BOOKS by young non-professional writers are selling in numbers too big to ignore. They might have a tough time with critics, and established authors may have issues in making space for these writers among their ranks. However, there is no doubt that their books sell, and they have a special place among readers who respond to them through the Internet via websites, and blogs.
Is Bollywood finally waking up to realize that it helps to have a good script to make a good movie? I don't know if we can apply that broad brush to paint all directors in the same color. Livemint.com in its issue dated 20 Dec 2008 has a piece that talks about the growing desire of directors to pick a bestseller since it has all the ingredients - gripping narrative, pre-soaked audience and of course name recall.
The Asian Age runs a list of best sellers for the week. For two weeks now the Booker award winning novel The White Tiger has been topping the list. The others that follow have been pretty consistent too. Brisinger has been at the silver medal winning spot and Meenakshi Madhavan Reddy who writes the immensely popular blog called The Compulsive Confessor is holding forth at spot number three while I am holding fourth
We all know that politicians need to be accountable. The Intellingence units need to be able to gather the early warning signals and coordinate with the police or Anti Terror Squads to take preventive measures. The media too needs to avoid the temptation to sensationalize news and put innocent lives in danger. We have on many occasions watched the television channels trying to outdo each other in being insensitive. They televised live the rescue operations by the police, the NSG commandos trying to enter the Taj Mahal Hotel. Just by switching on the television the terrorists would have advance warning of what the commandos were desperately trying to do stealthily. The lack of accountability showed up big time during the terror attacks in Mumbai on the night of 26th November 2008 when terrorists held the country hostage.
The Telegraph says, " Married But Available (HarperCollins, Rs 195) by Abhijit Bhaduri follows Mediocre but Arrogant and is likely to be followed by Middle-Aged but Active. It is the story of Abbey, an MBA in the Eighties, when MBAs were just beginning to be accepted as god’s greatest gift to the corporate world. The prose is hardly of Booker quality, but the plot could interest a film maker wishing to capture on celluloid the pains and dilemmas of a man the rest of the world calls successful." OK guys, I have made tentative plans of how I will spend those millions. Now let us get cracking on the deal, Bollywood ... unless they meant Hollywood."Low on heavy fundas and high on humor and a feel good read." says Times of India
Rashmi Bansal was the first one to write about my first novel Mediocre But Arrogant. The article called A Novel Pastime appeared in the June 2005 issue of BusinessWorld magazine (read the article here) and of course it appeared on Rashmi's blog at the same time. She had profiled this new author called Chetan Bhagat who had stirred up major interest with his first novel called Five Point Someone.
I was recently invited by PepsiCo to join a dinner being hosted in view of the charismatic CEO Indra Nooyi's visit to India. She was voted the most powerful woman in business in US for the third year in a row by Fortune Magazine. Irene Rosenfeld who heads Kraft was the second most powerful. Irene is a PepsiCo alumni as well. Moral of the story: Food and beverages make people powerful. So eat well, I told myself.
