The most feted author in town isn't Salman Rushdie or Jhumpa Lahiri or Sir Vidia. The farewell parties for Pawan Verma roll on inexorably even as he draws a farewell calendar for others. "I've attended only three so far," moaned a fellow author who's an equally immoveable Page 3 fixture. "Pawan must think I hate him." One hopes Cyprus' newspapers have a Page 3 section. Then again, considering Pawan's flair for promotion, they will by the time the Indian ambassador ends his stint out there!
Speaking of the media, Shashi Tharoor's way too diplomatic to ever voice his opinion of journalists in public, but he offers a clue in Riot, his first work of fiction in several years (due out in August). Prominent among the cast of characters is a US journalist called Randy Diggs, which serves, one presumes, as a job description as well as a name.
