I was thinking earlier today about my college literature courses and how astonishing it was that none of my British Lit courses included any authors of Indian or Pakistani descent. Given that I graduated from college in 2003, it’s quite pathetic. No Salman Rushdie or Hanif Kureishi, even though they were both included in our required anthologies. It’s changing there now as the faculty becomes younger and more diverse in both backgrounds and interests, but it’s a shame that it’s taken so long to get to that point even a little bit.
Anyway, because I was thinking of this, I was reminded of The Buddha of Suburbia, which was a book I read in 1999 after seeing the mini-series on BBC America. The mini-series came out in 1993 and starred Roshan Seth, Brenda Blethyn, Naveen Andrews (he was 24 at the time), and Steven Mackintosh.
Here’s a clip of Hanif Kureishi talking about his book, the movie, and how it all relates to the modern world. There are also clips from the movie in there.
