Bengal and Indian English literature

Shobhaa De: Arguably India's most recognised woman writer. Popular for her sauce-n-sleaze novels like "Sultry Days", "Starry Nights", "Socialite Evenings" etc. Comes across in her columns as a hardcore feminist, though she has herself said she's not a male basher.

Jhumpa Lahiri: Most promising writer on the Indian fiction front. Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for "Interpreter of Maladies". Her other novel "The Namesake" is being made into a movie of the same name by Mira Nair.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: American Book Award in 1996 for "Arranged Marriage". Other novels include "The Mistress of Spices" (being made into a movie of the same name, starring Ash Rai) and "Sister of my Heart" (being made into a Tamil soap by Suhasini Maniratnam).

Sagarika Ghose: Senior Editor with the Indian Express, and prior to that, worked as a journalist for The Times of India and Outlook. Her first novel "The Gin Drinkers" is a comedy of manners set in Delhi’s cocktail circuit. Second novel "Blind Faith" will hit the stands late this year. Married to Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN.

Gayatri Mazumdar: Worked as a journalist at the Press Trust of India, The Independent, All India Radio and Debonair (where she also edited the Poetry Page). Her first Anthology of Poems (in English) - "Shout" - has recently been published by Sampark, New Delhi, India. It includes her poems written since she was nineteen till the most recent ones.

Bharati Mukherjee: National Book Critics' Circle Award for best fiction for "The Middleman and Other Stories". She has taught creative writing at Columbia University, New York University, and and Queens College, and is currently professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley

Do you see what I see? Make a list of women writers of India, and these would prominently figure in the list. All of them have a Bengali connection, having born or being educated in Calcutta. Those who are abroad are either first generation emigrants (Bharati, Chitra) or were born to Indian parents (Jhumpa).

The connection reflects in their writings too. I haven't read Sagarika, Gayatri or Bharati, yet. But Chitra and Jhumpa's writing teem with the Bengali flavour. In "Arranged Marriage", Chitra brings out beautifully the angst of a would-be Bengali brides, her romantic longing for a Mills-and-Boons type guy to sweep her off her feet, the elaborate rituals of the conservative Bengali family, the vivid expressions of a new bride in an unknown US city, where the only other Bengali she knows is her husband...

Jhumpa too conjures the same magic in "The Namesake". In the uncertainty of a young girl who settles with her husband in the US, and how she misses the wide terraces of her ancestral home in Calcutta, she brings out the taste of Bengal through minute descriptions of the food and living. The once-a-year visits to Calcutta, the other Bengali families, who live cities apart, but gather for celebration of Naba Barsha and Durga Pujo as if they were relatives...

Shobhaa De, however tries to keep the connection toned down in her writings, but occasionally it does show up in some of her columns. Shobhaa, in any case, converts all her novels into a feminist, male bashing conundrum. I have read a couple of her novels, and believe me, I never went ahead of her sex-sleaze-scorned woman-male bashing angle.

These writers, combined with the likes of Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh et al prods me to look in awe at the contribution of Bengal to Indian English literature. Add a bygone era and you have innumerable stalwarts to adorn your list.

Is it just coincidence, or is it something with the Bengali life and roots?