Bolo! Bolo! the Kitchen Table Collective

Review by Aparita

To give credit where it is due, Bolo! Bolo! is an ambitious project. Brought out by the Kitchen Table Collective, a group of four young erstwhile South Asian second-genners, Bolo! Bolo! is an anthology that professes to be a "collection of writings by second generation South Asians living in North America". It covers a myriad of genres ranging from poetry, short fiction, slightly longer fiction, short essays, long thoughts, ruminations, and expostulations …

I had been waiting for this collection with anticipation for some time. So it was a pleasant surprise when a recent chance encounter with Zenia Wadhwani, one of the members of the 'collective,' ensured a rather voluminous copy of this project in my hand. Flipping through the three hundred odd pages, one couldn't escape the fact that there is a strong South Asian voice waiting to be heard in North America, and therein lies the strength of this collection. It allows these voices to come through, giving aspiring/established authors a forum to create a discourse.

One has to commend the sheer amount of work that has gone into the production of Bolo! Bolo! It is a daunting task to first collect all the material that must have inevitably poured in and then to organize it into some form of a cohesive whole, especially when the issues raised by various individuals have distinct concerns. Given the daunting nature of the entire affair, Bolo! Bolo! is a laudable first-time effort.

The works that constitute Bolo! Bolo! range from the genuinely interesting and thought-provoking to the somewhat more lack-lustre pieces, but that is a risk one runs when producing such a collection. Some of the works raise issues that are germane to South Asian literature (diasporic or otherwise) while others are mere ponderings. Not to say that one is more important than the other, but pairing these disparate entities can yield a confusing mélange. The editors seemed to be aware of this problem. Gurbir Jolly, also of the Kitchen Table Collective, asserts: "[t]his anthology hardly presents a consistent, evenly textured vision of second-generation South Asian identity" and that "[i]nstead readers will often encounter stylistically, thematically, and politically differing (if not conflicting) interpretations of cultural identity."

Indeed. Reading through the anthology, I came across a panoply of voices, some stronger than others. These voices explore issues such as the predicament of living between two worlds, racial differences, memory, religion, homosexuality, sexuality, and language. Others explore cultural aspects of being South Asian, glimpses into the lives of people 'back home', and glimpses into the lives of people in their 'new home'.

There were several pieces that I thoroughly enjoyed. These pieces provided a challenging read by questioning various concerns of South Asian writing. All in all, Bolo! Bolo! is a courageous first step, although I would define it as more of a political, rather than a literary statement. The fact is that we need some sort of a discourse, and Bolo! Bolo! quite literally exhorts us to create it.

For more information on Bolo! Bolo! visit www.bolobolo.net