Comment

Suddenly, every second journalist has a story to share about the incredibly rude VS Naipaul. Dinner party anecdotes about the Nobel laureate have been tumbling out after excerpts from Patrick French’s tells-too-much, authorised biography were published. I resisted sharing mine in print, convinced that I wouldn’t have anything earth-shattering to add to accounts about his kanjoosi, snobbery, infidelities, brothel visits and dastardly treatment of his dying wife.

I was waiting for somebody to talk about his extremely un-PC comments about blacks. He relished rolling the word ‘nigger’ around his sharp tongue and waiting for a shocked reaction. A couple of journalists did refer to hisunapologetic use of the derogatory term. I got the full blast on this one.

It was at a small dinner party (in actual fact, a brain-picking session) organised by journalist Rahul Singh in Delhi. Naipaul — not Sir Vidia then — was in India researching A Million Mutinies.

This was a sit-down dinner and I happened to be seated next to him.
After the usual talk about the Indian middle classes and societal changes, he said the word ‘Negro’. (Today the word has come back into respectability in the US but then it was a no-no.)

He must have caught the startled expression on my face since he repeated, ever so slowly, “Neg-e-roes”. That was what he called them, he said, before elaborating on his theory about race and evolution.

It is difficult to quote him accurately after so long. But this was the gist of his views: they, the Negroes, had evolved as far as they could on the Darwinian evolutionary track; they were already at the apogee of their race.

To put it bluntly, they were simply inferior beings. I remember making a mental note of the fact that Naipaul was notexactly fair and lovely — his skin many notches down the skin colour chart, closer to black than white.

Cut to another dinner party a couple of years ago. Most of the invitees were from the posh set, several from the hallowed ranks of the powerati. The guests of honour were Sir Vidia and Lady Nadira, his fairly new Pakistani bride at the time. The couple was ushered in as if they were the new Lord and Lady of the realm.

For most of the evening the writer sat put in a chair and held court. The guests took turns perching next to him. By the end of the evening most of those assembled had paid their obeisance.

I bring this up to make the point about how much we lionise anyone with even a few drops of Indian blood who has been knighted, awarded the Booker or Pulitzer prize, gone up in space or made it to the top of the coveted Forbes list of richest men.

And if he also is a Nobel Laureate we treat him like the Sun King, never mind that he has been rude about India, rude to us or our friends and delights in making outrageous statements. When Naipaul graces any Indian literary festival, the centre of gravity shifts; nobody else matters.

Academics, socialites and journalists hang on his every word, eager to proffer any help he might need. Perhaps they feel that some of the glory of the Nobel may rub off on them.

No doubt Naipaul is among the best writers of English prose. Moreover, he has often been uncannily prescient about India and, indeed, about Africa. But should we continue to view him uncritically, blinded by the halo behind his head?

Most of us may not have the literary skill to bring him down from his pedestal. But that is changing. A recent article in a newspaper by Ramachandra Guha went some way in doing this. And now, with the publication of French’s biography — followed by so many stories about Naipaul — we may be in for a little revisionism.

Perhaps somebody will now tell the Emperor that he has no clothes on.
Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com