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Kaavya Viswanathan: Everyone Has Spoken

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This entry was posted on 5/4/2006 7:32 AM and is filed under Perspective.

BY GVK

Rashdie, Chibber, Prasad, and Alex Beam. The have all had their say. And here I was, still wordless on Kaavya Viswanathan. Hence, this post.

 

 Salman Rashdie, who hasn't read her book, says he has little sympathy for the Harvard teenager.

 

Kavita Chhibber reckons south Asian writers may pay the price for Kaavya's seeming dishonesty. Their books will now come under the scanner.

 

My friend B R Ramaprasad of Millington, NJ, will give her the benefit of the doubt – 'people do crazy things under pressure' Kaavya, a mere teenager, has a full life ahead of her. Folks here, says Prasad, belong to a forgiving society. He has even suggested a title for Kaavya's next work – ' How I got Pulverized, Then Reincarnated, Proved Everyone Wrong, and Carried on with My Life'

 

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam cites a friend as saying "today's temporarily disgraced Ivy League child novelist is tomorrow's Hollywood success story". Remember Yale's Jacob Epstein? Whose 1979 novel 'Wild Oats' bore remarkable similarities to Martin Amis' 'The Rachel Papers'. They couldn't care less, at Hollywood; and Epstein became a writer for ' Hill Street Blues;, and executive story editor for 'L.A. Law'

 

My thoughts are Bollywood might get interested in the kaavya Viswanthan story, if someone isn't already working on it. I have in mind someone such as Karan Johar or Nagesh Kukanoor. Who knows, a movie on Kaavya may help her put the 'Opal Mehta' saga behind her. Title of Kaavya Viswanathan's  tainted work, now off book store shelves, is 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'.

          


 

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    • 5/4/2006 10:06 AM Narender Reddy wrote:
      I agree that Kaavya’s fall out is the result of her own ambition combined with her publisher’s greed. When all this hell broke loose, my first reaction was ‘anger’ at her stupidity but my anger immediately overcome by sadness for this young author and the humiliation she has to go through. Another article on this subject at this web site, with an headline, ‘Salmon Rushdie writes off Kaavya’ is also misleading. In fact his comments were very appropriate to the situation including “I hope she can recover from it”.

      To those, who are hoping that Harvard to cancel Kaavya’s admission should understand that as a seventeen year old, she earned her admission because of her academic accomplishments and not because of ‘Opal Mehta’.

      I totally disagree with the notion that all ‘South Asian’ (frankly, I don’t like this term ‘South Asian’- rather I prefer to be called ‘Indian-American), writers and their future work will come under a cloud and harsh scrutiny. Every writer is judged for his/her own creativity and every book is for its’ content and not for the ethnicity.

      Kaavya is too young to be written off as a writer. America, always gives a second chance to the deserving one and Kaavya certainly deserves a second chance.
      I strongly believe, like a ‘Phoenix’, she will rise again and her best work is yet to come.

      Narender Reddy
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