Hence it did not come as a surprise when British media trumpeted the arrival of the ``spring's famous literary exports'', Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Vikram Seth's An Equal Music, with full-page profiles and rave reviews.

Virtually all leading national newspapers joined the race for showering awesome praise for the two Indian writers. Titled `A suitable joy', The Guardian profiled Seth from his Doon school days where he had a ``terrible feeling of loneliness'' to the ``selfish'' person who does not even mind if people get hurt.

Set in London, Venice and Vienna, An Equal Music, which is about classical musicians, received accolades from The Sunday Times reviewer, John Carey, who advised the readers to ``Buy a copy, settle down and prepare for the unforgettable''.

Published by Jonathan Cape, Rushdie's sixth novel, a rock opera-cum-Indian classical mythology, has beendescribed by Hermionee Lee of The Observer as ``a great late twentieth century humanist message''.

Winner of the Booker prize in 1981 for his second novel, The Midnight's Children, Rushdie's latest work is Mumbai-based.In its two-page profile of Seth, The Guardian writer Jeremy Gavron says how with his various interviewers, the writer rolled out a carpet to sit on, played with his bare feet, and, begging silence, because of a sore throat, wrote his answers on a paper napkin. ``When he grew bored he wrote them backwards.''

Gavron recalls the words of the author of the longest novel ever written in English (A Suitably Boy, 1349 pages): ``A very large novel written by a very small Indian.'' (Seth in only 5 feet 3 inches tall).

The British media, in fact, considers the simultaneous release of the novels by the two Indian writers as a literary competition. ``Both (novels) are about Western music. Which of them sings?'' asks The Observer.

An Equal Music is Seth's third novel after The Golden Gate and ASuitably Boy while The Ground Beneath Her Feet is Rushdie's sixth novel. Seth surprisingly did not win a Booker nomination in 1993 for The Suitably Boy which was a success. He is reported to have been paid 35 pence a word for the book.