The Inscrutable Americans|Anurag Mathur 9788129129802

||boek: The Inscrutable Americans||RUPA

||door: Anurag Mathur

||taal: en
||jaar: 1991
||druk: 52nd print
||pag.: 231p
||opm.: paperback|like new

||isbn: 978-81-291-2980-2
||code: 1:000520

--- Over het boek (foto 1): The Inscrutable Americans ---

A hilarious and poignant novel about an Indian exchange student's year at a small American university.

An engaging look at the clash of Indian culture and an America that is both harsh and exhilarating to a smart but naive foreigner Gopal arrives in America from a small town in India prepared for study but decidedly unprepared for the cultural differences he encounters. This delightful novel chronicles the religious, vegetarian Gopal's comic adventures and misadventures in the land of hot dogs, Coca-Cola, neon lights, and explicit advertising.

Gopal's frequent frustration with the language and his shocked reaction to certain curious American customs are amusing and pertinent. From his first rude encounter with an alarm clock that sends him ducking for cover to his blushing mishap with his appropriately named American friend Randy, Gopal's experiences prove to be a lesson for all on the often contradictory customs of America and Americans.

Through his battles with sometimes subtle racism, his own insecurity, and his family's directive that he will be severely judged should he dabble in America's enticements, Gopal retains a gentle dignity and surprising shrewdness, arousing the affection of friends, colleagues, teachers, and most of all, readers.

[source: https--www.goodreads.com]

The Inscrutable Americans is a 1991 novel by Anurag Mathur. Tri-Color Communications adapted the book into a film in 1999.

Plot

Gopal Kumar, the son of a hair oil tycoon in Madhya Pradesh, arrives in America to study chemical engineering in a university in Eversville. As he reaches New York, he is received by Sunil and Sushant and his comic discovery of America starts. He stays with them for one night and takes a flight to Eversville, the next day. During his journey to the airport he discovers a part of New York from where his bewilderment starts right from the American girls, new gadgets, the naked billboards, vegetarian cats and continues with telephone and multi channeled color TV. He meets Randy, who welcomes him at the airport and tries to introduce him to the American society and culture. In all the letters to his brother he complains about the language and his inability to understand it, which results in embarrassing situations. As we move into the rising action we see Gopal's priorities and thought process changes as he is exposed to American way of life as earlier he said "I am only going to classes, library and home" but goes with Randy to see a real bar. He gets absorbed in American way of life as he even asks for cigarette to impress the lady at bar. He meets Anand (the only other Indian on campus) and dislikes him as he portrays America in a superior class and thinks "India has a lot of growing up to do and America will show the way". He even comes across his internal conflict of whether to continue his study after the incident that takes place outside the bar. Eventually, he takes decision to continue his study and even goes with Randy to Springfield ( Randy's hometown). He begins to learn the joy of analysis and finds that American students are unable to utilize the opportunities provided by their institutions at higher level. One day, while returning from library he meets Sue and gets touched by the emotions shown by Sue towards him. But, his heart breaks when he finds another man with Sue and spends the next few hours drinking and vomiting. One day while coming out of library he meets Tom (head waiter) and gets to know about his poverty but he is exposed to the actual reality of America when he goes with Peacock to the junkyard and the ghost town. He is shaken on seeing the poverty in the richest of all lands and on the notion that white Americans separate black ones from them and do not care of them. This way for the first time he comes across the ugly side of America. His worst part of loneliness comes when Christmas vacation descends upon the campus like a mist of silence. He feels lonely and depressed and starts missing his parents and friends in India and also Randy. He tries to overcome this by spending time in malls where he comes across a leaflet of a massage center. He goes to the center in order to fulfill his fantasy but returns unsuccessfully. Even after vacations he gets chances to see and meet naked women of America and to fulfill his fantasy, first at girl's dormitory, another at an ice show and at a lake party respectively but fails to score. Finally his one year comes to an end and he departs from his campus taking with him memories of his experiences in America. Climax comes when Gopal meets a woman in the plane. He begins discussing with her, his adventures with women in America, his fears of boring future in India and an unknown wife. He feels absorbed by her and they start kissing while talking. Finally his fantasy is fulfilled when 30,000 feet above the ocean, Gopal feels he has truly become a man. This way the novel ends without any resolution.

Movie

Tri-Color Communications adapted the book into a film in 1999. It was directed by Chandra Siddhartha. Cinematographer: Choudrie Rajendra Prasad

Cast

• Rajiv Punja as Gopal
• Eron Otcasek as Randy Wolff
• Jana Williams as Sue
• Ronnie Jane as Ann
• Staci Cobb as Gloria

[source: wikipedia]

--- Over (foto 2): Anurag Mathur ---

Anurag Mathur is an Indian author and journalist mainly known for his 1991 novel The Inscrutable Americans. He was educated at the Scindia School (Gwalior, India). He earned his bachelor's degree from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and his master's from the University of Tulsa.

Bibliography

• The Inscrutable Americans
• Making the Minister Smile
• Are All Women Leg-Spinners asked the Stephanian, later republished as The Department of Denials
• Scenes From an Executive Life
• 22 Days in India
• A Life Lived Later - Poems
• Popat Lal Bhindi
• The country is going to the dogs (2014)

[source: wikipedia]

Author of The Inscrutable Americans, Anurag Mathur doesn't live in the hope of a literary encore, choosing instead to live another life unlived between the pages of his latest book

Humour is a funny thing. It can crack you up unexpectedly. Or skip you entirely in a movie hall full of laughter. On paper, in particular, it has a difficult time expressing itself without the aid of gestures or a laughter track. Good humourists, thus, are in short supply. Ask the publishers of Wodehouse and Wilde. Or Rupa.

In its 50th reprint, Anurag Mathur's Inscrutable Americans has, arguably, kept the 78-year-old publishing house in business for more than two decades. A coming-of-age novel of a blundering, fresh-off-the-boat Gopal set in the America of the early '90s, the book's continued popularity belies its birth in a pre-liberalised, not-so-well-travelled India, where Ross and Rachel were strangers yet. Mathur's latest book, The Country is Going to the Dogs, is also a (geriatric) bildungsroman of sorts. One that traces belatedly the journey of the 74-year-old retiree Radhey Radhey (RR), "an innocent in the wilderness", as he acquaints himself with the "sexual underbelly of Delhi", while uncovering the mystery of a missing filmstar, Miss Fifoo. Also a Rupa publication, this new release marks a 'homecoming' for the author. (The six other titles that followed his first book were mostly published by Penguin.)

Unlike the protagonist RR, who lives across the street from a girl's college - the theatre of his fantasies, both lived and imagined - Mathur's apartment in a sleepy south Delhi neighbourhood is at least a kilometre away from two such colleges. His retirement plans though, don't include renting a room with a feminal view. Like a soft-spoken neighbour one might occasionally exchange pleasantries and Diwali gifts with, Mathur is, perhaps, best defined by omissions. The absence of any veiled arrogance, or that air of confidence with which authors of more recent bestsellers wax eloquent on everything from their craft and marketing strategies to matters of national importance, makes Mathur seem awkward at first, ordinary even. A man, who, 23 years after his first book became a phenomenon, still appears to have stumbled upon fame by accident.

In the comfort of his own living room, with his mother and sister pottering about the house, Mathur insists his subjects and settings have never borrowed from a real person or an institution. "In fact, The Country is Going to the Dogs is much more a work of fiction than The Inscrutable..." he says, "For, like Gopal, I was 20 at some point in my life, but I've never been 74."

Is it a lot harder then to write of a life unlived? "I'd have to say yes and no. There are certain things you know a 20-year-old wouldn't do, whereas for a fictional character who is much older, you're never entirely sure. And while this allows for more creative licence, it also gives you more licence to make mistakes," says Mathur. Mistakes that could puncture the carefully constructed version of Indian reality that RR inhabits. One where his interactions with Goburdhun, the proprietor and editor of The Daily Reporter, Anwar, a crime reporter, Tia, a young teacher and an object of his affection, draw on issues of press freedom, communalism, sexism and sexual orientation, only to reveal the protagonist's populist, often illiberal and hypocritical views. From his tirade against lesbians "fooling honest, upright, patriotic Indians" like himself to platitudes like "if the Hindus hated the Muslims, the most loved film stars in India wouldn't be named Khan", RR exposes himself to censure, even ridicule. But he stops just short of becoming a caricature of himself.

The author, as authors are wont to do, remains detached from his characters, emphasising how they take on a life of their own and often say things that he may disagree with violently. "But I do think people in that age group in India with a certain mindset have similar viewpoints. Sure, some can be incredibly tolerant and liberal. But those are exceptions. Most others come from a certain background when India was a certain way, education was a certain way and parental upbringing gave you certain values, which have changed completely now," he says, obfuscatory yet intelligible in a classic Indian sort of way.

As talk veers to the general elections and to middle-class India, the milieu of his books, Mathur concedes a certain section of that class, irrespective of political allegiance, has always been inherently right of centre. A position that one imagines could put authors like him at risk as they grapple with the realities of a new, shining India and its duplicities and double standards in the context of sex, for instance - a trope common to his books.

Approached from two ends of the age spectrum - from a virginal Gopal whose deflowering in the aircraft's bathroom on his return journey to India made for a fitting climax to a surprisingly "oversexed" RR's colourful sexual history and fantasies - Mathur's prose never abandons but thrives in the hope of its next sexual encounter. "RR's sexual behaviour is not as uncommon as one would think it is," he says, "There's an underlining regret and resentment I see in this age group. Like they have missed the bus. They probably regard the younger lot as bizarre- fortunate maybe, but bizarre."

Set squarely in the genre of humour like all his other books, barring one each on travel and poetry, The Country is Going to the Dogs is unlikely to trace the spectacular trajectory of The Inscrutable Americans' success. But Mathur doesn't appear to live in the hope of such literary encores. He even brushes off the informal distinction of being a forerunner of Chetan Bhagat ("It's a cycle. After Chetan Bhagat there will be another Chetan Bhagat") and Amitabha Bagchi's comment on how he had met many who had only ever read The Inscrutable Americans and Five Point Someone. Reconciled, Mathur offers a metaphor that indicates a practiced nonchalance, a deliberate rejection of a certain kind of Indian writing and literary critique - "Sachin didn't score a century every time he walked on to the field, you know" - leaving one wondering, if formula is such a bad thing after all.

[source: https--www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/read/Old-loves-novel-ways/article20858813.ece]

MATHUR, Anurag

PERSONAL: Born in Delhi, India. Education: Attended St. Stephens College and University of Tulsa.

ADDRESSES: Office-c/o Author Mail, Penguin India, 11 Community Centre Panscheel Park, New Delhi, India, 110 017.

CAREER: Novelist and author of nonfiction. Journalist for publications, including Tulsa (OK) Tribune, Readers Digest, and Gentleman Magazine; Surya Magazine, editor; Centre (magazine), founder.

WRITINGS:

novels

The Inscrutable Americans, Rupa & Co. (Calcutta, India), 1991, New World Library (Novato, CA), 1997.

Making the Minister Smile, ANB Publishers (New Delhi, India), 1996.

Are All Women Leg Spinners? Asked the Stephanian, Full Circle (Amherst, MA), 1998.

Scenes from an Executive Life, Penguin India (New Delhi, India), 2000.

non-fiction

(With Leela Kanuga and Sumita Paul) 22 Days in India: The Itinerary Planner, J. Muir Publications (Santa Fe, NM), 1988.

(With Leela Kanuga and Sumita Paul) India in Your Pocket: A Step-by-Step Guide and Travel Itinerary, Horizons (Plymouth, MA), 1989.

(Editor and contributor) India's Best Travel Writings, Rupa (New Delhi, India), 1994.

(Editor) A Portable India, Indus (New Delhi, India), 1994.

ADAPTATIONS: The Inscrutable Americans was adapted as a film directed by Siddharth Chandra, Tricolor Communications Inc., 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Anurag Mathur achieved breakthrough status with his first novel, which outsold even the novels of John Grisham in his native India. The Inscrutable Americans, the comic story of a young Indian student spending a year in America, offers a fresh look at the oddities of American society through the bewildered eyes of its hero, Gopal. In particular, Gopal marvels at the American obsession with sex, seemingly depicted on every street corner, launching his quest to lose his virginity before returning to India-a quest at which he barely succeeds. Mathur also addresses more serious themes in The Inscrutable Americans, including the significant differences between East and West, and American racism: Gopal experiences segregation at a restaurant and is nearly lynched when mistaken for an Iranian. Mathur's satire cuts both ways in the novel, poking fun at sex-crazed Americans as well as the earnest innocence of Gopal. Reviewing the book for Gujarat World, Nishant Shah wrote that the comedy of Gopal's efforts to find a willing partner "becomes a reflection upon the vast differences in the societies separated by the traditional 'Seven Seas.'" Shah concluded, "The novel traces Gopal's explorations of new values, ethics and principles and reflects the fact that 'what is, is what is.'"

The great success of The Inscrutable Americans in India led to the novel's American publication in 1997. In the meantime, Mathur continued writing novels, again depicting somewhat hapless young protagonists in Making the Minister Smile and Are All Women Leg Spinners? Asked the Stephanian. Neither book matched the success of The Inscrutable Americans, but with his fourth novel Mathur again found a large audience. Scenes from an Executive Life features a far-less-innocent protagonist in marketing executive Gambhir Kumar. Gambhir and his wife, Draupadi, enjoy a series of affairs while Gambhir tries to climb the corporate ladder. The novel begins when Gambhir is transferred to the Tissues and Toothpicks Division of Y Corporation. Through Gambhir's successes and failures, Mathur explores the politics and scheming of the corporate world.

In an interview for the Web site Delhi123.com Mathur said that the light tone of his works is a reflection of his personality. "I am such a person, down to earth and very casual. And this certainly reflects in my writing. I write exactly the way I am ... if anyone wants to know me, all that they have to do is read my books." Mathur also revealed that he had another novel planned, but added, "The subject is a secret." Mathur is also the co-author and editor of several works about India, including two travel guidebooks, and two anthologies of nonfiction essays about East Indian life and culture.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Washington Post, July 8, 1991, Steve Coll, "Indian Author Can't Shake Caste Consciousness," p. B1.

[source: https--www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/mathur-anurag]