I have little expectations of autobiographies and memoirs of young-ish people (if you are old, I can excuse your self-indulgence). So, when I picked up The Outsider, Vir Das’s memoir, I wondered about the name, because why was Das calling himself an outsider despite having had a fairly privileged upbringing? Secondly, I was sceptical about at the very idea of its being in existence. Now that I am done with the book, I am glad to say I was wrong on both counts.
Meeting the world
The Outsider is Das’s narration of his life to us, and the book starts right at the beginning, when his parents take the family to Nigeria, where his father worked, along with the hordes of Indians who were signing up for upper management and technical jobs on the African continent. Even before we reach the point where the country eventually forces them to leave, you know what is coming.
Indians being asked to leave Africa overnight wasn’t an isolated incident in one country – it carried the burden of the history which had built up to that moment. Yet, Das narrates it with a wistful look at the past, acknowledging the pain but also the class divide which led to this expulsion. He…
Source: ‘The Outsider’: Stand-up comic Vir Das’s memoir is expectedly funny and unexpectedly earnest
