Abstract
This very brief, facetious short story says it all. It tells of the stark differences that characterize the literary life of Indian writers depending on their domicile. As the brothers share the same surname, to avoid confusion I shall now refer to the subjects of this essay as Rohinton and Cyrus respectively. Success came sporadically and gradually to Cyrus, while Rohinton has been rewarded with fame and fortune. Since fame and literary prosperity seem to have depended largely on Rohinton’s place of permanent residence, might one argue that he simply happened to be in the right place at the right time?
Once upon a time, there were two brothers born to the same parents in Bombay, India. Both used their Zoroastrian background in their short stories and novels. One made his home in India. He published a handful of well-received short stories, a couple of award-winning plays and two novels that were reviewed favourably by critics and admired by readers. But he remained unknown beyond his own little community. Other than India’s small intelligentsia, no one had even heard of Cyrus Mistry.
The other brother emigrated to Toronto, Canada. Access to Canada led to the publication of a lauded short story collection. Contracts to publish novels followed swiftly. One of them caught the attention of a famous talk show host named Oprah Winfrey who promoted him on her top-rated television show. Overnight, he was catapulted to international stardom. As the literary world pays homage to the name of Canada’s Rohinton Mistry, he is likely to live happily ever after.
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Notes
Salman Rushdie (2012) Joseph Anton: A Memoir, New York: Random House, pp. 510–511.
Tess Chakkalakal (2003) ‘Rohinton Mistry (1952–)’, in Jaina C. Sanga (ed.), South Asian Novelists in English: An A-to-Z Guide, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, p. 162.
Salman Rushdie (1991) ‘Imaginary Homelands’, in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism1989–1991, London: Granta.
I have used an edition of the essay as it appeared in Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (eds) (2006) The Postcolonial Reader, 2nd edn, London: Routledge, p. 429.
The American author Jonathan Franzen is famously known to have been ‘disinvited’ to Oprah’s Book Club when he aired the view that he was not elated to have his novel The Corrections chosen for discussion, as viewers of the show were not ‘highbrow’ enough for his liking. For more details, see Kathleen Rooney (2005), Reading with Oprah: The Book Club that Changed America Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press.
Cyrus Mistry (2006) Preface to Doongaji House, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 113.
Aparna Bhargava Dharwadkar (2005) Theaters of Independence: Drama, Theory and Urban Performance in India since1947, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, p. 306.
See for example Manil Suri (2001) The Death of Vishnu, New York: W.W. Norton;
and Vikram Chandra (1997) Love and Longing in Bombay, Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
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© 2014 Rochelle Almeida
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Almeida, R. (2014). In the Right Place at the Right Time: A Tale of Two Brothers, Rohinton and Cyrus Mistry. In: Dwivedi, O.P., Lau, L. (eds) Indian Writing in English and the Global Literary Market. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137437716_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137437716_10
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