Nabina Das

In Part 2 of the interview with Jonathan Gil Harris, Professor of English at Ashoka University, we further catch up with Prof. Harris’ stories of early pre- and colonial European migrants to the Indian subcontinent. Were these individuals seen as pariahs or white messiahs? Who were the European leegstretchers and dervishes? Prof. Harris’ new book The First Firangis: How to Be Authentically Indian, to be published by Aleph Books soon, answers these questions. He is interested in early modern understandings of globalization and the foreign, and how these have helped shape our knowledge and experiences of bodies, disease, commerce, time, and religious difference. Apart from having authored several books, Prof. Harris is also the editor of Indography: Writing the “Indian” in Early Modern England (Palgrave, 2012).

I first met Prof. Jonathan Gil Harris in January of 2013, when it was bitter cold in Delhi, and not sunny enough to meet outdoors. I found my way inside the food court of the opulent and sprawling Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj, having first got lost in the meandering alleyways of the garish superstores, showrooms and malls, all strung together on the piece of land flanking Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prof. Harris was patiently waiting for me at a coffee shop and I was embarrassed, for I was late beyond the polite limit, but something about his flaming hair was heartwarming, as was his disarming smile. I realized that unlike many academics I’ve encountered, our “Gil-sahab” (“Call me Gil, after KPS Gill,” he had quipped.

Traditional editors loom large on the literary scene, and their role as gatekeepers is still seen with some reverence as well as consternation. With the expansion of cyber literary forums, literary zines, e-books, and the social media, I looked around to find a bevy of smart eager editors (who are writers too) steering zines as well as print journals that don’t always cater to the mainstream. The editorial practices of these people are not too different from their traditional counterparts.