Bibliofile
A writer reappears after 11 years. Well, almost. And what did he do all this while without an income? Draped his windows in black cloth, cut off the phone...
Our taste in authors, however, is a tad more flashy. The launch of Hari Kunzru's second novel, Transmission, will long be remembered for all the wrong reasons. The usually sedate British Council outdid itself by setting up a giant screen playing colourful Bollywood numbers (in tribute, supposedly, to the novel's central theme, a computer virus named after a Bollywood star). Kunzru himself could have passed off as a Bollywood star, tailed as he was by autograph-seekers, TV cameras and our P3Ps. That wasn't all: there were also a DJ churning out remixes, two long and well-stocked bars and red paper streamers pretending to be flames.
More celebrations are in store judging by what publishers have for next month. There is former CEC J.M. Lyngdoh's Chronicle of an Impossible Election and Rahul Singh's picturebook biography of his father, Khushwant, by Roli. No less than the Big B will do the honours.