[Reader-list] The Trousers of Time

[samit basu]

Hi. My names Samit, I live in Delhi at present and try to make a
living from writing weird fiction. I'm travelling around the country
at present without one of those laptop thingies, so apologies for
being two days late with the first post.

The Trousers of Time: Possible Futures of Indian speculative fiction in English



This project will map the future of Indian speculative fiction
(science fiction and fantasy literature) in English.

The origins of speculative fiction in India are twofold; first, the
incredible wealth of mythical, historical and folklore traditions, and
second, the incredibly popular genres of science fiction and fantasy
in both literature and film in the West.

It is surprising, to say the least, that even with these resources at
our disposal a nation as culturally predisposed to the fantastic as we
are should have produced a contemporary speculative fiction genre that
is marginal at best, at least in literary terms. The works of Sukumar
and Satyajit Ray have not found an audience worldwide because of the
lack of proper marketing, and literary snobbery alone has prevented
Rushdie's works from being classified as speculative fiction. Amitav
Ghosh is probably the only writer in the world who has won a major SF
award, the Arthur C. Clarke award, for a work he was not aware was
science fiction. Market conditions and literary prejudices are held
largely responsible for the lack of a strong tradition in the field of
speculative fiction especially in English, but the future definitely
looks bright. A slow trickle of fantasy and science fiction
manuscripts has slowly begun to weigh down desks in Indian publishing
houses. This project will discuss future roads down which Indian
writers seeking to produce successful speculative fiction might do
well to tread if we are to have a body of work in the field that
matches western sci-fi and fantasy in quality and richness, while
simultaneously possessing a strong and distinct Indian identity. In
the process, I will also discuss current trends in fantasy literature
worldwide, possible pitfalls SFF writers should avoid and the problems
and opportunities relevant to writers working in a genre that is
popular elsewhere in the world and extremely relevant but still
somewhat out of place in India.

I will study the possibilities for Indian speculative fiction in the
following directions: Recasting Indian myths in the patterns
established by revisionist SFF and the New Weird, the possibility, in
the age of animation sweatshops and comics outsourcing, of Indian SFF
graphic novels, the possibilities 18th and 19th century Indian history
and literature present in terms of speculative fiction, the superhero
in Indian terms, the opportunities presented by the universes created
by Indian writers of speculative fiction in various languages for
children, and the inclusion and contribution of the Indian disapora in
the creation of an Indo-centric multicultural fantasy genre.

The project will be presented in the form of six essays, each focusing
on a particular aspect of speculative fiction and its relevance to
India and Indian writers. Existing speculative fiction in the country,
for children and adults, in various languages, will also be discussed.
Additional material for the archive will be produced in the form of
recorded interviews with writers, illustrators, publishers,
booksellers and academics whose work relates to the field of study.