back to where it all began

Here are two photos from the Rupa & Co. stall at the recently concluded 18th New Delhi World Book Fair. The 'launch' itself was a short informal affair, with Mr Natwar Singh kindly doing the honours. There's a short video clip i'll be putting up in another post. I remember going to meet an editor at the last book fair, in February 2006, with a floppy disk that had my just finished manuscript in the form of a pdf file. After waiting seven months, i was told they wouldn't be publishing it. Having the launch at this book fair was thus satisfying. My publishers say they might have "a proper book launch" at a later date; considering that the book's been around for more than three months now, if they do it they should do it soon.





Here's a photo from an article on Jet City Woman and its author by Vanita Chitkara in the new daily newspaper Metro Now, in the issue dated 12.02.08, in the 'City' section. The newspaper content isn't available online though. And the photo in the paper was black and white. I came across that issue of the paper at the saloon today evening and showed the story to my barber, who seemed suitably impressed. The photo was taken outside the Tibetan refugee colony at Majnu ka Tila, a place mentioned in my book. The seediness i remember from 10 years back has disappeared, and the place looks prosperous and stable now, but maybe the seediness wasn't there in the first place, maybe it was just my imagination. As for the photo (courtesy Atul from Metro Now), to paraphrase Purno Sangma, our former Lok Sabha speaker from the Garo Hills, "I like my drinks, my readers know it, and my face shows it"!



I'm off to Shillong, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh this weekend on a fortnight's leave. So the next post might in all likelihood be next month. Or i just might update from Shillong. Time to go see what the narrator of my book is doing with his restaurant there.

I recently wrote a piece on the Iron Maiden concert for The New Indian Express (the Indian Express in south India). The editor says it'll appear on the 17th of this month, in the Sunday edition of the paper.