Monthly Archives: January 2012
Bundling Borges into Bandra
I am now officially one of the employed. This has, for reasons inexplicable to me, led to me re-reading some Jorge Luis Borges and looking up his interviews. If there was the slightest chance of me using any of what I’m reading in my job, the wander around Borges boulevard would seem vaguely constructive. There [...]
Cheating
(From The Telegraph.) Unlike the sadhus we generally see on tv, at least this one’s an honest cheat, which is more than I can say for myself. Ever since I resolved to post more regularly, I’ve obviously done nothing of the sort. Posts like this one and the one below don’t really count (they’re links, not [...]
Three Cheers for Paul Beckett
Now this is how a festival diary should be written. Paul Beckett, you, sir, are a genius. (Not that he’s ever going to read this, but what the heck.) Please go read the entire article here. It is the only good thing that has come of the damned Jaipur Literature Festival so far (other than [...]
And We Have A Winner
A couple of days ago, I mused that I wasn’t sure if the government of Rajasthan deserved the Wimp of the Year award or if it should go to the organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival. I’m now able to report that the question was definitively answered earlier today when the festival organisers circulated this. [...]
Applied Humour
Since my own sense of humour seems to have gone on an indefinite strike, I am going to outsource some witticism for the blog. Allow me to present an American, who will be funny for me, thus bucking the usual outsourcing pattern. Here are selected excerpts from a comic piece by author Gary Shteyngart, titled [...]
Salman Rushdie and the Jaipur Literature Festival
This is rare. I’m so livid that I don’t actually know how to start. I also wrote “know” as “no” just now. It really is all going to hell. Earlier this month, I cancelled my tickets to Jaipur. I was going to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) but ultimately I decided against it because [...]
Homai Vyarawalla, OK Tata Bye Bye
Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first woman photojournalist, died earlier today. The last time I saw her was in 2010, when the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts organised a retrospective of her photographs at Mumbai’s National Gallery of Modern Art. Vyarawalla came in a wheelchair. If you bought a print (they weren’t wildly expensive) and went up [...]
The Blue Guitar in Calcutta
It’s about to be one of these entirely surreal Kolkata-in-winter Sundays. Derby in the morning, darling, I was informed. This essentially translates to knocking back glass after glass of a creamy alcoholic concoction called the Brandy Alexander, and watching people who look like they walked out of a Wes Anderson film squabble for their winnings. [...]
The effect of Saturn
Sometime in late December, Saturn shifted, I’m told. My uncle sent me a message informing me of this. My uncle sent me a message informing me of this. I was compelled to read two digests of prophecies for 2012, by two different astrologers, (don’t ask; there are numerous icky aspects to this business of getting [...]
Words of Wisdom
Nothing like beginning a year with a solid pep talk. The following have been gleaned from this article in The Guardian. Enjoy. Shostakovich could not have composed with the telly on. The afternoon is the worst time for creativity. It’s a bit like having children: you don’t interfere with the birth, but as your child grows [...]
World Domination
