India through Mexican eyes

A book on Mexican poet Octavio Paz's years in India offers fresh perspectives

- AMBASSADOR R. VISWANATHAN

Mexican writer Octavio Paz was the most prominent Latin American to understand, analyse, interpret and promote India—intellectually and culturally—from a Latin American perspective in the 20th century. He had firsthand experience of India, having lived in Delhi for nearly seven years as a diplomat. Paz wrote numerous poems and articles on India, and his book Vislumbres de la India (In the Light of India) is regarded as one of the finest introductions to the country produced by a Latin American thinker. Even today, cultural visitors from the Spanish-speaking world travel across the country with Paz’s book as an “intimate guide’; seeing India through his eyes, trying to grasp its immense complexity.

In his new book, Indranil Chakravarty offers a comprehensive account of Paz’s years in India and his writings on India. Based on extensive research—including declassified diplomatic files and personal letters, and interviews with Indians and Latin Americans and Paz’s close associates—the book situates Paz’s engagement with India in a broader intellectual and historical context. Chakravarty’s knowledge of Latin America and Spanish literature, along with his fluency in Spanish, allows him to examine Paz’s work with Mexico's longer cultural connections with India, predating Paz himself.