Bidding adieu to office blues!

I am destiny’s child (or so I would like myself to believe) and impulse is my driving force. Calculated contemplation was never my strong point and thank god for that. Ideally I’d like to be the master of my own time, but in today’s age of plummeting economy and skyrocketing inflation, this seems like the most atrocious wish of a severely pampered child.

Hence, after some deliberation, I’ve developed a convenient middle path for myself. I keep taking a break from economic enterprise (woe falleth on the Economists of the world who consider housework as non-economic activity) once in a while to indulge myself in the freewheeling state of being footloose and fancyfree.

Keeping this tradition alive I’ve decided to call it a day in Bangalore. I know doing so at this point in life is committing professional hara-kiri. But then, I was never given to seeing my life as a balance sheet (cynics can term it as being impractical).

Right now I am quite excited to go back and slip into the new role of a dutiful housewife, cooking lau chingri and kochchu shaak with gusto. But more importantly, I’m looking forward to doing things that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Who knows, given my predilection for throwing up surprises, there’s a high chance of you seeing me somewhere that you’d never ever expected to! Keep guessing ;) …

(PS. Tonight it’s wine and cheese and everyone’s invited. :) )

Lit-beat's latest pin-up boy

For those of us, who follow the works of Indian writers writing in English, this year has been phenomenally providential. There have been three major releases so far Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and the recent Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. Each writer is a literary heavyweight in her own right but none has received so much media attention as Amitav Ghosh.

Gone are the days when Amitav Ghosh used to be published by the venerable Ravi Dayal. Most of his books then used to be released quietly, without much ado, at the most allowed an academic response in one of the few serious newspapers (as the content would hardly arrest the attention of non-serious readers of fiction).

Not so any more. With a well-known publisher talking over the literary rights, Amitav Ghosh has now been ordained with the mantle of Indian fiction’s most printable face. Since the past few weeks so much of print and air-space have been accorded to Sea of Poppies that people who follow Ghosh’s literary trail quite closely know all that’s there to know about the book and can hold forth in a party conversation without even turning a single leaf.

This leads me to wonder, how beneficial media excess is after all, if it leads us away from the real thing. All said and done, the writer needs to reach out to his readers through his works. Media can facilitate that process to a certain extent but should restrain itself from going into an overkill. Honestly speaking, I do not want to read any more interviews of Amitav, nor do I want to read any dust-jacket-based hastily-cobbled-up review of the book. Simply put, I want the BOOK now to talk to me. Others please step aside, will they?

It's Osian Cinefan Film Fest once again!

After the verbal diarrhoea that assailed me in May, June was spent in relative calm, mostly trying to rid myself of all unwanted emotional baggage accumulated over the past few months, an emotional summer-cleaning if you please.

With July the sporadic showers are back again and so are summer treats like mangoes and jamuns. It’s also that time of the year when Delhi experiences an eleven-day film extravaganza in the form of Osian Cinefan Film Festival.This year the festival is from 10 - 20 July. For those who need some cuing-in, Osian Cinefan is a film festival dedicated to Arab and Asian cinema. Started by Aruna Vasudevan and her movie-loving friends, nine years ago, the film festival is now supported by Osian, the auction-house owned by Nevile Tulli.

Osian Film Fest for me in a single snapshot means sauntering through glittering venues richly decorated with cine artefacts, grabbing an almost-stale patty/sandwich while rushing from one Sirifort auditorium to another, shedding copious amount of tears in a dark auditorium, marvelling at the young directors and their repertoire, secretly wishing to be part of a film production, catching a Makhmalbaf flick in between edit meets and proof reading (thank God office was just a walk away!), and desperately trying to find an auto after a late-night screening and walking back 5 km at 1 am through Delhi’s deserted streets.

As I write this I fight back the intense urge to rush and book a ticket to Delhi (S is to be blamed for steering me clear of it.) Helplessly I click through this year’s schedule and try and live those days, clinging to memories’ unfaltering support. Wish me luck!