Time Magazine's Asia edition in its issue dated June 19, 2006 carried an extensive, feel-good feature on Bombay - City of Dreams. The "Bombay Shining" story was authored by Mr. Alex Perry - Time's South Asia correspondent stationed in India. This eminent journalist specializes in a clever turning of phrases, with an unsettling tendency to go to either extreme in his analysis.
In June 2006, Mr. Perry decided to patronize the metropolis of Bombay. However, he has erred on his facts. In his feature on Bombay the Time correspondent writes: 'And it's (i.e. Bombay) a highbrow haven where British-Indian novelist Vikram Seth mixed the sensibilities of Charles Dickens with a little Indian spice to make the modern classic A Suitable Boy."
Mr. Perry is entirely wrong. A Suitable Boy is surely a "modern Indian classic", but it was centered in a fictional town in North India called Brahmapur. A part of it takes place in cities like Calcutta and Delhi. Bombay does not figure in the 1000-pages-plus novel. I challenge him to find even a single reference of Bombay in this fist-breaking novel. It was not even written in Bombay, but at Seth's home in Delhi!
Perhaps Mr. Perry did not read the novel. Perhaps his researchers played a bit careless. Perhaps Time magazine fact-checkers had taken a mass leave. Or perhaps Mr. Perry confused Vikram Seth's novel with Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children - the only Booker of the Bookers prize-winning novel whose protagonist Saleem (not Salim, please note Mr. Perry) Sinai was indeed born in the city of Bombay. To be more precise: In Dr. Narlikar's Nursing Home at the stroke of midnight on 15th August, 1947.
The estimable Mr. Perry and his prestigious Time has erred in another, equally delicate, aspect. The essence of A Suitable Boy has been compared to the admittedly creative metaphor of mixing the 'sensibilities of Charles Dickens with a little Indian spice'. There can be nothing more sinful.
Article comments
1 - Suyog
LOL! Your last line had me in splits.
2 - Dave Nalle
What a tragedy that this article in Time was read by the one person who actually knew what was wrong with it.
Dave
3 - Nancy
Give Mr. Perry a break: India is, after all, a small country, and after awhile all these little hick towns start to look alike - you know how it is.
Whoo! That's some pretty embarrassing errors.
4 - Dave Nalle
It's just like not being able to tell the difference between New York and Peoria. I know I can't.
Dave
5 - Ruvy from Jerusalem
The idiots at Time have been distorting stuff out of here for a half century. You think India should be privileged not to be a victim of their stupidity?
6 - Nancy
In any event, I too love Jane Austen, so I'll have to check out this "Suitable Boy".
7 - nugget
picky picky. Abe Lincoln was from Kentucky and Illinois. mark Twain was from anywhere along the Mississippi.
Who gives a crap?
8 - Natalie Bennett
Do try A Suitable Boy Nancy - it is a challenge in terms of its length, but I got so wrapped up in it that I read the whole thing in about three days. Didn't do much else in those three days (including some things I really should have done), but it was worth it.
9 - Mayank 'Austen' Singh
Nancy, please get a copy of 'A Suitable Boy. Now! You love Jane? I can't live without her.
As for Time journalist confusing Bombay with Delhi or Calcutta. These three are completely different planets in India. Bombay pulsuates with the vibrancy of New York City. New Delhi is as dismal as Washington DC. And Calcutta? Well there's no city like Calcutta! Can any journalist confuse NYC with washington DC and hopes to get away with it?
10 - Geeth
I think he certainly mixed it up with Salman Rushdie. Vikram Seth is not even British-Indian!
11 - Snarkattack
I think that's a fair call. I'd be supremely embarrassed to submit a piece like that for publication, and have it pointed out by a reader that there were some major errors in it. In either an amateur or professional publication. Can't professional journalists lose their jobs over things like this?
Yes, I'm genuinely wanting to know.
12 - Natalie Bennett
Extraordinarily rarily Snarkattack. Once you're inside, you're inside, particularly at this level.
13 - Justintime
When I read the sentence in question, I didn't read it the same. It's about WHERE the author was when he wrote the book, not the setting for the novel itself (the highbrow haven in Bombay being a place intellectuals and artists congregate).
14 - Mayank 'Austen'
Justintime,
Even if that's teh interpretation, it is factually incorrect. 'A Suitable Boy' was written by Vikram Seth in his New Delhi home.
15 - MoreValiant
Yea, that's a bad blooper for a senior correspondent like Perry. Think you should write a brief letter to Time. They might even print a correction