Paper short abstract:

The unlimited communication potential of the internet has also touched Hindi writing in a big way. Many venues have started to emerge from the 1990s when web-based journals or portals appeared. Journals have been the live blood of the innovations in literature in all Indian languages. They created a literary field with its own specific codes and rituals for accession. Did these change with the seemingly open and unlimited web-based venues. This paper dives in and compares a reader's experience of a selection of web-based venues with that of a reader of the 1950s who looked at Indian writing through the journal Ajkal.

Paper long abstract:

Web based journals of Hindi writing are ubiquitous. So is the presence of Hindi writing of varying artistic or literary ambition on the web on other sites that feature information on Indian culture, news, services etc. The web opened up possibilities for reaching out to a vast readership that is truly global. It allows forms of cultural production that are detached from the 'soil', meaning the social and physical restraints of paper based publications in a community bounded by national borders. What does this do to the outlook of the works being published?

Paper based journals played an important role in the development of artistic models and perspectives in Hindi writing. They formed a literary field, with a particular set of codes and rules, hidden or transparant. Critics or editors instigated major stylistic changes such as the rise of modernist fiction in post-independence Hindi literature.

Does the web and its apparent openness change the 'game', giving access to other authors, critiques and readers?

This paper will address these questions by an empirical experiment, comparing the reader's experience when browsing websites that have a strong literary profile, with that of a reader of paper based Ajkal of the 1950s. This will provide a multilateral view of the changes the web brought in the literary field of Hindi writing.