It's a busy day, but there's time for a few quick links:

India Today might have knocked the Godfather off their list of the 50 most powerful people in India, but he's making a bit of a splash over in Canada. Way down at the end of this report is the most interesting line: speculation that David Davidar's just passing through Toronto en route to taking over Penguin USA. Yeah, yeah, there's a denial on the record.

From the New Deals section at Publisher's Lunch:
Indian filmmaker Mira Nair's (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding) memoir, exploring the relationship between her
art and her life through the prism of her rather multi-faceted identity--as film director; as Indian, as wife,
mother, daughter and sister--and as a woman who has defied certain traditions to pursue her dreams, to Jane
Lawson at Transworld/Doubleday in the UK (world English), with Nan Talese to publish in the US...

More on Tagore's medal:
Amartya Sen says remember the man's ideals and gently explains why the theft does not qualify as a "national crisis".
And the 1913 presentation speech makes for interesting, if disturbing, reading:

"The true inwardness of this work is
most clearly and purely revealed in the efforts exerted in the Christian
mission-field throughout the world. In times to come, historical inquirers
will know better how to appraise its importance and influence, even
in what is at present hidden from our gaze and where no or only
grudging recognition is accorded. They will undoubtedly form a higher
estimate of it than the one now deemed fitting in many quarters.

Thanks to this movement, fresh, bubbling springs of living water have been
tapped, from which poetry in particular may draw inspiration, even though
those springs are perhaps intermingled with alien streams, and whether
or not they be traced to their right source or their origin be attributed to
the depths of the dreamworld. More especially, the preaching of the Christian
religion has provided in many places the first definite impulse toward a
revival and regeneration of the vernacular language, i.e., its liberation
from the bondage of an artificial tradition, and consequently also toward
a development of its capacity for nurturing and sustaining a
vein of living and natural poetry." (N.B.)

India's on the Borders menu.

In which it is proved that The Believers are just like the rest of us, only miles better at networking.
"To point out these connections, as well as noting in passing some of the multifarious examples of in-breeding and insouciant log-rolling (Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida's co-editor at the Believer, is married to Ben Marcus; Ben Marcus interviews George Saunders in the current issue; George Saunders nominates Ben Marcus as one of his favourite writers in a recent interview and puffs a new Julavits book - 'a terrific and important addition to our literature'; Hornby puffs a new collection of stories by Vendela Vida's good friend and recently -anointed true Believer, Julie Orringer, as well as talking up the latest novel by friend-of-the-magazine, Jonathan Lethem ...) is to risk being branded a 'snark'." No, actually, to point out these connections is taken as evidence that you don't have a coterie of your own. Or a big book contract. Or that you're just envious. Take your pick; that crew has no trouble explaining away anything they don't like.

Blogging will be low for the next two months or until my editor removes the Smith & Wesson from my left temple, whichever is sooner. Nope, the Babu's not joining the ranks of Indians Writing in English; he foolishly promised to put together a few things for a publishing house and discovered too late that they employ Rottweilers in (very beautiful) human form.

Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel medal has been stolen from Visvabharati, the university he had established in Shantiniketan--but the thieves may have been caught, and some of the items restored. The Bengali biradari has united in lamenting this affront to Gurudeva, often at tearful length--unfortunately the editorial I read yesterday that spoke in shocked accents of "sacrilege" and compared the theft to the occasion when used condoms were found in the Visvabharati prayer hall is not available online. (I wonder what Gurudeva would have made of the comparison, but then he had a sense of humour!) Stockholm has offered to replace the medal (note: it has now been confirmed that the Nobel citation was not stolen). There was speculation that the medal would end up in a private collector's hands. It was a very Indian theft; the thieves timed their operations for the day of the final Indo-Pak match, assuming correctly that everyone would be too busy watching cricket to bother about security!

Rochona Majumdar makes a larger point: "[Theft] screams the poverty of politics. It announces to the world that we are so bereft as a people, so denuded of any sense of the past, any pride in our cultural accomplishments, that we now strip our museums. "

"One reason Wavell read so much was that he did not like to talk." Good man, and it's a shame that modern-day politicians do not follow the example set by the Viceroy. Ram Guha catalogues Wavell's range of interests: "[Among] the books he ordered from Truslove and Hanson were the political scientist Harold Laski's Reflections on the Revolution of our Time, William Empson's work of literary criticism, Seven Types of Ambiguity, and the Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The Viceroy seemed to have a taste for the classics ? hence the request for copies of all volumes of the Cambridge New Shakespeare, 'in the leather binding if available'. He liked humour both ancient and modern ? thus the orders for G. Gordon's Shakespearean Comedy, for Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, and for the letters of George Bernard Shaw. Scripture was represented by R.A. Knox's translation of the new Testament, art by a biography of the painter Augustus John and a book on the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci."

Outlook's policy of appeasement--balance a pseudosecularist with an oxymoron, ie a Hindutva intellectual--has infected the magazine's book pages. The Babu has no brief against Outlook: he contributes to its pages every so often. But to place Balbir Punj in the same space that the likes of Rajmohan Gandhi and Amitava Kumar have occupied is to turn your literary pages into the equivalent of op-ed columns. About this piece by Tarun Vijay: one, it's an attack on Dalrymple ad hominem and beyond calling attention to the colour of William's skin, does not actually address his arguments except in terms of the schoolboy sneer. Two, it's actually worth reading Vijay if you want to know where the deep roots of prejudice come from. The words he uses to describe Dalrymple's piece--"stinking and rude"--make me wonder whether he even read the article; I thought the essay stood out precisely because Dalrymple avoided launching a personal attack on Sir Vidia, and reinforced my sense that we argue most ferociously with the writers whom we take the most seriously.

John Darkin rants about product placement in novels as he imagines the era of the sponsored book: "Novels will promote dietary supplements, condoms, alcohol, petrol, cigarettes (neatly circumventing the advertising restrictions, perhaps) and anything else that is sold by brand name." But think of all that wasted space. In the desi context, Amitav Ghosh could have advertised compasses and London A-Zs in The Shadow Lines; Midnight's Children is ripe for sponsorship by Patak's Pickles; Naipaul's rants on the lack of hygiene in India could have been accompanied by a discreet plug for Wintex toilet paper; several of Anita Desai's heroines are walking advertisements for Prozac; and Chitra B Divakaruni could start her own brand of Mystic Masalas.

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, downloadable--for free. That's what I call putting your money where your mouth is. (Link via Bookslut.)

Prize shortlists: The IMPAC and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize are out.

William Faulkner, second finest failure. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily.)

The thing is, Atal Behari Vajpayee is an honourable man. A while back, he'd obliquely criticised people who banned books and ravaged libraries, suggesting that they might choose to table their objections in more intellectual fashion. The thing is, it's the elections and he's campaigning in Maharashtra, also known as I Love Shivaji Central. The thing is, Laine hasn't said anything defamatory, or even especially inflamatory, about Shivaji, in his book. The thing is, our honourable PM has done the crowd-pulling bit and slammed Laine in general, foreign scholars in particular, just to get that applause going. The thing is, if anyone else had pulled a volte face like that, I'd have had no hesitation in calling him a two-faced wuss who lacked the courage of his convictions and was only too happy to sell intellectual freedom down the river in pursuit of votes. But the thing is, we're talking about Atal Behari Vajpayee here, and as everyone knows, AB Vajpayee is an honourable man. Isn't he?

The regional winners for the Commonwealth Prize have been announced: the list includes Damon Galgut and Mark Haddon, which makes the Babu think deep thoughts about the standardisation of book prizes everywhere. Increasingly, the same names pop up on every shortlist--Monica and Jhumpa on the Orange and everything else, Haddon all over the place. Perhaps it's time someone instituted a Mode Prize, honouring the writer whose work has made it to the highest number of shortlists in any given calendar year. For Indian readers, a caveat--there were no desis on the list of regional winners this year, which isn't surprising. The last year has been dismal in terms of good fiction in English from India, and I can't remember having to ride out a similar drought any time in the last decade. Here's the official website, for Commonwealth watchers.

This, on the other hand, is a longlist I could learn to love. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Gulag, and Mountains of the Mind could only end up in each other's company on the Samuel Johnson list.

Patrick Neate (Twelve Bar Blues, The London Pigeon Wars) is in Delhi this week. Browsed his website and came across a few uncollected short stories. From Restaurants: "In London there are so many restaurants that it can sometimes seem like they must be reproducing. You might think that the steak house on the high street got the small Italian bistro drunk one night and she spawned the cheap vegetarian, you know?" And KK, if you're logging on from the heart of darkness, this one's for you. It's called African Aid Worker.

Okay, now I need anti-depressants.

The Babu toddled off this week to see the Vagina Monologues (without Jane and Marisa, but we weren't complaining) performed in Delhi, along with the significant other and a sainted aunt. Delhi took to the play with ginger enthusiasm--yeah, yeah, we chanted 'Vagina' happily enough at the beginning, but I noticed no one joined in on the ccc-uuu-nnn-ttt Reclaim-The-Word monologue. The reactions have been interesting: cautious approval, in-your-face defiance, carping criticism and pretty pointless rebuttal.

Verily, it's in thy hands now. The New Testament has been translated into sign language.

Headline: Microsoft announces Hindi language interface. You might need this.

It's official: there is no truth in advertising. But these guys are amateurs in the backscratching stakes: I fondly remember the Indian poet who complained bitterly to me that a fellow practitioner had slated his most recent book. "And I gave him a really good review just three months before my book came out, to be absolutely sure he would return the favour," said the poet bitterly. "Instead, can you imagine, he wrote what he really thought!"

The hills are alive with the sound of hobbits (and if you listen carefully, the lovely noises made by a Babu barfing in the aisles). Sorry, I'm a paid-up Tolkien fan and a hardcore Rings junkie, but I just can't take another slushy elven love song.

The Orange longlist is out; the Guardian does the compleat roundup. Rupa Bajwa, Monica Ali and Jhumpa Lahiri are among the 20 authors featured, in case you're wondering how the subcontinent made out. And if you haven't visited the Woolly Thinking Rhetoric DIY guide, you're missing out.

I forget to drop in at Butterflies and Wheels for a few months and they promptly post quantities of stuff I really, really need to link to. Meera Nanda trashes pseudo-science and explains why we really don't need to be teaching Vedic Astrology in schools; Robert Nola reviews her book here. Latha Menon uses the Bhandarkar Institute incident as a jumping-off point for an exploration of intolerance.

*Good to have Pico Iyer back in form--the Babu loves his non-fiction, but has to admit that the fiction leaves him umm, kind of lukewarm. Anyway, here's the man on jet-lag, and yes, this is from a soon-to-be-published book. Yay.
"I often think that I have traveled into a deeply foreign country under jet lag, somewhere more mysterious in its way than India or Morocco. A place that no human had ever been until 40 or so years ago and yet, now, a place where more and more of us spend more and more of our lives."

Suketu Mehta wrote the script for this. Someone give me the screenplay. Please.

"This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer. So listen as fast as you can." Chuckie's back.

Here's a nice piece on Anu Garg. What, you haven't visited Wordsmith yet?

"VS Naipaul is read alongside Sam Selvon and George Lamming. Salman Rushdie is compared with Aamer Hussein and Kamila Shamsie; and, mercifully, he reads Zadie Smith in the light of developing trends and ideas among the body of migrant writers and theorists." Amen to that.

The Vagina Monologues will not be staged in Chennai. This quote kind of sums up the story: ??Obviously Madras has no vaginas. If Madras has no vaginas it must be full of a**holes,?? Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, one of the organisers, said.

More on the IIM imbroglio: the human resource development ministry turns up the heat. Shekhar Gupta comments in The Indian Express: "[Joshi] has got it all wrong, like a mofussil intellectual caught in a time warp. Of all the senior BJP politicians with an RSS background, he should have been the last to be so uncomfortable with English-speaking elites. But he has chosen to be that way, and the bureaucratic, ideological, academic ? and utterly marginalised ? sycophants who hang around him have told him, attaboy, way to go."

Disney signs a deal with Judy Blume: "I think both of our intention is to very much keep the spirit of the books, keep the flavor of the books, keep the core stories of the books, but understand that in order for the books to have a successful translation to the film the stories need to be opened up and made visual rather than internal." It's just my macabre imagination at work, but I can't quite banish a mental vision of Blume pegged out on a dissection table while Disney technicians wield their scalpels to the accompaniment of a chorus of cute little humming birds.

* "Mr. Amis is alive and kicking and, in case anyone's interested, up for grabs." The NYT speculates that Martin Amis is fishing for another book contract in the US. It's kind of weird to read the term "marketable" in a story about the man.

Rushdie's been named President of PEN America. From 'A Declaration of Independence', which he wrote in 1994 for the International Parliament of Writers: "Today, around the world, literature continues to confront tyranny--not polemically, but by denying its authority, by going its own way, by declaring its independence. The best of that literature will survive; but we cannot wait for the future to release it from the censor's chains. Many persecuted authors will also, somehow, survive; but we cannot wait silently for their persecutions to end." Good luck to the man.

Philip Pullman has two unlikely admirers--Michael Chabon and Archbishop Rowan Williams. The Babu's thinking this could be a grand way to yank fantasy and sci-fi onto the list of respectable A-list reading: line up your authors by the door--Banks, Gibson, Terry Brooks--and have them sanctified as canon-worthy by a person of the cloth and a big league literary star. Us sword-and-sorcery barbarians will stroll through those gates yet. (While we're on the subject, bless you, Maud--I'm stealing your links again.)

The Babu has actually been working, much to the surprise of everyone who knows him, and apologises for the blogging go-slow at Kitabkhana over the last week.

We missed out on quite a bit: the NBA awards, the kerfuffle over an initiative that would drop cover prices from book jackets in the UK that had Anthony Beevor and Philip Pullman among a host of other authors up in arms and an opening lines quiz where you'd have to try really hard to score below 6.

Meanwhile, William Dalrymple takes aim, politely, at Naipaul: Today few would dispute Sir Vidia's status as probably the greatest living writer of Indian origin; indeed, many would go further and argue that he is the greatest living writer of English prose. For good reason, his views are taken very seriously. He is a writer whose fiction and non-fiction written over half a century form a body of work of great brilliance, something the Nobel committee recognised when they awarded him literature's highest honour. His credentials as a historian are, however, much less secure, and so when Sir Vidia gets something badly wrong, it is important that these errors are challenged."

This month's Literary Review at The Hindu features (sketchy) interviews with Mahesh Elkunchwar and Kamila Shamsie, a burble about the recent Katha Utsav and the usual reviews and columns.

Something about this story should tell you that the current author-agent-publisher scenario sucks.

"And what can ail thee, wretched blogger/ Alone and palely loitering/ Known in the office as the bandwidth hogger/ And no page stats sing." Nope, I'm not going to win the Keats-Shelley Prize at this rate, but if you're in a Romantic frame of mind, it offers ?3000 in prizes for an essay on any aspect of Keats' or Shelleys' work and/ or a poem of no more than 50 lines on a Romantic theme.

"Read alongside Away, Naipaul's most recent collection, Literary Occasions might almost be engaged in a dialogue with Kumar's anthology." The Melbourne Age has an interesting review of both books.

Peter Conrad on his conversion to Tintin-worship: "Precocious and pretentious, I was too busy reading Shakespeare and Dickens to bother with a series of Belgian cartoons about the picaresque scrapes of a boy reporter who always wore immaculately-creased plus fours and sported a blonde quiff poised in mid-air like a wave about to break."

Budding students of Elvish, Tolkien-style have only this to say to those who mock the "new subject": Antolle ulua sulrim. It isn't quite as daft as it sounds, though: unlike most creators of fictional languages, Tolkien spent years developing rules of grammar and the like. Always wanted to learn Klingon, myself.

From The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, for no particular reason at all: "Sandy Stranger had a feeling at the time that they were supposed to be the happiest days of her life, and on her tenth birthday she said so to her best friend Jenny Gray who had been asked to tea at Sandy's house. The speciality of the feast was pineapple cubes with cream, and the speciality of the day was that they were left to themselves. To Sandy the unfamiliar pineapple had the authentic taste and appearance of happiness and she focused her small eyes closely on the pale gold cubes before she scooped them up in her spoon, and she thought the sharp taste on her tongue was that of a special happiness, which was nothing to do with eating, and was different from the happiness of play that one enjoyed unawares."

From Anuradha Roy's Cooking Women, the prize-winning entry in the Outlook-Picador Non-Fiction Competition:
"My mother, being the newest bride and wife to the youngest son, was not trusted to cook in the ultimate real kitchen. ?What do they cook in your part of the world, anyway? Just potatoes and roti,? my middle aunt Shanti would remark. For Calcutta Bengalis, my mother was ?as bad as a Bihari? for having lived all her life in Rajasthan. She was thought just about good enough to cut the day?s vegetables. Every morning, she sat on the floor surrounded by brinjals, potatoes and greens bulging out of hessian bags. She placed two basins of water by her side and began with the potatoes, holding each carefully against the blade of the bonti, guarded against the day she sliced off a bit of her finger with the peel.
She was twenty-six. In the humid, gossip-laden confines of the kitchen the melancholy wail of peacocks played nonsensically in her mind, Byron and Swinburne still faintly audible in the distance in lecture notes and Palgrave?s Golden Treasury. In Jaipur, now, she would wear her best chiffon sari, put a fragrant champa in her hair and go off to teach in her school. She would pool money with her friends and sigh in a cinema over the glint in Gregory Peck?s eyes. Surrounded by damp vegetables, she fed on images."

Farrokh Dhondy seems to think Naipaul's visit to BJP headquarters needs no defending, a point of view that he defends at length; Aman Khanna asks, "So what's the fuss about?", and (nepotism warning) here's a mildly contrarian viewpoint.

The US Treasury provided several blogs this week with the story of one of the most incredibly pointless bans I've ever encountered.

Goosey goosey gander is about prostitutes, Jack and Jill is about the loss of virginity, Oranges and Lemons stands revealed as a sort of leer on the bridal night, and we all know what the little boy down the lane was supposed to symbolise in Baa Baa Black Sheep. I'm getting me to a nunnery where I hope to reside in peace among the abbesses and search for a clean, non-violent nursery rhyme.