Mallus most cosmopolitan: Shashi Tharoor
In his Hindu column, diplomat-grandee and belles-lettrist Shashi Tharoor agrees that Malyalees are the most cosmopolitan of all Indians:
"Already in the 1920s Malayalis were exposed to Impressionism, Dadaism, Post-impressionism, Cubism etc. through the writings of Kesari Balakrishna Pillai," says Mr. Sreetilak. "A Malayali who reads at least one Malayalam newspaper and one good magazine is likely to have at least heard the names of Garcia Marquez, Saramago, Gunter Grass, Milan Kundera, all of whom are available in Malayalam translation." Most non-Malayali professors of literature, he avers, are ignorant beyond their Shakespeare and Eliot. Debatable, perhaps, but hard to disagree that Kerala is undoubtedly more intellectually cosmopolitan than any other Indian State taken as a whole …
