Beautiful Thing in Bombay, Delhi, Goa, Bangalore, and Kerala

Hey Bombay readers, if you're free this evening do come by Crossword, Juhu at 7 p.m. I'll be reading from Beautiful Thing and chatting with the wonderful Namita Devidayal, author of The Music Room and Aftertaste.
Update: Hear Namita speak about the book, here.

And for those of you who missed the Bombay launch with Shobhaa De on Wednesday, here are some photos of  her being super glam, and a video of her talking up the book.

Update: All launch videos and photos, here.
Beautiful Thing in Delhi launched by William Dalrymple at the Lodhi restaurant on November 1. Hear William speak about the book, here. William and I discuss the new wave of Indian non fiction, here.
The Goa launch with Margaret Mascarenhas at Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts, November 3.
The Bangalore launch with Jahnavi Baruah at Crossword, Residency Road on November 8.
And Beautiful Thing in Kerala at the Hay Festival, with William Dalrymple.

Thank you everyone who came for the launch, bought a book, talked up the book, shared the book ... you get the idea! Thank you, I appreciate it so much.

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'The Bijniss of Being Leela'

'Shetty had booked them into a resort called River View (‘A Treat of a Retreat’). It had a swimming pool and a waterfall and offered a buffet of delicacies like pulao and mutton curry, golgappas and fountains of fresh, flavoured lassi.

Leela would have been happy to be a tourist, her camera slung around her neck. She had no need, she said, to dance to the loud Bollywood music a DJ in a bandana and shades was spinning, to stand under the waterfall in her new swimsuit and black lace leggings, to mirror the couples entwined in the pool—their love, their lust, a tangible thing it was only natural to want for oneself.

She could be haappy, in a quiet, regular way, just being with Shetty.

‘If he’d only sat beside me . . .’ Leela sighed. ‘But he was happy with his blue films and beer.’ ...'

Do read this exclusive excerpt from my new book, Beautiful Thing, available in print in Lounge, the wonderful Saturday newspaper from Mint/Wall Street Journal, India, this Saturday, October 23.

The photo above was taken by the very talented Bombay photographer Akshay Mahajan. It isn't a photo of Leela; but this and the other photos printed with the article were inspired by the text. For more photographs inspired by the text from another great talent (and Bombay boy), photographer Sanjiv Valsan, please visit the 'Extras' section of my new website.

And lastly, not to be pushy, but have you bought the book yet (At a discount with free shipping thrown in, oh my!)

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'Step Back from the Abyss or Go Over the Edge'

Although I've lived in Bombay for so many years, and have come to expect nothing but the worst sort of thuggery, brutishness and gangsterism from anyone bearing the name Thackeray, I have to say that even I was taken aback by the Shiv Sena's demand that Rohinton Mistry's superb novel, A Fine Balance, which has been admired in India and abroad for decades, be removed from the Mumbai University Syllabus. I wasn't surprised however that the university was quick to do so because the vice chancellor of the university has bones and bones, as we know, can be broken. 

This morning the critic Nilanjana Roy linked to Mistry's response to the Shiv Sena, and what he said made be terribly sad for my once great city. Of course, when one thinks of Bombay as a great city one refers to a time fairly long ago, certainly before the older Thackeray came to power. One thinks of a Bombay that inspired hope and encouraged dreamers, of a city that was built on the conviction and courage of people from across the country, not just of a monolithic group of those who spoke a single language, and thought a single antagonistic thought. Now Bombay is broken, literally and otherwise, and that's part of what makes little Aditya Thackeray's desperation for power so tragic. What does this twenty-year-old with his spotty face and centipedial moustache want power over? Writers who will write of Bombay, but not in it? Filmmakers who will show Bombay from outside of it? Intellectuals who will tell of Bombay's fables from an ocean away from it? 

When little Aditya become a big boy he may indeed have power. But that power will be the power of one goon lording over a thousand other goons, and that isn't power it's a criminal gang.

Update: Read Roy's response to the ban, Rohinton and the Rat Pack, here.

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The Temple Givers

So this morning's NYT has a story on billionaire venture capitalist and Sun Co-Founder Vinod Khosla's plans to start a venture capital fund to invest in companies that focus on the poor in India. Khosla knows what he wants, and how to get it, having started SKS Microfinance a few years ago. It lends money to poor women in India.

I was impressed with Khosla's giving but also intrigued by the fact that he made a point of saying that the rich in India simply don't do enough for the poor. This is true, of course. It's one of those things we know of but don't talk about, and it's made more poignant by the fact that while the rich in India do give, they give to temples or religious organizations. I've never understood this form of charity. It's one thing to give to a religious group on the understanding that the money will be spent on educating, feeding, clothing or protecting the less fortunate. It's another thing entirely to give money for the construction of yet another excessively ornate religious structure, whose appearance has less to do with God, and more to do with our self-constructed notion of what would please God.

The article, written by Vikas Bajaj, further points out that Indians give much less as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product than Americans. 'Moreover, individual and corporate donations account for just 10 percent of the charitable giving in India, compared with 75 percent in the United States and 34 percent in Britain. The balance comes from the government and foreign organizations.'

Khosla isn't the first person to publicly question the state of Indian philathropy, says Bajaj. 'Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp co-founder, who was in China last week with the billionaire Warren E. Buffett, said that he and Mr. Buffett might go to India as part of their campaign to get the very rich to give away half their wealth.'

India now has 69 billionaires, up from 7 in 2002. Of these, the only people I can think of who give publicly to social or charitable concerns are Rata Tata, Azim Premji, and Narayan and Sudha Murthy. Who am I missing? Do the Ambanis or the Mittals spend money on anyone other than themselves, their houses, their daughters' flamboyant weddings, and their art shows? And what of Bollywood? There aren't any actors on the Forbes India rich list, but I assume they have change to spare. Have any one of them made a significant financial contribution to India's poor? This isn't a criticism, it's a question, and if any of you have the answer, please share.

Sun Co-Founder Uses Capitalism to Help Poor.

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The Return of Rohinton

I have multiple copies of Rohinton Mistry's books, just because. He's the sort of writer whose words you never want to be without. Just the other day as I finished re-reading A Fine Balance I wondered when we would read something new from him. But this week's New Yorker (All links below) brought a surprise. 'Empire Records', a single page essay by Mistry, is set in 1975, the year he left Bombay for Toronto, and speaks of his complicated feelings about leaving India, through the lending and loss of a treasured LP to a close friend. The essay is full with the rich detail and familiar sense of home that I love so much about his work. Read this, for example:

'The electric Garrard gramophone that spun these records was my father's proudest possession. Everything he did--dusting the rosewood cabinet, cleaning the tonearm and needle, selecting a record, switching on the turntable--had an air of ritual homage, as though in a temple. I liked to sit close to the gramophone, where I could watch the record spinning, because the grooves in the shiny shellac appeared to create an endless spiral that almost induced a trance, making visible the passage of time. Suddenly, eternity was not an idea that evaded grasping but music that played forever.'

I only have to read a few lines of Mistry's work to be transported to Bombay, to feel that sense of exasperation and delight that embodies my relationship with the city, a city that despite all its faults I love dearly and still consider myself a part of. Wherever I may live, I will always consider myself a Bombay girl.

Which is why it saddened and disgusted me to read, also this morning, that Aditya Thackeray, the 20-year-old son of Uddhav Thackeray, the son of the man who reduced a great city to the dust bowl that it is today, succeeded in arm-twisting Mumbai University into withdrawing A Fine Balance from its curriculum. The book, according to Thackeray, 'contains extremely foul language and objectionable references to the Shiv Sena.'

There's really very little for me to say on the matter. The Shiv Sena, despite not having been in power for years, continues to control what is said, seen, done and read in Bombay because it has on its side not intelligence or integrity, but because it has none. Because it has none of these qualities, it has nothing to lose. And because it has nothing to lose, it continues to terrorize the public with the meanness of its ways and the smallness of its mind, promising not to cease and desist until, like them, we too become small and mean, with closed hearts and shuttered minds. Mistry left Bombay for a reason. People leave Bombay for a reason. But the behaviour of a twenty year old brat with no desire to open his mind to the great beauty of the world around him, should be no encouragement for us to lose heart. Mistry's works should be celebrated precisely because he offends, because he startles us, because he shakes us up and makes us think hard about the kind of people we are and the things we do to one another. Let's celebrate this great writer by re-reading his books. And if you know someone who hasn't been introduced to Mistry, this is as good a time as any for you to go ahead and do so. 

New Yorker Aditya Thackeray Such a Long Journey A Fine Balance Family Matters Swimming Lessons 

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