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VS Naipaul is out of fashion now. Who cares about him? Well, I do. Somehow, I always felt Naipaul spoke for things which I cared about. Look, I would not have invited the guy for lunch. He was always an openly grouchy person, who proudly displayed his cruelty. But I always felt like he spoke for people like me. Most people furiously stick up for their favorite political party. I loyally stick up for my favorite writers on ŷ������.

I always thought of Naipaul as a brilliant but bitter teacher trying to pass on some messages to his audience. I think he was writing for Indians. Who read his novels? I think middle class Indians and other great writers. I do not know a famous writer who has not said something nice about Naipaul. Everyone from Hunter S Thompson to Marlon James adored him.

Let me sell Naipaul to you guys. He was this really grouchy Indian from the Caribbean (his ancestors were bonded laborers over there) who had a problem with nearly everyone in the world. He hated his own people (“Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover."). He hated the Caribbean. He once said the post-war British were proud of being stupid and quite gloriously shat on the sexual mores of white working class British women in the sequel to this novel. He did like rednecks. He sympathized, with a few conditions, with Hindu nationalists. He wrote three books about his travels across the Islamic world, which were like a warning. He used to beat up his Argentinian mistress, which he admitted to his biographer.

Half a Life is a bitter novel. It speaks the truth about a phony and debilitating Hindu upbringing full of false choices and grandstanding to hide ones own mediocrity. It underscores the inadequacy of the early Indian immigrants of the second half of the 20th century to fit into British society. Naipaul often talked quite honestly about his own sexual rage and this novel is filled with the sexual impotence and longings of Willie Chandran, an Indian immigrant who is utterly lost in post world war England. His relationship with an African lady which takes him to Africa seems to have pissed off many reviewers of this book. But if you are an Indian, you know what this man writes is the truth. The inadequacy, desolation and precariousness of our lives wherever we go, is perfectly described by Naipaul.

I sort of understand Indians and people from other parts of the world who hate Naipaul. Here is a writer who took more risks than Bruce Willis holding up that banner in Die Hard 3. It is almost as if Naipaul wanted to be hated. He was not even like Michel Houellebecq or someone who granted some solace with the sex scenes in his novels. Naipaul, simply wanted to write the truth which we all long to escape from but consume secretly :) Christopher Hitchens once described Naipaul as "unassailable". That is the perfect one word description of Naipaul's artistic intent. Yes, here is one writer who never played any games and wrote what he really felt. Nobody cares about him now. It is sad, but not surprising.