[Reader-list] The Indian Media - article from Tehelka

[Rana Dasgupta]

> I am intrigued by your attraction to the vibrant intellectual climate that
> led you to settle in Delhi : what are the components of this vibrancy , my
> ethnographer self is moved to ask.
> Are you saying that there are enough people and institutions in Delhi that
> sustain the life of the mind but not any/many that allow this to be part of
> a public culture? Do you think the vibrancy reflects in some other
> mode..say, of practice/s ?

I don't know if I can answer this to the satisfaction of an 
ethnographer, because my entree into Delhi intellectual life was 
personal rather than ethnographical, and remains so.  That life, for me, 
has mainly been made up of conversations in apartments rather than 
participation in institutions.

That said, Sarai is an inspiring institution to have around, one that 
has produced an amazing range of writings and ideas, and attracted to 
Delhi many people from the rest of India and the world who have added 
their thoughts to its debates.  Without such institutional nourishment, 
perhaps, those private conversations would be the poorer.

Also: the fact that Delhi is the centre of the news media, documentary 
film making, national cultural centres, and publishing, and even the 
fact that NGOs and embassies are based here - these things do inevitably 
lead *some* people to come to the city with interesting questions.  As 
can be seen by the number of the country's leading writers and artists 
who live here, despite the city's reputation as a cultural wasteland...

R