122 august 2019
ME & MY SHELF
A Passage
to India
BY E. M. FORSTER,
Penguin Classics, ` 399.
This, to me, is not only
the best novel ever
written about the
British in India, but
also one of the best books about India
itself. Rich in insights, it continues to
inspire me.The Thirteen Principal
Upanishads
BY ROBERT ERNEST HUME,Franklin
Classics Trade Press, `2,879. My first
experience of Indian philosophy, thisbook seared my soul. It made sense to
me as no other religious text had ever
done. Hume’s elegant phrases still hum
in my head even though I now know the
original Sanskrit text.The Transposed Heads
BY THOMAS MANN, Vintage Books, `2,536.
The theme of this satirical reworking of
an ancient Indian story continued to
weave in and out of my own books
about disguise and transposition.Rama Retold
BY AUBREY MENEN,Currently unavail-
able. A wicked, cynical satire on the
Ramayana, this book inspired me to photo^courtesy:^ wendydonigerA scholar of Sanskrit and Indian
textual traditions, Wendy Doniger
is the author of 16 books and
several translations, including
the bestselling book, The Hindus:
An Alternative History. Her most
recent work is Beyond Dharma:
Dissent in the Ancient Indian
Sciences of Sex and Politics (2018).
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The first five books on
this list and the last [see box], by European
authors, are the ones I read about India while
growing up—books that inspired in me the
love of Indian literature and the desire to
learn Sanskrit. The others are books by
Indian authors I came to love later.