather