Is Chetan Bhagat trying to be the fifth Beatle in the 3 idiots story? Gaurav thinks it is all about the money.
And the contract, which Chopra has put up on his website, clearly states that Bhagat will be mentioned in the “rolling credits”, which appear at the end of the movie. And he has been [...]
Archive for the 'Books' Category
Chetan Bhagat, the fourth idiot.
Published by January 3rd, 2010 in Bollywood, Books and Cinema. 9 CommentsChetan Bhagat talk about the lack of credit for 3 Idiots even when the book is the base of the movie. Let me add a disclaimer that I have not read Five Point Someone and now for sure I am not going to see the movie.
The case is as simple as the makers claiming the [...]
Parul remembers about her old friends from textbooks by Russian authors, and specifically Arkadi Gaidar. It is fascinating to read how some stories set in far-off lands like Moscow can affect a child’s psychology:
For a young, impressionable mind, the ideals of socialism and the inherent flaws of communism were all things for much later (like [...]
The Mahabharata : Bhima’s version
Published by November 19th, 2009 in Books, Culture and India. 0 CommentsJai Arjun Singh reviews M T Vasudevan Nair’s acclaimed retelling of the Mahabharata in the voice of Bhima, the second of the five Pandava heroes through his Malayalam work “Randaamoozham”.
Next in the line of succession to his elder brother Yudhisthira (and usually in the shadow of his younger brother Arjuna when it comes to charisma [...]
If you have to go to a mall and shop, spend your money buying books and music , suggests Renu :
I have observed that if we spend the time in just talking or mall hopping etc..then the enjoyment is temporary and by the time we reach home, we again start feeling the vacuum in life..the [...]
Call for Entries
Published by July 21st, 2009 in Announcement, Books, Fiction, Literature and Poetry. 0 CommentsEntries are invited from young poets in India writing in English for the inaugural
Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize.
The Prize was instituted by the Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust to recognize excellence in poetry written in English and is being administered jointly by the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. The prize consisting of a cash award of [...]
Shivam is critical in his review of “Khairlanji: A strange and bitter crop”
All Teltumbde wants to talk about is Shudra oppressors, neoliberalism, Naxalism and the State—Khairlanji being a mere symbolic peg on which to hang all these ‘larger’ issues. Which is why you are surprised to read, on the second-last page:
Khairlanji soon got transformed into [...]
Afanasii Nikitin
Published by June 24th, 2009 in Books, History, India, Language, Media, Travel and World. 2 CommentsFëanor translates Afanasii Nikitin’s fifteenth century memoirs of his travel to India (Journey Across Three Seas):
Who was Nikitin? He was a merchant of Tver, a principality abutting the Mongol domains in Russia. He set out down the Volga sometime in the 1470s with some merchandise, was robbed by Tartars, and decided that he could not [...]
Aparna reviews Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant:
The Indian class system and treatment of servants, rural poverty and the exodus to urban India, the stark contrast between slums and gleaming urban palaces, the tortoise-like pace of the Indian judicial system – all these become part of the case of the missing servant, Mary, [...]
Arzee the Dwarf
Published by June 17th, 2009 in Announcement, Blogging, Books and Fiction. 0 CommentsChandrahas Choudhury announces the release of his debut novel:
I’m very pleased to share with you the news that Arzee the Dwarf is now out. I received my own copy on Saturday, and was delighted with how it looks – and, for all that I was prepared, also a bit surprised by how different a story [...]
No bias in California
Published by June 11th, 2009 in Books, Indiaspora, Media, Prejudice, Religion and Women. 0 CommentsAn article in this morning’s Times of India is headlined Hindus teach California a lesson, and carries the sub-heading: Group wins $175,000 from state education board for defaming Hinduism. The Sacramento Bee covers the case rather differently; Its headline reads, Hindu group to get just $175,000 in textbook bias suit.
It appears the Bee is right [...]
‘Madhavikutty’
Published by June 3rd, 2009 in Books, Feminism, Gender & Sexuality, Language, Literature, Media and Women. 1 CommentJo is ’sad because she wouldn’t be there anymore to speak of love’:
For most of the Malayalees, Madhavikutty was a porn writer. Ask the common public, who couldn’t see the truly original soul that she was, about Madhavikutty and they would say, “I know, I know… she is the one who wrote “Ente Katha” (My [...]
‘I, the Writer’
Published by June 2nd, 2009 in Books, Business, Internet, Media and Personal. 1 CommentRanjani Ravi, aspiring writer and young entrepreneur, talks about how he worked on the launch of I, the Writer (‘India’s first literary digital magazine for aspiring writers’):
I had my university exams in the second week of May. Thankfully, my university exams got over by 9th! So, I started working from 10th. I had chosen Joomla [...]
Kamala Das, RIP
Published by May 31st, 2009 in Books, Culture, Literature, Patriarchy, Poetry, Society and Women. 1 CommentGift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman,
The scent of
Long hair, the musk of sweat between
The breasts.
The warm shock of menstrual blood
And all your
Endless female hungers. Oh, yes,
Getting a man to love is easy but living
Without him afterwards may have to be faced.
Don Suseelan remembers Kamala Das:
Madhavikutty, Kamala Das, Amy, Kamala Suarayya. Each equally hated [...]
Mridula Koshy on knowing writers:
I think knowing the writer can shrink the work. The best kind of knowledge, best in the sense of it aiding a good reading of a work, is one in which the reader has access to the socio-political-economic picture of the times the writer lived in. Ideally from the distance of [...]
Amit Verma answers some FAQs about My Friend Sancho, his first novel:
On Indian writing in English, and where MFS fits in
There is an unfortunate gap in India between popular fiction and literary fiction. Readers of literary fiction look down on popular fiction and think of it as infra dig; and readers of popular fiction are [...]
Aditi Machado interviews Mridula Koshy, who recently published her collection of short stories, If it is Sweet:
AM: In a recent interview, Kazuo Ishiguro said that most collections of short stories are “basically a rag bag of stories they’ve had sitting around for the last 30 years.” Your stories seem, however, to fall into an overarching [...]
‘The Mind is not a vessel..’
Published by May 27th, 2009 in Books, Children and Education. 0 CommentsAG feels ‘the best mathematics books in terms of developing a student’s liking and insight into the subject’ are never used in our schools and colleges:
But if you ask me, the other perspective, the way mathematics is taught in most Indian pre-college institutions can never make it a likable subject. Most of you must have [...]
Random samajwadi
Published by May 15th, 2009 in Books, Fiction, General Elections 2009, Humour and Politics. 0 CommentsShilpa Jamkhandikar tells you why Jeffrey Archer likes the Samajwadi Party.
A Window Into the Past
Published by May 10th, 2009 in Books, Culture, History and Society. 0 CommentsPlus Ultra posts an excerpt from the book “Sketches of India, written by an Officer for Fireside Travellers at Home”.
Published in 1821, it gives a fantastic description of the life and style of native in Madras at that time.
There is a group of native women returning to their houses with water : they are of [...]
Literate city
Published by April 22nd, 2009 in Books, Culture, Law and order, Theory and Violence. 0 CommentsAn interesting argument at Rama’s blog- Rama’s friends react to a recent Amartya Sen theory that more book lovers means less crime in Kolkata:
To start with … there are crimes and crimes, various nuances and shades. If burglaries, rape and murder are cognizable crimes, what about nursing-home doctors fleecing their patients and botching up operations [...]
An Alternative History
Published by March 20th, 2009 in Books, Caste, Dalit, History and India. 0 CommentsMy narrative is alternative both to the histories promulgated by some contemporary Hindus on the political right in India and to those presented in most surveys in English–imperialist histories, all about the kings, ignoring ordinary people. But the texts tell us not just who was the ruler but who got enough to eat and who [...]
Suketu Mehta’s “Maximum City” is reviewed by Swayam:
The sheer proportions of the drudgery of the life of an average Mumbaikar, especially of the economically weaker ones, is so on your face, you’d be ashamed of your warm cocoon and your trifle quibbles from life and also surprised to know how people still continue to live [...]
Didn’t you read your history properly?
Published by January 16th, 2009 in Books, Education, History and Religion. 2 CommentsA post teeming with emotion tells us that a lot of the Indian history we’ve known so far (through our NCERT textbooks) is actually tailored to suit the needs of what the Nehru-Gandhi family (a.k.a. Indian National Congress) want us to believe in, rather than the truth:
The Manusmriti is not only the first and foremost [...]
At Dalit Nation, Arvind Adiga’s book gets a good fisking.
Babasaheb taught the mantra – ‘educate, organize and agitate’. But this novel does not contain any elements of the Dalit mantra. The Dalit hero, Balaram Halwai is uneducated and there is no effort or striving among his community towards education. They seem to be happy in [...]
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