Bibliofile

Wordy Flight

The politics of the day has influenced the writing of everyone, from Orwell and Hemingway to Pamuk and Martin Amis. A top Indian author is said to be extremely troubled by the present political discourse, the fanning of com­munal flames by some parties, and is desp­a­iring at the thought of the new regime after the 2014 polls. The aut­hor, a poet and a teacher as well, may even take the drastic step of leaving India if the BJP comes to power with Naren­dra Modi as PM. But he would like to remain anonymous. When asked why not write on this predicament, he replied: “Whatever I write is not going make the least difference”.

Writerbabus

They may be trained to write drab government reports but many babus think they have books in them. Bureaucrats are penning memoirs, fiction, biographies and getting political bosses to release them. Recently Shashi Tharoor launched The Fly on the Wall by Shubha Sarma, a bureaucrat in the ministry of culture. There’s buzz that Prasar Bharati CEO Jawa­har Sircar is ready with his book; so is joint secretary in the I&B ministry Raghave­ndra Singh. A joint secretary in the MoD is also said to be writing one on the India-Pak military stand-off.

Bhasha On DD

Here’s a reason to watch DD. It will soon air Kitaabnama on weekend evenings, a show about books and authors. The link languages will be English and Hindi but the books discussed will be from all over India. It will have author interviews, readings, readings from tra­nslations and writers’ profiles. The first episode will be on Habib Tanvir’s autobiography. With Just Books on NDTV off air, the show can fill a gap but can it match BBC’s Talking Books?