RUNNING AWAY WITH IT

Penguin's Loi Zhi Wei is back from her first visit to India. While she's shying away from narrating her saree experience, she's filling me in with the literary news. For that, as always, I'm grateful.

So here it is.

Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' has been voted Reading Group Book of the Year for the second year running!

The Penguin Orange Broadband Reader's Group Prize 2007 is voted for by reading groups across Britain and 'The Kite Runner' makes it to the record books by winning the award two years in a row.

More power to the readers who are making the call - that's the way it should be.

What's even better, is Hosseini's wonderful response:
"It is a tremendous honor to me that The Kite Runner has again been awarded the Penguin Orange Broadband Readers' Group Prize. I am so very proud and moved that four years after its publication, The Kite Runner continues to resonate with reading groups. So many distinguished novels are written every year, so many books to celebrate, which makes this prize that much more meaningful to me. I want express my appreciation to reading groups for embracing this novel and for being so instrumental in generating the word of mouth that has been this book's lifeblood. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Tashakor!"

Arzu Tahsin, the book's editor spells out more reasons why the book continues to travel:
"Fantastic story-telling is alive and well and the Penguin Orange Broadband Readers' Group Prize prize proves the amazing power of word-of-mouth. The Kite Runner is one of those books you would whole-heartedly recommend and give to friends and the enduring memory of the story means that you will keep on recommending it."

No surprise that in addition to its phenomenal success, the book continues to sell over 4,000 copies a week.

This year it beat 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', 'Saturday', 'Small Island', 'Suite Francaise' and 'The Time Traveller's Wife'.

Will it get third time lucky? I wouldn't be surprised.

THIS JUST IN....

Penguin's Loi Zhi Wei breaks this to me almost matter of factly....
"Penguin has just been crowned Publisher of the Year at the British Book Industry Awards, also known as The Nibbles. These are the Oscars of the British publishing business - and the verdict of the judges was unanimous and resounding. It was a collective triumph for all our UK publishers - Penguin, DK and Travel - and caps a remarkable year. Simon Prosser and Hamish Hamilton jointly won Editor and Imprint of the Year and, to round off a great night, we were voted the Marketing Campaign of the Year for Freakonomics."

I'm delighted and certainly not surprised. Penguin has a solid team backing its books in this part of the world. And so many of their books are simply great. Their logo may have gone from fat to slim, but that hasn't hit the quality of the product which simply keeps getting better.

Though it's one thing to represent great books, great authors, outstanding publishers quite another to generate interest in the titles. Take a look at the number of books that get released everyday. They grapple for shelf space, blog space, print space and air time. Having spent a couple of months in the book trade, I know for a fact that dealing with the sheer range of titles is mind-blogging as well as challenging. A great book store manager, quite like a good editor, has the knack for picking the lead, the best titles, the one's with the maximum content. They are the ones who scour through the pages of the Publishers Weekly, Guardian, The New York Times and everything else that has a credible reputation when it comes to all things literary.

That's pretty much what great publicists do as well. And I've the fortune of working with so many of them in the past two and a half years. Zhi Wei, in fact, was one of my first contacts when I was sending out random emails on the proposed launch of Off The Shelf. She responded, we met for coffee, she brought a whole lot of brochures and some titles. I thought I'd get snowed, but I wasn't. Over the course of the afternoon, we were engaging in discussions about books that had moved, books we were looking forward to, authors whose work we'd come to love. And it was amazing to see someone in the trade driven by so much passion for the written word. We've covered and strengthened that middle ground over the years.

I've had similar experiences with Sadie-Jane of Pansing, Pamela Fahey (who has now branched out on her own), Aria Ting of Marshall-Cavendish and Yani, formerly of MPH.

Each of them know their product. They have their pulse on the market. They know exactly how much to push. Too much and you risk losing it, too little and chances are the title might go unnoticed.

They do their reading. Their releases are a treasure trove of information and invariably give you something more than the standard google search. More than all of that, they feel for their books and they always like to go unnoticed. Not anymore....

THE PENGUIN SALE

We all know the iconic Penguin. Some of us have grown up with it. Others have grown to love them. Still others love them for the vibrant charm they inject to the staid old bookshelves. These charming little Penguins have gone from fat to slim, have re-created the worlds that have passed us by and still maintained their literary charm.

That's partly why I'm seriously recommending this warehouse sale that is heading your way on Friday, the 17th.

Book mark the details. I wouldn't miss in the world, suggest you don't too. Though the trick to getting the best books under the roof is to be there bright and early with the strongest of shopping bags in tow, unless of course, your man Friday is in a mood to lend his steely shoulders.

So get whatever needs to be packed and hurry on down to:
The Singapore Expo, Hall 6-B
From: 10am-10pm
17th November-19th November

Happy reading once you recover from the shopping.

Thinking Allowed

They say if a child can't read before they turn six, chances are he/she will never really make it in life. Well, I wasn't that bad but the only stuff that I read till I was 15, was Noddy, a whole lot of Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew. I only seriously started reading when I entered college at the age of 15. Rid of the pressures of scraping by in Mathematics and Science, my adventure with books well and truly got underway. I read just about everything that was available in my college library, took part in virtually every creative reading contest, won a couple of inter-collegiate prizes along the way....

One thing truly led to another. It was during the course of my Masters Degree that I made my foray into the fascinating world of book reviews. Handing me my first book for review on Electoral Politics was my then Professor Yogendra Yadav. I took almost two weeks to complete it, had a couple of sleepless nights thinking of the retribution that awaited me for maybe what could be viewed as unwarranted criticism. Nothing of that sort happened, but the offer of do a second review for The Tribune came along.

The temptation of course, was the chance to read yet another book for free and be able to comment on it. That too was published, after it had been given the finishing touches by the then Book Editor T K Ramasamy. Five published reviews down the line, over-confidence became over-bearing and I ended up reviewing an entirely forgettable book on advertising. That was quickly followed by a summons to the editor's office.

Being a naive 19 year old, the first thought that crossed my mind was that this would be a job offer of sorts. But that meeting was anything but. Put face to face against the demanding Mr Ramasamy, I knew it was going to be nothing but trouble with a capital T. Which is what it was. He tore up my review and I think if he had been a little madder those scraps of paper would have come flying into my face. The next line was something that stayed in my head forever: "Never write about anything that doesn't touch you."

It's something that has stood me in good stead right through my journalism days at The Times of India, India Today and now at Channel News Asia.

These happen to be truly exciting times. As I get ready to launch a new book segment 'Off The Shelf' I can't help back but think of those days and those times when it all began. So for a start here are some of the articles and book reviews that have been published over the years.

Thinking's Allowed, so keep those brickbats flowing. Hear from you soon!

Fielding a Diarist
Review by Deepika Shetty
{Bridget Jones’s Diary
by Helen Fielding. Picador, New York. Pages 310. Singapore $ 16. Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding. Picador. Pages 341. Singapore $16. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding. Pages 422. Singapore $16.}

SOMETIMES you really do wonder why one book manages to get exceptional critical acclaim, while another one in the same genre, by the same author in the same era is not quite talked about.

Take Helen Fielding, for instance. The first I heard of her (and I do tend to keep my ears glued to the ground in search of that perfect read) was when there was all the hype and hoopla about the famous diary that provided interesting takes on singlehood. In fact, I loved the book so much that each day I read a page at a time so that there would be some way of extending the drama of the diary. I still recall laughing out loud in the bus when I went through the devilishly witty text.

Sample this excerpt from "Inner Poise" for instance:

Tuesday April 4: "Determined now, to tackle constant lateness for work and failure to address in tray bulging with threats from bailiffs, etc. Resolve to begin self-improvement programme with time and motion study.

7 am: Get weighed

7.03 am: Return to bed in sulk over state. Head-state bad. Sleeping or getting up equally out of question. Think about Daniel.

7.30 am: Hunger pangs force self out of bed. Make coffee, consider grapefruit. Defrost chocolate croissant.

7.55 am: Open wardrobe. Stare at clothes………

10.35 am: Leave house

Three hours and 35 minutes between waking and leaving house is too long. In future must get straight up when wake up and reform entire laundry system. Open paper to read that convicted murderer in America is convinced the authorities have planted a microchip in his buttocks to monitor his movements, so to speak. Horrified by thought of similar microchip being in own buttocks, particularly in the mornings."

There is all this and a whole lot more in a diary that is guaranteed to make even men laugh. A zeitgeist of single female woes it touches at the humour strings by providing a dazzling urban satire of human relationships in our age and time.

***
Reversal of history


The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher J. Koch. Penguin Books. London. Pages 278.

ALMOST 17 years after the controversial film ‘‘The Year of Living Dangerously’’ was banned by the then Indonesian President Suharto, there has been a role reversal of sorts.

The book written by Tasmanian author Christopher J. Koch attempts to be a fictional account of what was happening in Indonesia but the parallel to the regime that reigned was too plain to miss. So the controversial book that took the avtar of an even more controversial movie was banned by President Suharto even before it was made.

Now the film and the book are in spotlight yet again with the lifting of the ban on its screening. The book that is a compelling tale of romance amid the political turmoil of the 20th century Indonesia attempted to capture the former President’s tumultuous rise to power.

The year was 1965 and the fiercely nationalistic government of god-king Sukarno had brought Indonesia to the brink of chaos. The political commentary woven into a tale of romance tells readers how events in Indonesia were shaped in that telling year and how thousands of suspected communists were almost wiped out from Indonesia.

Journalist Guy Hamilton of the Australian Broadcasting Service (ABS) is sent to report on Indonesia in times of change. "Indonesia was once again the major story on the world file, as it so often was in that era before the Vietnam war swallowed everything." On arrival he meets the hard to miss Chinese-Australian cameraman Billy Kwan. "There is no way, unless you have unusual self-control, of disguising the expression on your face when you meet a dwarf." That is Billy Kwan for you. But let not his height be a give away. He understands the wayang (drama) that is unfolding in the country perfectly well. In addition to his impeccable contacts, he also maintains a dossier on almost all correspondents and key players in Indonesia.

Kwan not just opens the doors for Hamilton when it comes to the government; he also shows him the places and people he needs to meet to understand the full impact of the events in Indonesia. His disillusionment with his hero Sukarno propels him to encourage Hamilton report on the poverty and misery in Indonesia. By reporting about Indonesia beyond Jakarta, which Kwan firmly believes only Hamilton can do, driven as he by his fresh perspectives and his recent arrival in the country, Kwan hopes to fulfill his social responsibility. So it is that Kwan injects romance into the novel by ensuring that Hamilton continues to meet Jill Bryant who was introduced to him at a party. "Privacy was difficult to find in Jakarta," even though Jill happens to be the woman both he and Hamilton love.

With this begins the complex drama of loyalty and betrayal that is played out in the eye of a political storm. "Swift evening spreads across Jakarta….explosions, flames of overturned cars, satisfying smash of glass. Konfrantasi in action. Fear." Even as Hamilton acquires information about the dramatic changes that are taking place, Jill who has access to key information through her job at the British Embassy providing assistance to Colonel Ralph lets it slip that something "terribly important happened tonight".

It all happens as Jill apologises to Hamilton for being late. One thing leads to another. In this case love leads to trust that is only to be betrayed. Jill knows she would lose her job if the news leaked and lets Hamilton know of it as well. The news that she breaks up would end up breaking a lot of other things as well. Breaking news, breaking relationships.

So to prove she believes in Hamilton she lets this information slip: "Our Hong Kong people have passed on some information about a ship that’s just left Shanghai. Apparently, its on its way here with some secret consignment, courtesy of the Chinese Government." This only goes to reveal that the take-over has some major backing. Hamilton is thrilled with the news but disappointed that he cannot use it. Not for long though.

Jill tells him about the uprising and insists he leave the country with her. But Hamilton has a change of heart, the reporter speaks and he ends up leaking the information to the world. Despite the looming perils, he does not leave but moves up north to face mobs and find out more about the uprising. Here he ends up losing an eye when bashed in the face by a rifle weilding soldier.

In the end though there are happy endings as Hamilton gives up the biggest story for love. When the communist coup fails and the Indonesian military starts its infamous massacre of communists, Hamilton returns to his love and his child with a new vision of the future.

***

Daughters, difficult and defiant


Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur. Penguin India, New Delhi. Pages 262. Rs 250

THE opening line of this novel is a steal. "The one thing I had wanted was not to be like my mother." This is Virmati’s daughter Ida speaking. Ida who is without a husband, child or parents. She is embarking on a voyage of discovery to find out more about her mother and the journey begins at Amritsar, a place she had always associated with her mother.

Manju Kapur’s sentimental story "Difficult Daughters" follows the journey of Virmati, a woman torn between family duty, who has the desire to study but is caught in the trap of illicit love and all this is happening to her at the time of partition. What better setting could one ask to tell the story of Virmati, who the author describes as strong, independent and as someone who knows exactly what she wants and how to go about getting it.

But first there is Kasturi, Virmati’s mother who was married off at a tender age. In a marriage spanning 17 years Kasturi bears 11 children, the eldest being Virmati, on whose shoulders the tough role of mothering for her siblings falls. While childbearing takes a toll on Kasturi’s health, child rearing, studying, managing household chores and being an arbitrator in the innumerable fights between her siblings takes a toll on Virmati.

A welcome break to Dalhousie to recuperate works well for both mother and daughter. It is here, in the midst of the hills and the quiet, watching the sun colouring the snow on the distant mountains of the Dhauladhar range that Virmati gets to know her cousin, Shakuntala Pehnji, better. A liberated woman of her time, Shakuntala lives in Lahore where she teaches. Virmati’s imagination is fired by the desire to be independent and like Shakuntala be able to wear what she wants to wear and not look around shyly for approval each time she spoke or acted.

With her as role model, a rather saddened Virmati returns to Amritsar as managing two separate households in two different places was proving to be a rather expensive proposition for her family. Back in Amritsar, when there is talk of getting a separate house for Kasturi and her growing brood, Virmati’s aunt also begins the battle for her rights and the patterns of a communal life are to be disturbed forever with separate houses for the two families.

The transition from Tarsikka to their new dwellings Leppel Griffin Road will also mark the beginning of tumultuous changes in Virmati’s life. It is here that her cousin Somnath finds tenants to rent a portion in his side of the family house. The arrival of the British educated professor who teaches English literature and who happens to fall hopelessly and helplessly in love with Virmati who also happens to be his student in college. To complicate matters, not only are the families different but the professor is already married and has a child from his first marriage. His wife dotes on him but the professor himself is driven to Virmati as he seems to be unable to carry on any conversation with his wife.

This leads to Virmati calling off her arranged marriage, attempting suicide and finally leaving Amritsar for Lahore to do her bachelors degree. But the professor follows her there and their rendezvous at his friend Syed Husain’s home leads to an untimely pregnancy followed by an abortion. Virmati is finally convinced that the professor is not interested in her. After getting her degree she agrees to take up the principal’s post at a girl’s school in Nahan. Here she throws herself wholeheartedly into her work and then again the professor surfaces leading to her untimely dismissal from the school.

Driven to desperation, Virmati again asks to be legally married or tells the professor to end the relationship forever. Finally, just as she has made all plans to leave for Santiniketan, there is a coerced marriage and Virmati finds herself trapped. The professor’s eventual marriage and installation of Virmati in his Amritsar house, next to his furious first wife, helps her towards the course of furthering her studies in Lahore but this is small consolation for her scandalised family who disown Virmati entirely.

Then there is partition and the pain and by the time the professor’s first wife finally leaves Amritsar for Lahore, Virmati has realised that she has created irrevocable lines of pain and partition around her.

While the well-researched novel begins well, Manju Kapur seems to be in a hurry to end the book. "Difficult Daughters" also falls flat in its attempt to portray Virmati as a woman who breaks rules and defies traditions to get something she always aspired for — independence. In the end all Virmati wants is to be the professor’s legally wedded wife and a happy home. Her daughter’s marriage ending up in a divorce and the deduction that being Virmati’s daughter meant such things could happen to her, just seem to be an over-simplistic deduction. On the whole, the book is a fairly interesting read though the story does tend to drag at times, especially when the exchange of letters between the two lovers is presented.

If Manju Kapur can pepper her text with a little more humour, her work will certainly be worth watching out for.

***

FRUITY PICK

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka
Pages 310
April 2007
Publisher Fig Tree - A Penguin Books Imprint

It's a bad idea to read reviews of books before actually reading them. I'd read two. Both not entirely flattering. The Economist pared it down to the part about the chickens. And I do take the magazine's or should it be newspaper's word seriously.

So I left Marina Lewycka's second book Two Caravans on my book shelf for the longest time.

The only reason it ended in my bag was thanks to a rather unplanned vacation and because everything else on the shelf at that moment looked way too serious. There were promises of a strawberry field - what better way to sit back and relax? Add to that the idyll of the English countryside, beautiful summer days, fields far far away and caravans of course.

Oh, I could definitely survive this, even if I didn't end up loving it. But love it was the minute I was introduced to Irina, hot off the coach from Kiev straight into the hands of the sinister Mister Vulk:

"Life in vest is too much expensive, little flovver. Who do you think vill be pay for all such luxury?

Although his English was appalling , those words came rolling out like a prepared speech. 'You think this vill be providing all for free?'

So Mother had been right. 'Anybody can see this agency is run by crooks. Anybody but you, Irina.' (See how Mother has this annoying habit of putting me down?)"

With that Irina tries to convince herself that her plans of improving her English and finding true love with a romantic Englishman will bear fruit. Never mind that Vulk has ensured 'little flovver' is stripped of her passport.

Here comes Andriy Palenko, the miner's son from the other Ukraine, who acknowledges her nice features but also her attitude:

"She thinks she's a high-culture type with a superior mentality, and you're a low culture type. (And so what if you are? Is that something to be ashamed of?)"

I love the way Lewycka gets into the skin of her characters to bring alive the Bob Dylan fan - Tomasz, Yola the uncrowned strawberry plucking chief, the two Chinese girls, Emanuel from Malawi who has made the journey in search of his sister. The stories of these characters and several more take you to different lands without the intricate weave of the story losing its appeal.

Song Ying's journey begins in Guangdong where her dreams began and ended. Soo Lai Bee is the victim of a broken heart and has to flee Malaysia.

They all come together to share stories of their lives, their dreams - some shattered, some still there, they watch the sun rise and set as they pick strawberries together.

Life isn't all that rosy, there is more to the world revolving around the strawberry fields. Gang masters, exploitative employers, government regulations, life and love -all of these threads somehow weave themselves together through Lewycka's deft pen.

Long after I was through with the last page, Irina's words came back to me:
".....In the silence, I started to feel the closeness of all the other people who had stood and lain in this place over thousands of years, staring at these same rocks and this sky. I imagined I could hear their footsteps and their voices in my head, not hurrying or shouting, but just the gentle chatter-patter of human life, as it has been lived on this earth since time was first counted.

It reminded me of my childhood, when my bed had been in the living room of our little two-roomed flat, and each night I fell asleep to the sound of my parents' voices and their quiet movement tiptoeing around so as not to wake me - chatter-patter."

It may not have worked for the rest, but it certainly worked for me. I think comparisons are futile. Two Caravans stands on its own and holds its ground.

It won't be a word of mouth hit like the author's debut A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - too much ink has already been spilt on Two Caravans. But it will definitely be read by people across the world. At last count, Tractors has been translated into 29 languages and had won the 2005 Saga Award for Wit, the 2005 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. It's a tough act to follow, though Lewycka is definitely up to it.

No surprise that the 61 year old Ukranian has been tipped to be a "literary lion of the future," according to this report in The Times.

Well, she may be a bestselling author now, but her literary journey started with a rejection slip. Yes, we live in times of hope.

FROM SOMETIME AGO...

TOM ISAACS AND VIKRAM SETH:
Where Seth was the moderator.
VS: Why were you wandering around in Sri Lanka?
TOM: Everyone who has been to Sri Lanka absolutely raves about it, then you read the newspapers and get a totally different picture. But someone told me the other day that Washington is the most dangerous place in the world.
VS: For the rest of the world, yes.

SHYAM SELVADURAI
Start with Funny Boy, then head to Cinnamon Gardens.
"To pick up a book and read it, you have to be willing to enter it."
"Writers alone can't change things . It's not that we don't want to change things, but as a writer you can't over-estimate yourself and you have to make sure that your voice doesn't get too shrill."
"You have a writing style, it's like your voice, you can't change it, really. Once you have the material, you need to intergrate it but your voice will stay yours."

KAMILA SHAMSIE
If you haven't already read her, get started:
"You can't put the burden on a book to change things. The culture and politics of a society also has a role to play."
"I don't think more novels are going to change things around us. I write because I have to write. And I read because books make me think and re-think. Reading a novel is such a personal act, while writing a novel is like a sprawling moment."

ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH
"Nothing nasty happens in my books, in fact nothing happens at all. It's just lots of interesting characters moving in, out and about."
"I often get letters from readers around the world asking how long does it take to get a mechanical apprenticeship in Botswana?"

GORE VIDAL
"We use democracy like ketchup, over everything."
"I recommend you read Aristotle's Politics, it takes more shortcuts than I do."
Simon Winchester to Gore Vidal: Do you love your country?
Gore Vidal responds: Anyone who loves a country is insane (laughter and clapping). I'm obviously in a room full of individualists.
On US policy or lack thereof:
"We have no policy of our own. The amount of money we've lost on mad cap adventures in Asia will take generations to rebuild. (pauses) We wait for time's chariot to pass."

VIKRAM SETH ON THE SIZE OF A SUITABLE BOY:
"Travellers take it out of their luggage and take it as their hand luggage. They just use it for one purpose or another, I imagine."

CARL MULLER'S CONFESSIONAL:
"I was young and utterly despicable. I was put in a jail in Bombay after being caught drunk in Eros Cinema. I wrote an article called 'The Fourth Floor,' I was arrested again and put back on the fourth floor. The cops locked and handcuffed the door. That was the first time I'd seen cockroaches the size of poppadoms."
His musical notes:
"I started because it was too painful to listen to my sisters playing the piano. They could only play two notes and they'd play them all the time. My international debut was when I was in Sharjah, I had to chase the dancers off the stage as half the Kandiyan dancers were pregnant. Who the hell sent pregnant dancers to do a Kandiyan dance? I had to go and play next."
Crashing PCs:
"I crashed my computer so many times that I had to stick a sign before attempting to turn it on - RTFF. Read The F******* Manual."
Writing:
"I love to write, it's in my blood. I wrote stuff for newspapers, I wrote articles on nature, I simply wrote all the time. I sent some of my articles to Penguin and they sent it back saying, you write well, you should write something like Ondaatje's Running in the Family. I said I have the whole family that has run me out, so it shouldn't be a problem."
On his next book:
"I am writing about the president of a country which is tied like an undersea elastic to India. The Book is called 'The Incredible Adventures of Mr Hindama.' No publisher in Sri Lanka wanted to publish but one brave guy in Chennai agreed to do it.

LOOK OUT FOR....

Immense anticipation in the days ahead.....
Several exciting books by some of my favourite authors are about to hit your shelves.

Starting with none other than Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje's, first novel in six years - Divisadero.

Jhumpa Lahiri dubs it Ondaatje's "finest novel to date" though Publishers Weekly has mixed feelings about it - "Ondaatje's first fiction in six years lacks the gut punch of Anil's Ghost and the harrowing meditation on brutality that marked The English Patient, but delivers his trademark seductive prose, quixotic characters and psychological intricacy."

My fellow blogger and friend Sharon Bakar picks an interesting fragment of a story as does Zafar. It's enough to set me book hunting.


David Davidar has given several deserving writers their first break. He turned around Penguin India, then went on to make a superb debut with The House of Blue Mangoes. Now, get ready to flip the pages of The Solitude of Emperors. Shobhaa De gave it a resounding stamp of approval, Farokh of Pansing told me the proofs have arrived, all I've got to do now is to go a-flipping.


If you liked The Kite Runner, your wait is over. Khaled Hosseini is back with A Thousand Splendid Suns no less. Publishers Weekly has dished out its coveted starred review saying "his tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters." Two women and two cities dominate the narrative which has been earning just the kind of praise, I think it deserves.


He's got the presence of an actor, complete with the voice. Those of you who have heard Kunal Basu speak, you know what I mean. He also has an unpublished story, which will be out soon. I'm not talking about the book alone. Basu's The Japanese Wife had film maker Aparna Sen excited. A school teacher in Sunderbans in love with his Japanese pen pal. Can their relationship survive? The film, which has been shot in three places, including Japan and the soon to be released book promise to tell all.


The film stars Rahul Bose, who is planning to go on a directorial venture of his own. And guess what he's picked? Mohsin Hamid's Moth Smoke. So get ready for more novels to sizzle on the big screen.

FOOD OF LOVE

Pages : 197
Price : Rs 295 (Hard Cover)
Publisher : Penguin
Year : 2006

TILKUT KE ALOO (Tilkut Potatoes)

Ingredients: Potatoes, onions, tilkut, salt, oil

Method: Tilkut is made with two cups whole red chillies and one cup sesame seeds, ground in a mixer and bottled for six months.

If you do not want to make tilkut, cook potatoes with red chilli powder and sesame seeds.

Take six big potatoes, peel, cut into halves and then into thin slices. Cut two big onions into halves, slice and keep aside.

Take a big karhai or wok-style open-mouthed heavy-bottomed pan and heat seven to eight tablespoons oil. Fry potatoes on a high flame, sitrring continuously till half done, lower flame, cover and cook for five to ten minutes. Add sliced onions, two teaspoons tilkut powder and salt, cover and cook till done. Drain excess oil and cook for five minutes till crisp but soft.

I can almost feel the taste. It's meant to be served hot with chapatti, khichdi, bread or plain dal-rice, I could eat it by itself. When I stayed at Esther's place, it was love at first bite. If she called the office and mentioned there was tilkut for dinner, I'd be out of the door in no time.

Esther made several attempts to teach me this fool-recipe, though being the kitchen shirker that I am, found a substitute in the canteen version of chee cheong fun. No sooner do I make my walk to the canteen stall, than the lady tells me, "all the sauces, extra sesame?" Mondays to Fridays, it's an affirmative. It's the crunchiness of the mildly toasted sesame that does it for me.

The minute you pop it in your mouth, the taste of tilkut comes right back. As children always say - 'nobody makes food like mom' (ok mine aren't about to say that anytime soon, they'll deservedly hand that credit to their Dad), I can safely say no one does tilkut aloos like Esther. The mere thought of it tempts me to get on to the next flight to Ahmedabad, which is why it was great that Esther did the next best thing and ensured I had Book of Rachel in hand.

Set in Danda, a village off the Konkan coast, it tells the story of India's Bene Israel Jews through Rachel. An aging matriach - her children have migrated to Israel, she is widowed - Rachel finds her faith in the village synagogue that she is determined to save at all costs.

For the resort developer who is eyeing it, the synagogue may only have symbolic importance, for Rachel it is a representation of her faith, a memory of her ancestors and life as she has known it.

Beginning each chapter with a recipe and drawing you into the story, Rachel takes you into her inner world, where there's a little romance, lots of politics, some conflicts, though in the end it is the food that wins them all.

Yes, you've seen this style of story telling before but in Esther's deft hands nothing in Book of Rachel seems contrived. The simplicity of Rachel's life, the food she cooks, the people she effortlessly wins over teaches you how to overcome the complexities of life and look for "the perfect recipe for new beginnings".

Can you ask for more in a book?

Also by Esther David:
- Book of Esther
- By The Sabarmati
- The Walled City

SLOWLY BUT SURELY

Pages: 300
Year: 2007
Published By: Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Books
How silly can these girls get? What about their families, can they not see it hitting them in the face? Will that email chatter stop for a bit? What are they going to do next?

Alright, the cover may be gorgeous but the narrative doesn't sing immediately. Instead, it's the little details that resonate and it is those details that draw you into the lives of Gamrah, Lamees, Michelle and Sadeem - the 'Girls of Riyadh' originally Banat al-Riyadh in Arabic.

The book was hotly debated, banned, then made it big in the black market. If you are expecting lots of sex in the city, that's not what it is. There is love, largely doomed and explained through an in your face narrative. The wildest things happen when the girls are organise a bridal shower or when Sadeem imagines the signing of her wedding contract is as good as a marriage and ends up being rejected by her persistent suitor for apparently being forthright. Michelle's life is torn apart when she develops more than a little attraction for her cousin and Gamrah's life seems doomed the day singlehood ends.

As each of their stories unfold, you piece together the bits you have barely heard about Saudi society. As it was first written in Arabic and for an audience that already knows its ground, the novel is shorn of embellishments, Rajaa Alsanea tells the story as it should be. Full credit to her for keeping us guessing, flipping the pages and hoping for the very best for the girls.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though when I started I imagined it would be another one of those take on your plane ride kinda book.

Speaking of literary prophecies, here's one right in the book:

The series of enticing offers continue, as do all sorts of propositions, and I cannot distinguish the sincere from the scam. One Saudi producer sent me a proposal to transform my e-mails into a Ramadan TV series of thirty episodes? Why not? If we were already talking about publishing it as a novel, why not film it for TV? I concur with our own Abdullah Al-Ghadhami (established Saudi critic), that the literature of the written word is bourgeois, while the image is democratic. I prefer the series to the novel, because I want stories of my friends to reach everyone. This would certainly be a beginning.

I couldn't agree more.

COLOURED BY COVERS

There was a time when every book I touched came with a blue cover. I remember that distinctly because every blue cover would fade into the blue virtual wall on the set.

I recall speaking to both Sadie Jane (of Pansing) and Zhi Wei (of Penguin) - both superb publicists in their own right - about the season of covers. Do all designers opt for blues or pinks or purples or browns in any given season? Is there a shared space when it comes to covers and their colours?



I'm not entirely sure about the designers but I can tell you that colours are definitely steering my reading of late. Everything I seem to be touching is off white, cream or beige. Thought that would change the minute I was done with Rageh Omaar's, Revolution Day but the addition of John Zubrzycki's The Last Nizam to our collection means beige is here to stay.

FROM HEAVEN'S EDGE

"I wasn’t sure I was going to make this. It’s only in Singapore that someone is going to say, we’ll set up an event for you an hour after you land. Everywhere else in the world, people will say we’ll set up an event for you a day after you land. Given the security issues at Heathrow and all of that, I thought the chances of this plane taking off on time are pretty remote. But I thought, we’ll see how it goes. The plane arrived on time, things went smoothly, I turned up, people showed up to listen to me and we had a fabulous evening."

That mad bunch of folks who put the talk together was a bunch of friends who love their books, they wouldn't mind a world without Kindle, the written would do. They lovingly called their book struck trio - Literatti and took their chances with this author. The critics were divided, yet Maniza Jumabhoy, Tripta Singh and yours truly had enjoyed the ride through Romesh Gunesekera's 'The Match.' Prior to that, there was the love story set in a spoiled paradise. In 'Reef', 11 year old Triton, goes to work as a houseboy. His master Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by sea, swamp and the island's disappearing reef. It is here that Triton learns to polish silver, to mix a love cake with ten eggs, and to steam the exotic parrot fish for his master's lover. As the book unfolds you meet the boy becoming a man in a world on the brink of chaos. In the closing page, of the Booker short-listed Reef, Mister Salgado warns Triton that "we are only what we remember, nothing more....all we have is the memory of what we have done or not done."

The subtle deceptions were explored in 'The Sandglass' and 'Heaven's Edge' as well. In his latest book though he moved away from the mystical, magical settings. We'd been intrigued by it. That's partly why in a moment of heaven knows what, we said yes to putting the reading together. It's only when we went over the fine print of the flight schedule that we realised that we had only an hour between Romesh's landing and reading. For the longest time, we kept more than our fingers crossed. it all fell into place, Romesh showed up, Loi Zhi Wei of Penguin Books breathed easy and
we found our perfect match.

Q : Your book ‘The Match’ is bookended with two cricket matches, but you aren’t known to be a cricket buff, are you?
A : Don’t say that. Yes, I am a cricket fan. But I never thought I’d ever write a book that had a sport in it because I’m not a sporty sort of a person. I like cricket, I’ve played cricket when I was young. I never thought I’d end up writing a book about the sport. It’s partly because a lot of the books I’ve written had a lot to do with Sri Lanka. Some of those books have had to deal with the some of the sad aspects of Sri Lanka – the war, the violence, but amidst all of that, there has been this upbeat story and that is about Sri Lankan cricket. I’ve often wondered how I could capture that, so I tried and it worked for me. You can definitely call me a cricket enthusiast now.

Q : Cricket is huge in South Asia, during the matches it almost becomes the reason of your being. Did you sense that when you were working on the book?
A : I’ve found it a fascinating subject. It opened a lot of things for me, a new way of looking at history, a way of looking at what has happened in the past and the way in which groups of people identify themselves. No one quite knows where it started, some would say England, others would argue strongly against it. But it is a very artistic game in many ways. What I liked about that aspect is when you look at old photographs of the sport, they are very beautifully composed photographs. They shape of people, the body language when they play a stroke, the way people watch the sport. Obviously there are great divides when a match is on. But when somebody plays a splendid shot, everybody acknowledges it. It doesn’t matter which team you are off. When a batsman makes a century, the spectators pause for the applause and for a moment, even if it is a brief the differences between the teams as is reflected in a stadium is forgotten. Those sorts of things were really interesting. It was about capturing those moments which often become bigger than the game.

Q : When you look at test cricket, it’s a long drawn game, people take their breaks, possibly even read in between?
A : That’s what I thought as well. I remember writing a couple of stories. I tried writing some stories to try out and see if someone who isn’t interested in the sport could be drawn to it through a short story. It worked really well. I remember talking to one of the actors who acted in Lagaan. He told me its like making movies, there’s a lot of hanging around when you are watching cricket and he mentioned it, obviously in jest, ‘why don’t you write a book?’ And I thought, why not. I tried to persuade my publishers that there are lots of people who watch cricket who want to read books.

Q : Was that a tough sell?
A : Initially, yes, but they came around and here we are.

Q : You actually drew certain parallels between writing and international level cricket.
A : Yes, there are two things in this book. Basically, there is this boy who doesn’t know much about cricket but as a young boy he plays the sport with his friends. He is attempting to work out what this game is all about. Another mention in the book, is about the series of matches between the Sri Lankan team, the English team and the Indian team, so the other aspect of the book is that the main character of the book, Sunny, becomes a photographer in the book. There are parallels between all three actually – cricket, photography and writing because on the simplest level, I suppose a lot of people are interested in all of this. Almost everybody takes pictures, they take lots of them. Lots of people watch cricket, lots of people read books. And in all of the three, there are lots of people who would like to do it better. There are people who would like to be professional photographers, amateur cricketers who’d like to play for a team, those who are playing for a state team would like to play for a national team, and there are readers who’d like to be writers. At each level you are talking about only a tiny group of people who actually end up doing that. 11 people end up playing for Sri Lanka, for India, for Australia or any other national team. There’s only a handful of people who become professional photographers and there’s only a handful of people who end up writing books. I think it’s just very interesting to understand the number of people who are involved in this whole process.

Q : What about ‘Heaven’s Edge’? You set in the future, why’s that?
A : ‘Heaven’s Edge’ is very different because the stories are set in a different time. When it came to ‘Heaven’s Edge’ I wanted to write a book about the future, set somewhere where no one had been before. It was quite a big adventure for me. I had to invent a country, I had to invent a place, I had to invent a time as well as a landscape.

Q : Imagining that landscape – was that difficult?
A : I don’t know, I think for me writing any book is quite difficult. It’s quite a miracle for me at the end of it that I’ve actually managed to get it the way I want it. Inventing that world was difficult but I wanted to make it as real as possible. Many people read the book, only half way through they realize that it isn’t set where they thought it was set. This is a completely new place. I wanted to make it feel like a place everybody knows.

Q : ‘Reef’ was dominated by colourful and memorable characters. Was it tough considering it was your first book?
A : A writer’s job is to somehow get into somebody else’s world. ‘Reef’ was the first novel and I did want a book populated with memorable characters. To me part of the thing about writing a book is to create characters that will have an independent existence. As long as someone opens a book and reads it, they’ll come to life. It can happen in a novel, it’s the sort of dream that everybody is sort of following. You know when you make a movie, write science fiction or fantasy, it’s all about creating that fantasy. All of that actually happens in a novel. It’s all about creating the right words, place and somebody to read them and then something happens.

Q : You make it all sound very easy, but what’s the writing process like for you. Do you tend to re-visit your work or once its written, its out there for others to decide?
A : I’m not the kind of writer who says I’m going to write this book, in this way, in this period of time and just do it. I kind of have a general idea, a bit of an idea and then it has to grow organically. I spend a lot of time exploring what it is, who are these characters and it’s a little bit like sculpting something. You start with nothing. In fact, if you are sculptor, you are lucky because you at least have a bit of something to start with. I also re-write my books a lot, so each book is re-written many, many, many times over before it actually goes to print. What you see in the end isn’t quite what I would have started off with.

Q : I guess all of that work showed in your first novel itself. ‘Reef’ was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, did that mean a lot to you?
A : It was great. For a first novel, I couldn’t ask for anything more really.

Q : Is there already another story playing in your head as we speak?
A : Oh yes, there is always another story. In fact, every book I write also tells more than more than just a story. ‘The Match’ for instance, is not just a story about cricket, it’s a story about families and how people adjust to their children and how children adjust to their parents. It’s very about that relationship and about idealism, the idealism of youth. In Britain, quite often young people go through a very hard time, there is a lot of youth bashing. They are told they are useless, they don’t have strong ideals and I don’t think any of that is true. I think young people have a lot of idealism and they deserve a lot of respect. So many of them do things that a lot of young people never did in the past. This book explores that and I think in a way it questions if we do in fact get wiser as we get older. Do we sort lose the idealism over the years? I think the readers have to decide for themselves whether the son is learning from the father or the father from the son.

Q : They do say there is no one teacher in life. You learn from so many people in so many different ways?
A : Yah, that’s absolutely true. Understanding and appreciating that, I feel is very important.

More from Romesh on writing:
"The world being what it is I write to redress the balance, at least in my own mind. I want to keep an inner life alive and, with luck, somebody else's too. Imaginative writing, to me, is a way of discovering who we are, and what we have to contend with; discovering what is out there, and also what is not there. It enables me to think and explore and make something new with language, while trying to make sense of our lives."

"I'm always trying to write a story. I never really talk about what I'm writing because I find that impossible to do. Writing, to me, is actually a way of living, it's a way of thinking, it's a way of discovering, it's a way of actually getting from today to tomorrow, and therefore I can't sort of preview it and quite often I really don't know where I'm going until I get there. It's a bit like getting into a car and driving and if someone asks you "Where are you going?", you say, "I'm just going somewhere over there." [laughs], but once you get there, you know that that was where you were going, actually. And you know perfectly well what's in front of you, every inch of the way, but you don't know the whole thing. It's a process of exploration, it's a process of understanding and thinking and trying to understand where you are, where the world is, where we're all going."

"Publishers get mad with me because I tend to meddle with books quite a lot."

HOME IS WHERE.....

Pages : 256
Price : Rs 275
Publisher : Penguin
Year : 2007

On Page 167:
The sun was starting to dip. The golden light had already begun drawing elongated shadows on the floor of the house. Dusk. The dried neem trees without their leaves slit the yellow light into larger portions than they had before. Light was bounced off the Formica dining table, reflected on to the glass cabinets and coated everything from mother's snow-white hair to the dull-black wooden chairs with a golden glow......

She was sitting at the table and sipping hot tea as golden as the sunlight. Mother told me later that she felt as if all outlines around her were slowly smudging into one large, golden ball that day. The beer mug with the golden tea was melting into her hand, her golden skin melting into the Formica of the table which was......

Even as day and night played its own song and dance of shadows, everything around them was being re-defined.

An earthquake, a bloody riot - in two years their lives, like that of so many others living in Ahmedabad and in Gujarat would be changed.

They'd made several efforts to move in the past but never before had their Guptanagar home in Ahmedabad been seen as the reason to flee.

It was just that we needed to flee. And because we were in Guptanagar, we had to flee from Guptanagar.

The riot changes that for Robin and his mother Esther who had the capacity to conjure up distress on demand. I disagreed but Robin redeemed himself with his evocative explanation of the phrase together with Esther's six o'clock syndrome.

Some of these fears take you through the Teen Darwaza area, children growing up, others like Esther's fear of heights come to the fore after the riots.

Riot survivors tell you of the images that haunt, the reality that confronts, the relationships that change and often the home that you lose.

Robin takes you through that journey. It is extremely painful in parts, vivid in others. When courage comes under fire, friends turn into foes and when Robin gets clipped by his barber Rameshbhai, several things fall into place, the identity of a car parked in front of their home is questioned, a bloody photograph emerges, Robin knows what he has known for sometime - it is time to move on.

Robin and Esther's search for a new house to call their home, the call of Guptanagar, the riots, the people they left behind and the people they meet, losing their family heirlooms and their lovely dog Ora. City of Fear is an unforgettable journey of what happens when it all comes undone.

The book is not available here yet, though you can order it here.

Robin also joins the growing number of writers who blog. More on the book and some of his thoughts are on his City of Fear blog.

POTTER CRUNCHING

The not quite a boy wizard is everywhere. He is flooding my inbox, making it impossible for me to keep speed. The numbers are astounding. Expecting nothing less, it's Harry Potter, Dudes and Dames.

The Nielsen BookScan reveals since 1998 - that's when Nielsen began measuring book sales in the UK - the six Harry Potter books have sold more than 22.5 million copies in Britain. Since 2001, more than 27.7 million Harry Potter books sold in the US.

The last book of the immensely popular series 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' will be out on July..... - oh you do know that!

As you sit there, at the edge of your seat to find out if book seven will really spell the end, get ready to crunch some fun facts that have headed my way courtesy Loi Zhi Wei of Penguin Books.

- If all the Harry Potter books ever sold were placed end to end, they would go around the equator over 1.6 times.

- The total number of all the Harry Potter books ever sold is more than the population of the USA.

- On its first day of sale in Britain, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold at a rate of 23 books per second.

- Since the publication of the first book, the books have sold at an average rate of 90,000 per day.

- Just as you finished reading this fact, 15 more books would have been sold.

- And I like this best. If all the words in all the Harry Potter books ever sold were distributed evenly among everyone in the world, each person would end up with nearly 8,000 words.

That sure is a mouthful....

So, while you may have your quibbles, you can't get away from the fact that they've got the world reading. From 5-50, 6-60, 7-70, 8-80, 9-90 - they've covered them all. And that, my dears, is a darn good thing.

BOND IS BACK

Sort of.

"In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling."

So says Sebastian Faulks author of the new James Bond novel, to be published next year by Penguin Books in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The book, titled Devil May Care, is to mark the Ian Fleming's birth centenary which falls on 28th May 2008.

Fleming's last Bond book, Octopussy and the Living Daylights, was published in 1966. 42years later and in keeping with tradition, Devil May Care is set in the Cold War and the action is played out across two continents and several of the world's most thrilling cities, including Paris.

Penguin007 tells you a whole lot more.

My introduction to Sebastian Faulks came through Sir Alan Collins, the former British High Commissioner to Singapore. In the Ambassador's take on books that have moved them the most, he spoke at length about Birdsong together with the other two books that complete the French trilogy The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray. The book's weren't immediate bestsellers but giving up his job as a journalist to do writing full time paid off Faulks.

Like Fleming, who was a journalist for Reuters and the Sunday Times, Faulks was a journalist for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, he was the first Literary Editor of the Independent and later became Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday.

Looks like the number crunching is just about to begin....

- Over 100 million Bond books have been sold and over half the world's population has seen a Bond film

- Ian Fleming wrote fourteen James Bond books. These include:
Casino Royale (1953)
Live and Let Die (1954)
Moonraker (1955)
Diamonds Are Forever (1956)
From Russia with Love (1957)
Dr. No (1958)
Goldfinger (1959)
For your Eyes Only (1960)
Thunderball (1961)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963)
You Only Live Twice (1964)
The Man With The Golden Gun (1965)
Octopussy and the Living Daylights (1966)

- Fleming's other works include the children's favourite, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1964), which was made into a film and stage musical, The Diamond Smugglers (1957) and a collection of travel writings called Thrilling Cities (1963)

- Previous authors of official James Bond novels include Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson

Another hat tip to the ever reliable Zhi Wei, for this Friday post.

WHAT GETS AWARDED

The Man Asian Literary Prize has lived through its share of controversy. When the award was announced, Nury Vittachi rightly questioned the decision. This morning while researching an interview for Off The Shelf, I came across this story that I'd run way back in 2005, September 23rd to be precise:

The Penguin Group has purchased the English-language rights to China's best-selling novel, 'The Wolf Totem,' for a record US$100,000.

First-time author Jiang Rong's 2004 Chinese-language novel life on the Mongolian grasslands will be published in English in 2007. 'The Wolf Totem,' has already sold more than 1 million copies and topped best-seller lists for months.

Apart from critics, the meticulously researched, semi-autobiographical tale has been widely hailed by Chinese businessmen as well. They see in its accounts of the wolf pack's hunting, stalking and killing, a metaphor for survival and success in the corporate world.

A million and counting, you can carry on counting the number of times Nury's been right.

THE LITERATTI STORY

It's been a crazy couple of days. After months of talking, we finally got Literatti off the ground. Only to be inundated with questions like:
"Sounds mysterious - is it out of the Da Vinci Code"....

Unfortunately not.

Literatti's story began during a ride in Maniza's car. I remember we had both attended a fashion show by Deepika Gehani at the Arts House. Both of us were lamenting the fact that while there was so much South Asian art, fashion, theatre, dance and other cultural stuff happening in Singapore, we weren't hearing enough from our fantastic writers.

I had been to sessions, even moderated some where there were like 5 authors on the panel and 15 people in the audience including mine and my neighbour's kids.

Then I did this story on Shantaram and the sales figures freaked me out. 6,000 copies sold in Singapore and Malaysia alone (this was a couple of months ago).

So the interesting paradox was emerging. It wasn't as if Singaporeans are not into reading, give them the right book - they would. For those of you who have survived Shantaram, you'd know this is no easy read. Close to 1000 pages, it takes days, weeks even months to finish. The point though is if opportunities were created for authors to interact with their readers, loyal ones would show up, they would spread around and more people in turn would be reading.

Wishful thinking? Not quite. We spent a little over two weeks getting our first talk organised. Right from cards, posters, venue to food. It happened to be a whistle-stop tour by award winning author Romesh Gunesekera.

A call from Penguin's reliable Zhi Wei set things in motion. Next thing we knew, we had turned Maniza's house into a regular meeting haunt. Tripta was pulling all her marketing strings, Maniza was working round the clock getting everything from the venue to the food organised.

So much was happening so quickly that was barely a moment to register it all. I marvelled at everybody's willingness to go the extra mile to get this thing going.

The butterflies were there when we first thought:
a) Is Romesh going to make it?
He had two hours between getting off the plane and making to the Asian Civilisations Museum
b) Are people going to show up?

All's well that ends well, they say. And this one sure did.

Captain Elmo remained grounded for a few hours to help us take off successfully. As a moderator, he was outstanding. Romesh left me stunned with his reading. After all those reports of him being the 'quiet' kinda author, the reading came as a huge surprise, as did his engagement with his readers.

Zafar did a remarkable post on the talk. Since I had my eyes trained on the camera, didn't even realise so much had happened:
http://dreamink.blogspot.com/2006/08/at-home-in-world-romesh-gunesekera.html


The crowning glory though was Romesh's admission the next day in the Off The Shelf interview:
"A talk like this wouldn't have happened anywhere else in the world. They would say why don't you land first and we'll organise something the next day. In Singapore, they were willing to do it just hours after I'd landed."

So as we have been asked so many times - "Are you ready for your next talk?"

You bet we are...
Now to search for the author....

TRACKING TRACTORS

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Publisher : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books - 2005.
Pages: 324

Problematic father, feuding sisters, disputes over a will or lack thereof - that might sound like a script out of any typical family melodrama. So apart from the title what really sets Marina Lewycka's 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian' apart you might wonder.

For starters, it's just the way the story is told. Love makes a fool of the best of us. But in this case it is bringing out the Peter Pan in 84-year old Nikolai Mayevskyj, a Ukranian born widower. With a gold-digger at his heels and the pronouncements of re-marriage, sisters Vera and Nadezhda quickly need to put a lifetime of feuding aside to save him. That's largely because the new love of his life, is not only half his age with a fetish for cars and cash. But she is driven in her single minded determination of getting the best of life in the West, even if that means driving love-struck Nikolai to the grave.

Having survived the tough life in Ukraine, he almost sympathises with the 36-year old Valentina. With that he draws on his last reserves of savings, even stoops down to taking loans from his daughters to ensure that his new wife has nothing but the very best in life. So it is that when Valentina hollers:

"In former Soviet Union all cookers are white. Crap cookers . . . For civilised person, cooker must be gas, must be brown," Nikolai goes scurrying into his hidden treasure troves and when those run out, he simply finds a new-found joy - of a life lived on credit.

For Valentina nothing less than a new life in the West will suffice:
"A good life, with good job, good money, nice car - absolutely no Lada no Skoda - good education for son - must be Oxford Cambridge, nothing less."

In return for all of this Nikolai is to get a caring housekeeper coupled with the heroic sense of having rescued a beautiful woman from tragic cricumstances and poverty and of course access to the contents of those devastating D-cups.

As the novel progresses, he gets none of that. Watching his steady decline is the milder Nadezhda, a sociology lecturer married to a kind man. She has spent the better part of her life, saving every penny, helping her mother save every scrap, put her wardrobe together with all the seconds at Oxfam. All of that merely to see it all being shattered quick time by the every hungry Valentina.

Watching the rapidly deteriorating state of affairs, she unravels another known fact: "Marriage is never just about two people falling in love, it is about families." With that there is a re-connection of sorts with her sister. Together they embark in what is seemingly mission impossible - to make their father fall out of love.

Even as these battles play out pretty much in Nikolai's own backyard, he remains almost focused on his masterpiece - 'A History of Tractors in Ukrainian' - in which he speaks of the the larger ideals that show absolutely no signs of lasting around him.

This novel is not just fun but absolutely entertaining as well. No surprise that it made it so many award short and longlists including the Man Booker Prize 2005, The Orange Prize and bagged the SAGA Award for Wit and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction last year.

For a novel that makes you re-visit so many family truths in one go, the long list of awards for this stunning debut are only likely to grow in 2006.

Fighting Poverty

The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen In Our Lifetime by Jeffrey Sachs


Publisher: Penguin Books
First Published 2005
375 pages


Review by Deepika Shetty

"Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time," proclaims Jeffrey D Sachs. While many might stare at the statement in disbelief, Sachs is convinced this is possible. Backing it is his 25 years of experience in the developing and the developed world. He has viewed it from many vantage points and that enables him to propose a practical and solid argument for changing the current state of the poorest of the world's poor.

It's not going to be an easy task though. And that's something the author understands. That's precisely why he not only sheds light on working towards a poverty-free world but also provides insights into the causes of poverty, the policies of the developed world and what can change in the developing world. By all accounts, what comes through is a compelling read.


But it is his forceful reading of the causes of extreme global poverty that are outstanding. The argument of the 'poverty trap' is simple enough. It is common knowledge that the vicious cycle starts due to the disastrous combination of poor geography, poor infrastructure and poor health care. This makes some societies incapable of generating any economic surplus for the near-term leave alone the future. With subsistence being the key issue at hand, these places can ill-afford any investment that can provide the much needed boost to their economies.


So how does one break this trap? Sachs argues the first step should be to increase foreign aid in a way that would provide a greater return to private investment. Once these investments are made, they would in turn trigger market-led economic growth.


For those who doubt if this is possible, Sachs has his arguments - the eradication of smallpox and the Green Revolution being the key ones.


Then there are the cases of the emerging Asian Tigers. When you read about India, you see the 'triumph of hope over fear'. India, as Sachs argues is "teaching the world a lot about the richness of the international division of labour, and how it changes in response to technological possibilities. Who would have guessed twenty-five years ago that impoverished India would burst upon the world economy in the 1990s through hi-tech information services? Nobody."


And it isn't just India that is giving the world reason for optimism. There is China as well. The country's dramatic reforms are reshaping not just the global economy but global politics as well.


Giving a profound analysis of the dramatic emergence of these two nations, Sachs convinces us, tackling poverty doesn't have to the monumental task it has been made out to be. To this end, he points out that his proposed annual budget is still less than the pledge made by the developed world at the 2002 Monterey Summit. At that time they had agreed to devote 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to development aid.


But is that likely to compel the world to put their money where their mouth is? That remains a point in question. But even if half of the US $150 billion were to flow where Sachs proposes it should, it would definitely prove to be a step in the right direction. Now, if only we could get those 'weapons of mass salvation' to flow where they are really needed.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeffrey D Sachs is one of the world's foremost authorities on development. He has served as an adviser to many governments in the developing workd. He made his name helping Eastern-bloc and Latin American nations build market economies in the 1980s and 1990s. And since 2002, he has run Columbia University's multidisciplinary Earth Institute and advised the United Nations on development goals. He also serves as a Special Advisor to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.


WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:

"If there is any one work to put extreme poverty back onto the global agenda, this is it." - Publisher's Weekly


"Book and man are brilliant, passionate, optimistic and impatient. " - The Economist


"Professor Sachs has provided a compelling blueprint for eliminating extreme poverty from the world by 2025." - George Soros, Financier and Philanthropist


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MEMORIES & LOSS

Years before, 'citizen journalist' became the buzzword, my then Editor, Tushar Bhatt had a dream.

He wanted to hear ordinary people speak on the pages of the newspaper. True, they could be heard if they wrote in to the 'Letters to the Editor' column, but those weren't the type of voices he wanted to hear. With that in mind, he launched a column aptly titled 'VOICES.'

Four newbie Sub-Editors had made their entry into the hallowed precincts of The Times of India on Ashram Road at Ahmedabad. We'd survived a harrowing written test, an interview and expectedly felt on top of the world when we finally held the official letter of appointment.

The world was truly within our reach. So when Mr Bhatt spelt out his plans for the column, it was a resounding yes on our part. After all, how difficult could it be to pick a topic, head out to the streets to get four comments with pictures to go.

Ah, the heady confidence of youth!

What I, for one, hadn't fathomed was the fact that I had arrived in a new city. I barely knew a soul. I was desperately seeking a roof over my head and a way of buttering my daily bread. I imagined cracking this assignment would take less than half a day. After all, don't people love to talk? You bet they do. The minute you tell them about a proper quote and a picture to go they go into freeze frame instead. The neighbours didn't want to do it, the shop owners of Vastrapur didn't want to do it, nor did the folks on the street.

With no luck on my side, I decided to cycle through the educational parts of Ahmedabad. Somehow, the IIM seemed too forbidding, the Architecture college too linear and that's when I came across St Xavier's College. This looked like just the place I was searching for. My kind of students, a casual ambiance, nice canteen. I felt perfectly at home, so I started my spiel. In true college style I was pointed from one name to the next to the next, till I reached a rather intense looking guy with glasses.

"Hi, I work for TOI and I'm looking for a voice, would you mind talking?"
"Sure."

With that I got my first voice and met Robin David. The year was 1993.

I had no clue who Robin was. It was only when he came to drop his picture in the newsroom that the whispers started.

"You know who that is?" Someone on the desk asked
"No. Why? Should I know."
"Yes, his mother is a fierce critic. His grandfather started the zoo. You've never heard of them," came the answer laced with a bit of shock and awe.
"Now, I have."

So I got my propah introduction to Robin and his mum - Esther David. But more of that later.

Robin and I kept in touch. He told me he was interested in photography, dropped by with his impressive black and white portfolio one day, which was just as well. I'd started writing for another Bennett & Coleman publication 'Femina' and was desperately seeking a photographer who could thrive on the love for work. There would be a credit, some money and he was game.

Robin brought life to so many of the features I wrote. The most memorable of which was a picture of Kiran Sethi, wife of India's Billiards Champion Geet Sethi. Kiran was into designing restaurants at that time. She'd just lent her creative touches to the wildly popular restaurants Mirch Masala and Tomato's. Interviewing Kiran was delightful, photographing her a tad tricky. She was expecting a baby and didn't want the bump to be that obvious. Robin played around with the angles, shots and got it just right. Kiran looked radiant, the picture spoke louder than my words and certainly lit up some feature pages.

Several months later, Bala and I tied the knot or should it be signed the paper. Bala had already made his way to Singapore, I was counting my days in Ahmedabad. That's when my landlady dropped a bombshell. She wanted her house back. Not the kind of news one wanted to hear when you are straddling through worlds. Again Robin came to my rescue, boldly offering me possession of his Guptanagar home. He, in any case, was off to France to work on his photography, among other things. Having seen that treasure trove of a house, the offer was irresistible. I was happy to pack my bags and move in there. Any offer of a token rent were shunned and I was embraced by Ora, by Lilaben and everyone else who made their way in and out of that amazing home.

Pages of history were everywhere. Every book you pulled out of the packed bookshelves had a story to tell. There was the shrink's lounge chair, the dining table with the mooras, the pleasing sight of green grassy fields that you woke up to in the morning. The smell of the earth when the rain drops fell. It was in a word - perfect.


I hadn't met Esther yet but when she returned from Paris, the first thought that came to my mind was "fierce."

For a couple of days, I avoided going home, staying over at various friend's places, till she decided to call the newsroom and put me in my place:
"Why haven't you been home?"

Expectedly, a lot of humming and hawwing ensued. No answer sounded convincing enough. By the end of it, I felt stupid and decided it was time to come face to face with the formidable Esther David.

They say, you shouldn't always believe what you hear about a person. It couldn't have been more true for Esther. As she fed me my first dinner, I felt her warmth, in that moment when we talked about the Aloos, the way they had to be browned, I knew we'd be friends for life, even if I never learnt to cook the aloos her way.

Over the next couple of months, we poured over the covers of her first book The Walled City, which was to mark the beginning of her literary journey as an author.

Making another journey of his own was Robin who was steadily veering from photography to print. He did put up a photography exhibition backed by Alliance Francaise till the demands of his journalism job took over. After a stint with The Indian Express, he moved over to The Times of India.

I left India way before so many upheavals happened in Esther and Robin's life.

It all hit me when Esther emailed me last week:

"Dear Deepika,
The house is gone......"

Before it could even sink in, I was already on to the next bit of news:

Robin has come out with a novel. It is called 'City of Fear', by Penguin, it is all about leaving Gupta Nagar.

I quickly googled it and found a piece done by Naresh Fernandes in Time Out:
In City of Fear, David, an assistant editor at the Times of India, comes to terms with having to discard several generations' worth of memories and attempts to make sense of the altered geography of the metropolis in which he's spent his life.

On his blog, Robin writes:
I did not expect an earthquake and a bloody riot to define me. But it did. City of Fear is my first book.
Am I mad or am I surrounded by madness?

Now, if that hasn't got you rushing you to the book store, I don't know what else will.