After having lived outside India for over 10 years, I am not familiar with its current social awareness on books. When I grew up, English books were for the libraries and those who went to bookshops. We had very few big bookshops with world books and latest trends and prize-winners.

There was a huge culture of reading – be it in one of the 24 official languages or innumerable magazines – authors were known and sometimes they made it to the news.

But cinema is much more of a buzz-word and topic. Movie stars and their deals, next movie out announcements, movie soundtracks and its gossip was much more common. It didn’t help that I lived inside the area that was Tamil Cinema’s production industry.

But authors were not that kind of celebrities. Is there a popular culture watching the #1 lists and prize winners and that kind of stuff? Also, there weren’t that many prize for authors. There are an awful lot of prizes for movies. Those award ceremonies are telecast on TV for hours. Never the book awards.

Also I found magazines especially about foreign topics, about things that are happening outside of India were not well researched and were lifted off Internet. I am not talking about  the English ones. I am talking about reputed state-language magazines that had pedigree, not knowing how to sift and research things that were not local.

I have not been home in more than 4 years. Has it changed? Are writers celebrities? Is it sexy to go into publishing? Or English language books still  just reprints and editions and there is really not a big debate about Indian authors and prize-winners?

Are there any big prizes out there for local writers? Does the community look at writing as a profession or still as a hobby? My parents still think having a proper job and writing on the side is the right way to go. 

Calling all writers, editors and publishers in India, tell me what you think.