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Gone are those days of Munshi Premchand, when books made way rather too subtly or when authors were few and fewer in the making. Today, there is a book for not just every single season but for any of the relevant reasons of a particular season — scams, scandals, shams and sexual escapades. I’m happily
bewildered at the pace new books have been hitting the stands and the
near-perfect timings of their release. And this trend has been there for
the past few years. In fact, it’s been picking up each year. And the
previous year 2010 was no different. So much so that a book on Burma was
launched in New Delhi as soon as elections got over in Burma. The
Euro-Burma Office in collaboration with the Centre for North-East
Studies launched Benedict Rogers’ new book, Than Shwe: Unmasking
Burma’s Tyrant (Silkworm Books), which throws ample focus on the
"reclusive and xenophobic character of Than Shwe , and life in
Burma under his rule`85" And, of course, a couple of volumes on
President Barack Obama and Michelle hit the stands much before the
couple landed here.
Seeing and sensing this trend, in the New Year there could be books lined up on corruption ridden tales currently oozing from every possible quarter. Political or apolitical. You name the sphere and there you have a full-fledged story! Just about waiting to be somehow scribbled and launched. Several additional
factors also stood out. The bygone year focused on two well-known women
no longer on the scene. Yes, there was much focus on Kamala Das, with
the launch or rather re-launch of some of her earlier written poems and
short stories. Then, two volumes on Amrita Sher-Gil brought out by her
nephew, Vivan Sundaram, highlighted not just her artistic prowess but
also her diary writings, her letters, her passion to reach out and more.
Then, another trend that stood out was that several practising doctors took to writing long and short stories. In fact, some of the best-known writers were doctors by profession. And it’s not that they got into writing just that one novel. No, several of them are writing with an ongoing passion. In fact, Anirban Bose, a doctor by profession and currently assistant professor of medicine and nephrology at the University of Rochester, USA, has been writing one volume after another. After the success of Bombay Rains, Bombay Girls, he will now be launching in New Delhi his latest work, Mice in Men (HarperCollins). And there was Devdutt Pattanaik, the raging writer of mythological tales with quite a varied background, he is a doctor by training, a marketing consultant by profession and a mythologist by passion. Several more doctors turned writers but because of space constraint one can’t go into all details. And then, of course,
there was the spread of book festivals `85 not just happening in Jaipur
but spreading to Mumbai and Kerala, a trend that can go to other locales
as well .Yes, elitist they were with all the bandobast around. Maybe,
those good old book fairs were certainly more affordable but had become
like typical bazaars. You’d enter those book stalls and buy the books
of your choice and that’s about it. But in these fashionably hyped
book festivals a distinct ambience is painstakingly and systematically
created. Foreign writers mix and mingle with the natives. Discussions
and talks and interactive sessions are well-webbed and inter-webbed,
against well-structured backgrounds.
Another trend was that historical tales weren’t written within set formats. Last autumn saw the release of bureaucrat-turned- governor-turned-writer Gopal Gandhi’s Dara Shukoh - A Play ( Tranquebar ) . Chief guests at these book releases were politicians or authors or a mix of both. The last month (December) alone saw Shashi Tharoor releasing two books — poet-writer-journalist C.P Surendran’s Lost And Found (HarperCollins) and Asian Film Journeys (Wisdom Tree). The author of the year was definitely Khushwant Singh. For, there isn’t another journalist writer in this part of the continent who could be writing regular columns as well as fast-paced novels. And this, when he is nearing 96. In fact, 2010 saw the release of two books from Khushwant, the latest being The Sunset Club (Penguin and Ravi Dayal Publisher). It was released by Gursharan Kaur and after those crisp speeches, a short documentary was screened where Khushwant’s friends, former colleagues, those who have interacted with him all these years spoke out on the lesser-known aspects of this legendary writer of our times.
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