Kashinath Singh, finally, wins Sahitya Academy Award. Even though it seems to be an apologist award, it is a late acknowledgement of the shattering of pitiable middle-class notions of vulgarity in language. Adha Gaon is still perhaps the worst blot on Sahitya Academy's laudable credentials, but Kashi ka Assi could be a close second. In a country where middle-classes have decisively moved to English and have abandoned the 'vernacular', it is indeed one positive outcome that with them have migrated their notions of vulgar, which can only be a great thing for vernacular literatures. As a result, Assi ghat has perhaps been cleared for its 'abuses' and 'swear-words', things that make English speaking folks so uncomfortable.
At the same time, it is also worth noting that while Hindi literature in particular has maintained its standards in the top bracket despite dwindling readership, Indian writing in English is a story as sorry as attempts at arthouse cinema in the multiplexes. They don't have the vernacular meat to put into the sagging sacks of English language, and when they try, they merely butcher a living entity with their urban anthropological outlooks to fill it with dead meat. Dead cold meat. Here's to Kashinath Singh! More power to Vernacular Literature(s)!
At the same time, it is also worth noting that while Hindi literature in particular has maintained its standards in the top bracket despite dwindling readership, Indian writing in English is a story as sorry as attempts at arthouse cinema in the multiplexes. They don't have the vernacular meat to put into the sagging sacks of English language, and when they try, they merely butcher a living entity with their urban anthropological outlooks to fill it with dead meat. Dead cold meat. Here's to Kashinath Singh! More power to Vernacular Literature(s)!
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