Bibliofile

On A New Stalker

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by the talented Siddhartha Mukherjee is perhaps the only non-fiction book on a killer disease which can beat racy medical bestsellers of the likes of Michael Crichton or Wilbur Smith as a page-turner. Now there is buzz that Siddhartha’s next book is on the other, relatively new, crippling illnes­ses the world is grappling with—Alzheimer’s, dementia and memory loss. Someone who has had a look at the draft manuscript says it’s absolutely riveting, perhaps even better than the first book.

Points That Stuck 

It was a rare book launch where almost all the panelists, politely but firmly, disagreed with the book and the author. The author and sociologist, the suave and soft-spoken Dipankar Gupta, introduced the main idea of his new book, Revolution From Above: India’s Future and the Citizen Elite. Soon after, economist Deepak Nayar came to the podium to say he loved the book but disagreed with it on certain points and went on to elaborate on these in the next half an hour with impeccable erudition. The next speaker, Sitaram Yechury, also said the book had an interesting premise, but there were problems. Then came economist Sudipto Mundley, who said he disagreed with Gupta on four main points and expanded on them, again eloquently. But how refreshing to hear scholarly arguments, posed with wit and rigour, on the idea of revolution from above or who a citizen elite is! As moderator Raghav Bahl put it, it was an “intense and insightful” evening.