Granta 101
I walk along the beach, on the hot sand, until I reach one of the piers. Long and thin, it stretches into the ocean, like some menacing reptilian claw. The beach is chewed away here. I can see the hard red sediment that was once compressed several layers below the surface; centuries of beach have been washed away in a matter of months. The roots of coconut and palm trees poke through the sediment; some of these trees have already been uprooted.
In the distance, I can see the town of Pondicherry, its sea wall a dark blur through the heat waves. I can’t see the port from where I’m standing, but I know that the Pondicherry government is talking about building a new and bigger one, just south of the existing site. Local environmentalists have warned that a new port risks destroying a hundred-mile stretch of the coast. But the government is insistent: India is developing, modernizing, and Pondicherry can’t be left behind.
I haven’t received the new Granta in the mail yet, but here’s the link to the piece by Akash Kapur on Pondicherry’s disappearing beaches. It’s a brief report, but conveys a lot of urgency and gloom. And because it tells you that erosion has been the result of bad planning, the reader imagines that even if the changes are irreversible they can be prevented in the future, that there is hope.
There’s an interview with the new Granta editor, Jason Cowley, in Time Out Mumbai. Here’s an excerpt:
Do you think there is a special association between Granta and India?
I think India is such an astonishingly interesting country that has a big influence in this country with the connection between the British in India and now the Indians in Britain. My own father was a regular visitor to India over many years and I have many Indian friends. Why Granta and India? Because Granta is interested in the world and in publishing good writing. There are few more interesting countries than India, and India produces a lot of good writers – both fiction and non-fiction.
The new website for Granta also has on “online only” page where young Karan Mahajan has a piece on a museum in his dorm-room. (Once when I was a visit to SF, Karan took me to the Pirate Store on Valencia which he mentions in the essay.)
