“India allows you the luxury of a million inequalities. You can be a schoolboy selling tea to passengers sitting in a state transport bus, but you are royalty when compared to a shirtless, barefoot village boy, from what was traditionally considered an untouchable caste, living on snails and small fish - and sometimes rats.”

Indian writer and journalist

Amitava Kumar is an Indian writer and journalist. He is Professor of English at Vassar College, where he holds the Helen D. Lockwood Chair. His work spans writing and journalism, and his academic post places him within contemporary literary and cultural scholarship. He is known for writing that moves between public commentary and literary expression.