War of words: Karnad says Naipaul is stone-deaf, anti-Muslim

, Nov 3: It was nothing sort of a literary storm. To everyone's surprise actor and playwright Girish Karnad took on Nobel laureate and India-origin author

at the Mumbai Literature Festival on Friday, Nov 2. Karnad called Naipaul "tone-deaf" and "anti-muslim".

Karnad, who was present at the lit-fest on Friday to conduct an hour-long master class on theatre, spoke at length about Naipaul instead for almost 45 minutes and even questioned the decision of the organisers for honouring the Nobel laureate at the festival.

"Mr Naipaul has written three books on India, three very big books and if you read them you will find that not one of them contains any reference to music. He has gone through the whole of India without responding to Indian music. Now, I think that this only means that he is tone deaf. That's my reading of the situation but then there's no reason why he shouldn't be tone deaf," he said.

Karnad also accused Naipaul of being "anti-Muslim" by saying that "he does not know how Muslims have contributed to the Indian history". "He has no music and therefore no conception of how the Muslims contributed to our history," he added.

Naipaul is known for his caustic writings on India - the country of his parentage. But on Thursday, he announced that he will no more write on India. "I've written enough about India. I've written four books and two novels about India and many essays," Naipaul said. "My background is Indian and I have always been interested in my background," he said, while talking about his decision to travel to India in 1962 to write the book that would become 'An Area of Darkness'.

However, Nobel Laureate is yet to react to Karnad's comments on him.

OneIndia News