Gali Proof
Publishing houses are working hard to remove the smell of bad translations Akademi books were once infamous for. With Krishna Sobti's The Heart Has its Reasons up for a Crossword prize for translation, publisher Katha decided a book launch was in order. What better way to do it than organise a heritage walk in Purani Dilli where excerpts from the book were read aloud in the streets of the novel's setting.
Literary Lambast
A veteran reporter recalls his first brush with literary criticism, a la Khushwant Singh style. Soon after Raja Rao won the Akademi award for his Serpent and the Rope, Khushwant was apparently called to preside over a book reading. Khushwant kept it short: he read aloud a single para, only to comment tersely: "This is how a writer makes ch***as of his readers."
