English, August: An Indian Story (New York Review Books Classics)

Imagine combining Salinger's THE CATCHER IN THE RYE with Roth's PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT and Kevin Smith's CLERKS and setting the whole story in rural India, using for a protagonist a college-educated, citified, pot-smoking, Marcus Aurelius reading, half-Bengali, half-Christian slacker whose friends have Anglicized his Bengali name, Agastya, into August. All this and more are accomplished in Upamanyu Chatterjee's hilarious 1988 novel ENGLISH, AUGUST. Whether you view it as a coming of age story or a slacker novel, this book is a comic masterpiece, THE GRADUATE in India without a Mrs. Robinson. Chatterjee's story centers around a recent college graduate named Agastaya Sen. Known to his friends as August and to his family as Ogu, Agastaya lives the dissolute, carefree life of the privileged in Delhi, his father being the Governor of Bengal. Unfortunately, his mother, a Catholic from Goa, died from meningitis when Agastaya was just three years old, so he was raised largely by aunts. He passes seemingly effortlessly through college, acquiring a hybrid Western/Indian lifestyle that includes ample quantities of alcohol and marijuana. His major goal in life is simply to be happy, to live contentedly and not be bothered, and certainly not to fall into the rut of commuting to an office, working, commuting home, and then rising the next day to do it all again until he dies. Having successfully achieved a high score on the national examinations for government service, however, August consents to a position in the Indian Administrative Service and a posting to a distant country town named Madna. Once there, he begins a training period and proves himself to be a heroic shirker of work, an incorrigible pot smoker, a compulsive freeloader, and an almost pathological liar. He arrives at work at 11:00 in the morning and works until lunch, then repairs to his private room for the rest of the afternoon, getting stoned, listening to music, reading some occasional Marcus Aurelius, and sleeping. Still, despite his best efforts to do little or nothing, August ingratiates himself into the local society and actually learns bits and pieces of his future job. Along the way, he develops friendships with an iconoclastic editorial cartoonist named Sethe, a good-hearted alcoholic government worker named Shankar, and Madna's police chief, Kumar. When he finally moves into a position of modest responsibility as a Block Development Officer in the even smaller and more backward village of Jompanna, August surprises himself (and us) by unexpectedly, and modestly heroically, solving the village's water shortage problem. ENGLISH, AUGUST is subtitled An Indian Story, and indeed it is, yet it is also a universal story about growing up and finding one's place in the world, about giving up one's ideals and acceding to the tedious realities and responsibilities of adult life. Chatterjee's is a tale of India's multiple worlds, from the West itself (represented by England and America), the

This funny and thought-provoking first novel by the Indian writer Upamanyu Chatterjee was first published in London by Faber and Faber in 1988, and in India by Penguin Books India. It became a best seller mainly through word of mouth and excellent reviews, and also nearly unanimous acclaim from the critics. Now, eighteen years after it was published in London, it has been published in the USA by New York Review of Books. The saying: Better late than never, is certainly true in this case. Back in 1988, The Times Literary Supplement declared: "A remarkably mature first novel", and the Glasgow Herald enthused, "Brings a breath of fresh talent to Indian fiction". Now, even the hard to please and frequently acerbic Kirkus Reviews has declared: "Excellent stuff. Let's have Chatterjee's other novels, please." Well, if they wish to read more novels by Upamanyu, three more are available: the sequel to this novel, titled "The Mammaries of the Welfare State" published in 2000, The Last Burden (1993), and Weight Loss (January 2006). The novel is about a well educated young man named Agastya Sen, from a prosperous family. His father is the governor of Bengal. Agastya takes the Civil Service exam with the hope of joining the elite, exclusive, and high-paying Indian Administrative Service(IAS). For his training as an Assistant Controller, the government posts him to a tiny village named Madna, "the hottest place in India". The novel covers the time, one year, the hero spent in the village for his training. Writes Upamanyu in simple, elegant, unadorned and crystalline prose: They smoked. Dhrubo leaned forward to drop loose tobacco from his shirt. "Madna was the hottest place in India last year, wasn't it? It will be another world, completely different. Should be quite educative." Dhrubo handed the smoke to Agastya. "Excellent stuff. What'll you do for sex and marijuana in Madna?" From the first sentence of the novel, a reader can sense that he is reading the work of a notable prose stylist. "Through the windshield they watched the silent road, so well-lit and dead. New Delhi, one in the morning, a stray dog flashed across the road, sensing prey." Quite a few of his sentences reminded me of the great writer Arundhati Roy, author of "The God of Small Things". "Then the rains came to Madna. Suddenly a roar and a drumroll, as of a distant war. The world turned monochromatic...cloud, building, tree, road, they all diffused into one blurred shade of slate." There are several fascinating, memorable and well-drawn characters in the novel; bureaucrats and their snobbish wives, a visiting westerner, a holy man, and there is even a police chief who likes pornography. This novel is hilarious and unforgettable. Long after you finish the novel, don't be surprised if you burst out laughing suddenly, when you recall an especially funny sentence, or two, from the book. A thoroughly entertaining movie based on this novel, and directe

No one has captured the widening chasm between urban and rural India as brilliantly as this. An average Indian growing up in an Indian megapolis like a Bombay or a Bangalore will tell you that he feels more at home in New York or London than in a place like Madna like rural India. A host of Indian authors like Rushdie and Naipaul write books for the westen audience, but this one is written for the Indian one - in a satirical style, totally against the current trend of Indian authors who write in a moving, spiritual and philosophical way. While I find Naipaul eternally pessimistic and defeatist and Rushdie amazingly reminiscing, Chatterjee is a realist. Agastya Sen, the main character (called August), is the average Indian you meet in your everyday life. He basically cares about India and genuinely wants to make a difference, but knows that it is not his cup of tea and so accepts the reality and tries to live through it by looking at the whole experience through the prism of satire. Truly, if there is an Indian author who deserves accolades as much as Rushdie, Naipaul or the grossly over-rated Arundhati Roy, it definitely is Chatterjee. I have also read the sequel to English, August - Mammaries of a Welfare State. It is as good if not better than English, August but I had to order the books through rediff since I couldn't find them anywhere in the USA.

The erudite dude that I am, i read the book before the movie was a glimmer in Benegal's eye. Probably the best ever contemporary novel from the Indian subcontinent ( and that includes Ms A Roy) Unpretentious, cynical, funny, tragic, Mr Chatterjee tells the tale of a young Indian beureaucrat from an urban Indian milieu posted to an obscure Indian village. A foreigner in his own country although still part of it. Stoned to his back teeth he finds that sometimes in India, keeping up appearences IS the job done. Existentialist questions are as important as ' when should I have my next joint?.' Holden Caulfield seems downright normal compared to Agastya Sen................ Read it.

The best book read lately by an indian author.The kind of life the main protagonist,Agastya Sen leads in Madna,is perhaps what most of the people of my generation go through when they are put in situations similar to what he finds himself in.The author has used satire and wit extremely well to disguise the catastrophes ensued by the cultures and traditions in this country.The sheer variety of languages within a few blocks of a town,makes it very difficult to communicate,leave alone trying to administer a whole state. Upamanyu Chatterjee shows great promise as this being his debut work.I would not have believed this to be anybody's first novel if I had not known otherwise.The characters written by him are so real and detailed,that while I was reading the book,I could recall meeting the Srivastav's and Sathe's and Shankar's at some point of time in my life.The absurdity of imagination through out the novel totally had me bowled over.Never before have I seen any hard tragedy,so concealed in humour.As you turn the pages,you really find yourself in Madna,breathing amongst the cows and rickshawallahs and all those government officials. I believe any Indian who has been brought up in the cities of this country faces the problem of blending in with smaller districts due to factors like language,convinience,prejudice and even because he has no knowledge of the place he is in.Has happened to me many times. I really recommend this book to any person intrested in knowing thr intricacies of Indian Administration and the literal meaning of the term "Unity in Diversity". It is tough to get it out of your mind. Brilliant book by a brilliant author.