Introduction

Challenging the Romance of the Techno/Metropolis: The Social Critique of the ‘City’ in Zac O’Yeah’s Crime Trilogy

“…Chetan Bhagat’s The Three Mistakes of My Life (2008), Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor (2008) and Geeta Sundar’s The Premier Murder League (2010) are crick lits; Advaita Kala’s Almost Single (2007) and Partha Sarathi Basu’s With or Without You (2010) are some of the examples of the chick lits produced in India. What is interesting to observe is that, especially with the digital revolution and the scaling up of the publication industry in general, the burgeoning local markets seem to be rapidly integrating with the global market for genre fiction (Tickell 2016).…”

“…The geopolitical and economic shifts since the 1990s have led to the emergence of an urban aesthetic in the South Asian literature as seen especially in the emerging genres such as chick lit, crime narratives, fantasy fiction and graphic novels (Tickell 2016). Over time, the South Asian genre fiction in English has grown remarkably popular with regional as well as global readers.…”

“…Rupa Bajwa’s The Sari Shop (2004), Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007), Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008), Mohammed Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2011) and Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013) are novels fictionally located in the South Asian cities of Amritsar, Bhopal, Delhi, Bangalore and Karachi. As Tickell (2016: 9–10) writes: Urban existence in South Asia is now more fast-paced and competitive, more globalized and resource-hungry, more technologically networked and socially fragmented than ever before, and these transformations have proved productive for novelists, fostering urban popular genres such as crime-writing and inspiring new, increasingly inventive literary expositions of citizenship and civic identity.…”

“…However, like many other metropolises in the Global South and especially South Asia, it was the liberalisation of the Indian economy in the 1990s which stimulated rapid metamorphosis of this once serene, peaceful town into a bustling cyber city (Carvalho 2016; Colaco 2003; O’Yeah 2012, 2015, 2017). When India adopted neoliberal measures such as opening the economy for foreign direct investment, lifting restrictive trade licences and reducing the size and scope of the public sector (Tickell 2016), Bengaluru gained momentum as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’, moving away from being a ‘pensioners’ paradise’ for retired government officials and bureaucratic elites. This new avatar has helped the city orient itself as a significant reference point in the global cartography.…”

The “in-betweens” and the “hatadaiva”: Oscillating, fantastic realities in Tashan Mehta’s The Liar’s Weave

“…Moreover, in foregrounding what I see as oscillatory movement, I suggest that Mehta develops something of a fantastical Indianness both within and outside of the text; a literary Indianness that moves between familiar and unfamiliar cultural and literary ground. This familiar ground has been written about extensively post-2000 and includes work by scholars such as Priyamvada Gopal (2009) writing of the Indian novel and the nation; Tabish Khair (2001) of socio-economic alienation in Indian English fiction; Lisa Lau and Om Prakash Dwivedi (2014) of the re-orientalizing of Indian writing in English; Alex Tickell (2016) on contemporary transformations in form, aesthetic, and genre; and also Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan (2014) on the issues of English narration in the context of post-liberalization and IWE texts.…”