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New Books To Add to Your Christmas Wishlist

Posted on by Penguin India

Christmas is right around the corner and we’re all scrambling to find some good reads before the year ends! Take a look at some of our recommendations for December below:

How to Be a Likeable Bigot

In this collection of satirical essays in her deft, inimitable style, Naomi Datta tells you how to survive various situations-from how to befriend tiger moms to how not to get a pink slip- simply by being ‘ordinary’.

How to be a Likeable Bigot celebrates conformity and tells you how to be perfectly regular, to blend in and be largely forgettable.

New Rules of Business 

How did Apple teach its employees to become sales consultants?
How did Tanishq pivot to unlock growth?

Businesses are reinventing themselves and how they deal with employees, customers and other stakeholders. The New Rules of Business unfolds the mysteries of these new ways of doing business which most companies try to keep as secret. Compellingly written with several anecdotes, this is a gripping book full of incredible insights.

In Service of the Republic

This authoritative book is like nothing you have read before on the state of public policy in India.

In Service of the Republic is a meticulously researched work that stands at the intersection of economics, political philosophy and public administration. This highly readable book lays out the art and the science of the policy making that we need, from the high ideas to the gritty practicalities that go into building the Republic.

I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier

Alia Bhatt’s older sister, screenwriter and fame-child, Shaheen Bhatt, now invites you into her head.

Shaheen was diagnosed with depression at eighteen, after five years of already living with it. In this emotionally arresting memoir, she reveals both the daily experiences and big picture of one of the most debilitating and critically misinterpreted mental illnesses in the twenty-first century.

Commentaries on Living

 

Challenge the limits of ordinary thought with J. Krishnamurti’s Commentaries On Living series, a three-volume series, which records J Krishnamurti’s meetings with individual seekers of truth from all walks of life.

The series invites readers to take a ‘voyage on an unchartered sea’ with Krishnamurti in his exploration of the conditioning of the mind and its freedom.

 

The Power of Opportunity: Your Roadmap to Success

They all started with nothing, and leveraged the power of opportunity to achieve success.

And now so can you.

In this book, Richard Rothman shows you why opportunity is the most important and indispensable element necessary to achieve business and career success.

So All is Peace

When twin sisters Layla and Tanya are found starving in their upmarket apartment, there is frenzy in the media. How often does one find two striking, twenty-something women, one half-dead, the other not speaking, living in a state of disrepair and chaos, for no apparent reason?

A richly atmospheric, deeply claustrophobic story with a stunning denouement, of two women confronting the everyday realities of their city and country, So All is Peace provides an unflinching insight into love, lust, fear, grief, and the decisions we make, through a cast of sharply drawn characters brought together by an unspoken wrong.

Uparwali Chai

The ultimate teatime cookbook, with an Indian twist!

From Saffron and Chocolate Macarons to Apricot and Jaggery Upside Down Cake to a Rooh Afza Layer Cake, Uparwali Chai is an original mix of classic and contemporary desserts and savouries, reinvented and infused throughout with an utterly Indian flavour. A beautifully curated set of recipes full of nostalgic flavours and stories, this is a book every home cook will be referring to for generations to come.

Vision For A Nation

What is the nation? What is the idea of India? Whose India is it, anyway?

This inaugural volume in the series titled Rethinking India aims to kickstart a national dialogue on the key questions of our times.

The essays in the book are meaningful to anyone with an interest in contemporary Indian politics, South Asian studies, modern Indian history, law, sociology, media and journalism.


1971

Navigating the widely varied terrain that is 1971 across Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Anam Zakaria sifts through three distinct state narratives, and studies the institutionalization of the memory of the year and its events.

Using intergenerational interviews, textbook analyses, visits to schools and travels to museums and sites commemorating 1971, Zakaria explores the ways in which 1971 is remembered and forgotten across countries, generations and communities.

A Good Wife

At fifteen, Samra Zafar had big dreams for herself. Then with almost no warning, those dreams were pulled away from her when she was suddenly married to a stranger at seventeen and had to leave behind her family in Pakistan to move to Canada.

In the years that followed she suffered her husband’s emotional and physical abuse that left her feeling isolated, humiliated and assaulted. Desperate to get out, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters.

A Good Wife tells her inspiring story.

Breath of Gold

Fights, action, music, romance, secret trysts-renowned classical musician Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia’s life reads almost like a film script. Wrestler in the morning, student during the daytime and flute player in secret, he lived more than a double life through his early years, till he broke away from his father’s watchful eye to join All India Radio as a flautist.

Hariprasad Chaurasia and his Breath of Gold will inspire and amaze everyone who reads the life story of this much-loved flautist.

A Chequered Brilliance 

A portrait of Krishna Menon, one of the most controversial figures in India’s recent history.

Menon continues to command our attention not just because he was Jawaharlal Nehru’s confidant and soulmate but also for many of his own political and literary accomplishments.

Meticulously researched, this book reveals all his capabilities and contradictions.

Chhotu

The year is 1947. The British are slowly marking their departure from the country. And while Partition looms large over India, Chhotu, a student-cum-paranthe-cook in the dusty gullies of Chandni Chowk, has other things on his mind-like feeling the first flushes of love of his crush, Heer, the new girl at school.

Set against the backdrop of Partition and the horrors that followed, Chhotu is a heartwarming coming-of-age graphic novel set against the backdrop of India’s Partition.

Mapping The Great Game

Ever wondered if there’s a story behind maps? When was the first definitive image of the subcontinent created and by whom? Would you believe that there’s a correlation between espionage and cartography?

Find out the answer to these and more in Mapping The Great Game

The Ramcharitmanas (Vol 1, 2 and 3)

The most popular retelling of the legend of Ram is now fully translated!

Rohini Chowdhury’s exquisite translation brings Tulsidas’s magnum opus vividly to life, and her detailed introduction sheds crucial light on the poet and his work, placing them both in the wider context of Hindi literature.

Roses Are Blood Red

A gripping coming-of-age thriller!

Aarisha Shergill’s life is about to get ripped apart because she should have known some things should be left alone.

Novoneel Chakraborty is back with Roses Are Blood Red, a chilling story of love, deception and passion.

Sridevi

Hailed as the first pan-Indian female superstar in an era which literally offered actresses crumbs, Sridevi tamed Hindi cinema like no other.

Charting five decades of her larger-than-life magic, Sridevi: The Eternal Screen Goddess celebrates both the phenomenon and the person Sridevi was. This is her journey from child star to one of our greatest movie luminaries who forever changed the narrative of Indian cinema.

Unleashing the Vajra

A must-read for anyone who wants to understand Nepal’s position in the global economy.

 Nepal’s great advantage is its location between India and China, particularly now as these two Asian giants are set to be the world’s leading economies in 2050.

Sujeev Shakya argues that it is imperative to understand history and learn from it to shape events for a better future. Unleashing the Vajra outlines the factors that will determine Nepal’s destiny in the years to come.

 

Krishna Udayasankar on Her Writing & Advice to New Authors

Posted on by Penguin India

Krishna Udayasankar is the author of the bestselling Aryavarta Chronicles (Govinda, Kaurava, Kurukshetra) based on the Mahabharata.

She has also written a book based on the founding legend of the island of Singapore titled 3 and the fantastical Immortal.

Read to know more about the prolific author and her writing process:

 

  • What inspires you to start writing?

My ideas usually come to me as a scene, an interaction between characters. Most of the time, there’s dialogue involved, and they’re talking about something that connects with me – an issue that bothers me, something that makes me feel very sad or something that makes me extremely glad and excited. It’s almost like these amazing characters turn up at my doorstep and ask me to join them on a quest, and then nothing is the same again. Writing is truly an epic adventure!

 

  • Were any of your characters inspired by people in your life?

 

Characters ARE people in my life – in their own right. But no; rarely are characters inspired by people in my life. Of course, when it comes to little details – particularly behaviors and gestures or ways of speaking, I sometimes look to things I see or notice – especially in strangers – to add colour to a character.

 

The exception to the above, however, are the lions in Beast. A lot of their attitude and behavior – from their moods and sulking to their playing and their fights – have been modeled on my canine-fur children, Boozo, Zana and Maya. Actually, now that I think of it, they do inspire my characters – the human ones – too, across all my books: All that is good in characters – their love, loyalty, resilience, etc – comes from the Huskyteers.

 

  • What is it about writing that you like the most and why?

 

To live a thousand lives, to meet beings from across time and space, to do things that I’ve never had the chance to do – writing is like having imaginary friends and living in imaginary worlds and still being (more or less) socially-acceptable. But I also love the craft of writing; the putting words together to paint pictures, I love being able to work with language and communicate. Last but not least, I love how, over the years, writing has led me to connect with thousands of readers – many of whom become friends. What’s there not to love?

 

  • Who is your favourite author?

 

Isaac Asimov, Rudyard Kipling, Bill Watterson, Kalki Krishnamurthy and many, many more. Why? Because they brought alternate universe to life.

 

  • What advice do you give to new authors?

 

I’ve realized that the “advice” I give changes over time – usually because, as the saying goes, we teach best what we need to learn. Right now, the advice I need to give and hear both is to remember why you began writing. We start with dreams, with stars in our eyes and visions of changing the world through our words, but time takes its toll on us all, regardless of how much we have written or published. The process can feel frustrating, the outcomes pointless. At those moments, more than ever, it is important to remind yourself of why you began writing in the first place.

 

  • Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

 

I don’t. I’m not good at long-term planning or even projecting! Besides, five years ago, I hadn’t thought I would be where I am today. Indeed, for many years in my life, I’d given up on my childhood dream of being a writer. That I am here today putting down this answer in words is completely unexpected. So, five years hence – only time shall tell.

Check out the fantastic backlist of Krishna Udayasankar featuring titles like Govinda, Kaurava, Kurukshetra, 3 and Immortal.

Eggnog with Alicia: A Conversation on the Festive Season, Family Time and her Upcoming Book

Posted on by Penguin India

What’s your favorite thing about Christmas?

Oh that’s a hard one! What’s NOT my favourite thing about Christmas!

I think probably the fact that the house looks AND smells different from the rest of the year. That’s something that I appreciate every single day of December.

How big are you on decorating for Christmas? Is a Christmas tree part of it?

I’m more on the obsessed side. I plan my date in November mostly because I have to have it on a weekend when my husband and I are both in town, which towards the end of the year can be a bit strategic. He does the lights in the house and also the taking down of things which he calls ‘excessive’. I, on the other hand, feel like it’s not decorated till even the sand in the plant pots are red.

Decorating the tree is a biggie! I’ve been collecting ornaments on every trip of mine (especially abroad because in the west they have all-year Christmas shops, which are like mini heavens). Also I have little rituals like making an ornament every year.

What would you want Santa to bring you this year?

Can I say ‘Peace on Earth’ without sounding Christmas-y cliche?

Also, a great metabolism forever won’t hurt 😛

You have your book coming out very soon, would you like to give your readers a sneak peek into what it’ll be about?

It’s basically about the quirks of living with your significant(ly messy) other. The joys, the annoyance and general happy life of being in everyday love.

**

“And then, when I was five years old life changed in an instant, dramatically and forever.” An excerpt from ‘I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier’

Posted on by Penguin India

Despite all this time spent in close proximity to the film-making process and the odd ‘film-child’ (heh) friend I had, I was shielded from the Bollywood world. The fuzzy memories I have of early childhood are all happy ones. I began my education at a small Montessori school not far from home, and once my mother and I made it through a harrowing first week involving a lot of tears, broken promises and her having to sit around directly in Baby Shaheen’s eyeline for hours at a time—it was smooth-sailing. Well, for the most part. There was one hysterical temper-tantrum (tiny balled up fists being beaten on the ground, screaming, sobbing, hiccups, the works) thrown in the aisles of a busy supermarket because I was denied a box of crackers, but my mother assures me that that was a one off and not a regular occurrence or some sort of dramatic foreshadowing of things to come.

And then, when I was five years old life changed in an instant, dramatically and forever. So far, I’d spent my entire life with the undivided, uncontested attention of my mother and those around me, but suddenly there was a tiny new person to share my world with. My sister Alia came into the world during the turbulent 1993 Bombay riots and from the first second I saw her pink, mousey face, life was never the same.

I had desperately wanted a little sister and I was giddy with excitement when Alia was born. She was my pride and joy. Every spare second I had was spent watching over her and playing with her—I soon became so possessive of her that I refused to let anyone else touch her.

Still, adjusting to life with a new sibling is challenging for any young child. As a five-year-old I thrived on being the centre of attention—a stark contrast to the shy and reclusive adult I am now—but the attention that once came solely my way was slowly redirected towards Alia. She was disturbingly cute as a child, and even then she had an effortless knack of drawing people to her. Always the natural performer, most evenings at home involved a spirited performance by Alia to her favourite song of the week, irrespective of whether anyone was watching or not.

My own powers of magnetism, on the other hand, relied more on a carefully crafted combination of jumping, violent arm-waving and incessant demands for people to witness my majesty than effortless charm—and I disliked having to vie for the spotlight.

**

 

 

The People that Work Behind-the-Scenes in Cinema

Posted on by Penguin India

With Directors’ Diaries 2, Rakesh Anand Bakshi adds yet another volume to his ongoing series of conversations with Hindi cinema’s most iconic voices. This time he shares with us his conversations with some of the industry’s most eminent film-makers as well as significant but often overlooked behind-the-scenes crew such as spot boy Salim Shaikh, make-up artist Vikram Gaikwad and sound designer Rakesh Ranjan.

Read on to get a look at the workings of the behind-the-scenes crew of a movie:

 

  • Spot boys have feelings too!

    Few people address us [spot boys] by our names. We like it when they [film crew] address as a Spot Dada, but it feels great when we know that they know our names. We spot boys do many odd jobs in the long chain of film-making and are largely unnoticed and sometimes appreciated by the crew. People who watch films are unaware of our work and our significance on the film set. Even the people who handle lights and the settings department have greater visibility than us. 

 

  • Spot boys are the foundation of film-making

    According to me [Spot Boy Salim Shaikh], spot boys, light men and the settings department lay the foundation every day in film-making. These three departments together help the unit set up a shoot every day and clear things post pack-up, when all the technicians, actors, cinematographer, producer, director, have gone home. We stay around for at least two more hours after everyone has left and arrive an hour or two before the others. Yet, we are paid only for the duration of our fixed shifts and never for overtime.

     

  • Make-up Artists Know Best!

    The job of a make-up artist is not only to apply make-up but to also tell directors when it is required and when it is not. Unfortunately, many actors, especially females, and directors do not understand or appreciate this. They force us to apply make-up even when it is not required. For example, if you want a young girl to look like a mature woman, simply apply a lot of make-up. But, if the aim of the story is to retain the innocence and youth of the character, by forcing me [Make-up Designer Vikram Gaikwad] to apply too much make-up, the actor or director is going against the essence of the character.

 

  • If you’re working with prosthetics, too much heat is a problem!

    The craft of prosthetic make-up is a nightmare in India because of the heat and humidity. Prosthetics are usually created by the application of foam pieces or silicon rubber pieces over the skin. For the foam or skin-safe silicone rubber to stick to the skin, we use a ‘medical’ gum—a paste that is skin-safe. The problem that arises is that the sweat from the heat or humidity dissolves the medical gum, thus weakening the bond between the skin and the moulding.

 

  • The sound designer is a very effective storyteller

    Yes! The sound man is a very effective storyteller. He has to his disposal the various elements of the narrative—such as the dialogue, location ambiences, foleys, BGM and most importantly, silences—all of which constantly manipulate the audience’s perception of the story along with the visuals and the visual edits. I [Sound Designer Rakesh Ranjan] consider the sound textures as themes, because the tonal quality of all the sounds plays a very important part in the narrative, and this varies from subject to subject. I create sound texture by working on the tonal quality of the actor’s voice, their footsteps, and other foley sounds.

Aspiring directors, book lovers and cinema fans should grab their copies Directors’ Diaries 2 today!

When a Battle with Destiny Turns Deadly-An Excerpt from ‘Roses Are Blood Red’

Posted on by Penguin India

           ‘I’ll gift you a love story that every girl desires, but few get to live.’

Ensnared in the gossamer web of a dreamlike romance, Aarisha is blinded by a passion she can feel in her soul. She is head over heels in love with a man who seems too good to be true. But there are questions about her past that her beating heart cannot silence. Will she ever find the answers?

     ‘I’ll fight. I promise I’ll fight all the beasts that come our way’

Vanav is a man in love. His very life breath is a testament to his resolve to be one with Aarisha.  For this, he can move mountains. For her, he can make the impossible possible. She has promised she would fight all the beasts that come their way. But in this battle with destiny, what if the lover becomes the beast?

Here is an excerpt from this riveting saga of love-

————————————————————

The Thakur family was ushered outside along with the rest of the ladkiwale (the bride’s side), to await the stately procession of the groom’s family and friends. Vanav remained behind alone, watching the pomp and splendour as the groom and his family marched in. After much ado, both Aarisha and Shubh were made to sit on decorated chairs on a small stage as it was time for them to exchange the ceremonial garlands.

Vanav found himself a quiet place in one of the common restrooms and crouched. He could hear loud crackers and gun shots, and people making merry, but he knew that he couldn’t bear to witness the ceremony anymore. Hours later, his trance was broken by someone pushing open the door. He was surprised to see Aarisha.

‘Ranisa,’ he immediately stood up.

‘Thakur sahab, what on earth are you doing here?’

‘Nothing. I just . . .’

‘I have to use the loo.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’ll leave.’

As Vanav was about to step out, she stopped him. He turned around. She leaned over, her fragrance filling his senses, and whispered, ‘I know, Thakur sahab. I’ve always known. I always will. But know this, Thakur sahab, within this knowing of yours and mine, our story must live and die.’

Vanav, looked down at the floor, fighting back tears as each of her words resonated like a death knell in his heart.

‘I had to agree to this marriage now that my whole family has seen how appalling my choice of a husband was. Shubh is their choice, my father’s choice. As I agreed to the wedding, he is also my choice from now on. Shubh may not love me, not yet at least, but he has rights over me. Love doesn’t bestow any rights, Thakur sahab, but a relationship does; and a socially accepted relationship even more so. By choosing Daksh I fell so far down in everyone’s esteem, especially my father’s, that I can’t afford to refuse his choice. I’m sure that I too will eventually fall in love with Shubh over time . . . at least, I’ll try to. And if not, I’ll pretend, for marriage is a duty-bound exercise—and a woman is a slave to duty. Especially a married woman. You’re too young right now, Thakur sahab, to understand much of what I’m saying. But one day you’ll understand and then you’ll understand why sometimes loving someone with all your heart and soul is simply not enough to be with that person forever. It’s sad. It’s depressing. It’s soulsearing. But it’s the truth. I’m sure you’ll get over me.’

Vanav raised a woe-begone, tear-stained face, ‘Won’t we ever meet again, Ranisa?’

‘We didn’t know we would meet to begin with. It was destined. So, let the possibility of our meeting again be decided by destiny itself.’

‘Aarisha! Aarisha!’ she heard her friends calling out to her. ‘Be quick! Everyone is waiting!’

Vanav turned away slowly and left.

 

Will Vanav put together the pieces of his shattered heart to find love again?

Author of the hugely successful Forever series, Novoneel Chakraborty creates a spellbinding story of love, longing and loss in Roses Are Blood Red.

To find out whether destiny triumphs over a dangerous obsession, read Roses Are Blood Red!

 

Sridevi: The Eternal Screen Goddess- An Excerpt

Posted on by Penguin India

Hailed as the first pan-Indian female superstar in an era which literally offered actresses crumbs, Sridevi tamed Hindi cinema like no other.

Sridevi-The Eternal Screen Goddess by Satyarth Nayak is the superstar’s journey from child star to one of our greatest movie luminaries who forever changed the narrative of Indian cinema.

Get a glimpse into the story of her life from the excerpt below:

The theatre had come alive. Halfway through the film—during the intermission—Tamil chartbusters were blaring from the speakers. A four-year-old girl had got up from her seat and was dancing in the aisle. Her face cherubic, eyes luminous and feet frolicking. Her parents gaped as the audience cheered her on. Oblivious to all this, the girl danced with abandon, casting a shadow on the blank cinema screen. Sharing this childhood memory with me (author) in our only meeting in 2012 at the Delhi premiere of English Vinglish, Sridevi had said, ‘I danced and danced until someone pulled me back.’

And yet, in a 1985 interview with Cine Blitz, Sridevi also described her younger self in these words: ‘I was a very shy and lonely child. Ihated crowds. The minute I saw more than three or four people in the room, I would run and hide behind my mother’s pallu.’

Reconciling these two childhood versions of Sridevi, so seemingly incompatible with each other, is difficult, but perhaps it was this fascinating dichotomy that spun the aura and mystique around her. People close to the actress vouch that she was not one or the other; she was both. Both the personas merging into one. That girl withdrawing behind her mother’s pallu could also streak through the silver screen like a bolt of lightning.

Sridevi was unquestionably to the movies born. The episode at the theatre ticked all the boxes for a star in the making—someone who is naturally drawn to the spotlight, and who can easily insulate oneself from the reality around, instead finding sanctuary in a world of her own. A being so truly dazzling that all those who watched were sucked into the fantasy she created on screen.

Sridevi was born on 13 August 1963. Her parents K. Ayyappan and Rajeshwari were residents of Meenampatti, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu. Her younger sister Srilatha and stepbrother Satish, from Ayyappan’s first marriage, completed her family. Director Pankuj Parashar reveals how the actress got her name: ‘She once told me that when she was born, there was a bright red mark on her forehead, like a tika. Everyone started saying that a devi had taken birth and they named her Ayyappan Sridevi.

…Today, it is all the characters she has left behind who will keep flashing her magic. Some of us would be content with just those cinematic versions of her. But some of us might look beyond those avatars to seek out the real Sridevi, try to locate her in that twitch of the lips or that flutter of the eyes, in that laughter that never ended or that teardrop that never descended, in her every cadence and every silence, in her infinitesimal moments scattered throughout celluloid. We shall wonder whether the actress, who kept playing ‘others’ onscreen, ever got to be who she truly was. And having spent a lifetime creating ‘Sridevi’ for others, if the real person lived somewhere in her own fantasy.

In an interview with Cine Blitz in 1994, when asked what creature she would wish to be, Sridevi had replied: ‘A bird. I would love to fly free.’ Perhaps it is this unspoken longing in her eyes which a fan like Harish Iyer recognized that makes him say: ‘Many of her admirers keep tweeting “RIP—Return If Possible.” It is not easy for me to say this but I don’t want Sridevi to come back. I hope she is happy and at peace wherever she is. I just want her to rest.’

We can only thank her for those countless moments when she touched our very core with her art, we can only be awed by her immense legacy that generations will continue to discover, we can only be grateful to her for being that life on-screen who inspired lives everywhere. And we can only forever stare at the irony of her last words on celluloid. When walking away from all of us in that scene in Zero, Sridevi giggles and says: ‘Next time!’

Such was Sridevi’s megastardom that she emerged as the ‘hero’ at the box office, towering above her male co-actors. Challenging patriarchy in Bollywood like no other, she not only exalted the status of the Hindi film heroine but also empowered a whole generation of audiences.Find out more about her in Sridevi: The Eternal Screen Goddess.

Is Policy Impeding India’s Tryst with Destiny? An Excerpt From In Service of The Republic

Posted on by Penguin India

Etched in India’s history as a period of remarkable growth, the decades spanning 1991 to 2011 saw a surge in wealth creation for the rich, considerable advancement in material comforts for the middle class and a noticeable decline in the number of people below the poverty line.

‘There was an optimism in this period of a kind that was perhaps last seen immediately after Independence. Finally, to many of us, India was getting on its feet,’ write economists and authors Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah.

Post 2011, the slump in the high growth performance of those two decades raises important questions about Indian economics and policymaking. In Service Of The Republic investigates policy and its impact on nations.

***

In mature countries, one element of the privacy problem is well established: the need to restrict government access to information about individuals, i.e., to tie down surveillance by the government into rule-of-law procedures and limit the extent of surveillance. This has evolved in the UK and in Europe over centuries. The conflict between state access to personal information, and human freedom, is particularly seen in the authoritarian governments of the twentieth century. This is the prime problem in the field of privacy, and is a largely settled matter in mature democracies.

In recent years, there is fresh concern about the abuse of information about individuals by firms such as Facebook. European policymakers have pushed to the frontiers of the field with the ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR) in the EU.

A simple reading of the contemporary literature on privacy in mature democracies is, then, quite misleading. Such a reader would see the bulk of the contemporary policy discourse as being the debates around GDPR and its enforcement. A reader of this literature would think that Facebook is a major problem in the field of privacy. Policy recommendations in India may flow from this study of the international experience that we have to block information access about Indians by Facebook using a legal instrument on the lines of GDPR. This position would be treated warmly by persons in India who are hostile to foreign companies.

Such transplantation of the international experience would, however, be incorrect for two reasons. First, access to personal information by the state is far more dangerous for individuals as compared with access to this information by private firms. Second, a law like GDPR makes assumptions about UK or EU state capacity. To favour creating a new privacy regulator that will coerce private firms on the question of privacy, without the checks and balances prevalent in the EU, would work out poorly in India.  In the Indian discourse, we have rapidly run ahead to proposing criminal sanctions, in the hands of the proposed ‘Data Protection Authority’.

***

Having developed a nuanced perspective on economics, political philosophy and public administration in their careers as professional economists as well as former civil servants, Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah offer remarkable clarity on the art and  science of policymaking in the meticulously researched In Service of the Republic.

 

An Interview with Kabir Khan- An Excerpt from ‘Directors’ Diaries 2’

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‘One of the primary principles of directing is making choices, you have to make one about whether something is right or wrong, because there is no middle ground. As a director, you make a choice and then stick with it, all the way.’

Directors’ Diaries 2 is an anthology by Rakesh Anand Bakshi that features the voices of some of India’s greatest film makers – -Shyam Benegal, Tanuja Chandra, Kabir Khan, Abhishek Chaubey, Nandita Das, Shakun Batra, Prabhu Deva and Mohit Suri-as well as significant but often overlooked behind-the-scenes crew such as spot boy Salim Shaikh, make-up artist Vikram Gaikwad and sound designer Rakesh Ranjan.

The book gives a peek into the lives, souls and motivations of these icons and can be a truly wonderful resource for young film-makers.

Read an excerpt from the book below:

Kabir Khan

FILMOGRAPHY: Kabul Express (2006); New York (2009); Ek Tha Tiger (2012); Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015); Phantom (2015); Tubelight (2017)

 

What made you script Kabul Express as your first feature film?

KK: After the 9/11 terror attack in New York, I found myself doing a lot of documentary work in and about Afghanistan. Eventually, I shot two or three documentaries in Afghanistan, as guerrilla short films. I had a huge number of real stories and anecdotes from my personal experiences in Afghanistan, which would churn in my conscious and subconscious mind, and I realized what I had experienced in Afghanistan would make a great story by itself. Thus inspired, I sat down one day to write the story of Kabul Express. In hindsight, it was easy to put it all down as a screenplay, because I basically just had to string together our experiences. I wrote the script within two or three months, which, I think, has been the fastest that I’ve written a script to date.

Considering your films may reflect socio-political themes, do you make them to raise questions or answers?

KK: Neither. Primarily, I just want to tell a story. But I do like to tell a story against a certain socio-political context, which has some sort of resonance, first within me, and then, in society. Having said that, my storytelling is neither agenda-driven nor thoughtdriven. But, yes, I think, I would like to say that I make films that raise some questions and may sometimes give a few answers that have not been heard before.

How did you get someone to produce Kabul Express?

KK: I was married by then and Mini was a VJ with MTV. So, she had a bit of an ‘engagement’ with Bollywood people; MTV VJs were celebrities back then. Mini knew some well-placed people and got me some important numbers of people I could pitch my script to. Jaideep Sahni, a screenplay writer who had written Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006), was a friend, and helped me procure the numbers of actors and producers. I started contacting them.

However, whoever I narrated the story of Kabul Express to reacted with, ‘Wow! What a lovely story! But it is a very “different” film! Difficult to make.’ They felt there was no market for such a film. I was clear that I would be able to shoot it in Kabul, because for me, Kabul was not a location, it was a character in my film; and I had already shot two documentaries there and survived. I was confident that I’d be able to pull off a feature film there.

Meanwhile, I never gave up on trying to cast well-known actors. I went to all kinds of producers and production houses— new, old, semi-old, semi-new, small, very small, medium, big, very big. But I never approached Yashraj Films, because conventional wisdom told me, ‘Yashraj? To produce this kind of film? No way! Are you crazy!’

While I waited for producers to revert, I began to look for actors myself. I approached Arshad Warsi. Arshad’s wife is my wife’s friend so it wasn’t that difficult to meet him. He read the script and was immediately on board. Then, I met John Abraham and he too agreed to be in the film. With these two in, I thought my chances of getting a producer would increase exponentially. However, I was proved wrong. I still could not convince anyone to make the film.

An executive producer friend of mine, without my knowledge, had given the script to Adi [Aditya Chopra of Yashraj Films], because, at that point, he was looking for films outside his comfort zone. This friend knew about it because he was working with Adi. I received a call out of the blue from Yashraj Films. The caller informed me that Aditya Chopra wanted to meet me. I thought it was a prank. I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, sure. Like, hell! Adi Chopra would want to meet me, a first-time film-maker whose script is nowhere close to the kind of films Yashraj makes!’ However, I eventually realized the caller was serious and was indeed calling me from Yashraj Films!

Within five minutes of that call, Jaideep Sahni called me. He had read my script long ago, because I had bounced it off him as a friend. He said Adi wanted to meet me because he had read my script and liked it. Later, I found out that when Adi had mentioned my script to Jaideep, he had replied that he already knew about it because he had read it long ago and liked it too, and had even suggested changes. Adi had then asked him about me and Jaideep had told him, ‘Kabir’s a friend and he is capable of directing this film.’ And that’s when Adi decided to meet me and his office called me.

It was a momentous feeling when I entered Yashraj Films’ office to meet this mythical character, producer and director called Aditya Chopra. When I met him, he said, ‘I have read your script, it really moved me and I want to produce it. When can we start?’ And that was it! Adi stood by me like a rock, from day one.

Can you tell us how you usually direct an actor?

KK: Like I said, I believe in giving minimal directions on the first take. I just convey the context of the scene to them, tell them about the backdrop of the moment they are in at that point of the screenplay, where it’s headed, and that’s it. Once I give them that information, I wait to watch what the actor is going to give me in the very first take, or the rehearsal, building on whatever little I have told them. From that a few questions get answered. For example, are they on the same page as me? Have they gone somewhere else? Is the path they’ve taken more interesting than mine? Should I explore that zone, their intuition, their understanding of my scene? Or have they missed the mark completely? Then and only then do I start putting in or pulling out from their understanding and performance.

Frankly, I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, the way I function with my actors, and I do not know how others direct. It’s worked for me so far, or so I feel.

Grab your copy of Directors’ Diaries 2 today to discover how they were first drawn to the craft of film-making to how they got that elusive first break.

Immigrant Lines from ‘Translated from the Gibberish’

Posted on by Penguin India

The people who migrate to a foreign land are often swathed in nostalgia of a place they call their own – their home. But what is really a home for an immigrant? Is it a place they inhabit or the land where their heart belongs?

Anosh Irani moved to Vancouver to pursue a degree in fine arts. It has been over two decades since he left the bustling streets of Bombay (as he prefers to call it). His latest book Translated from the Gibberish is a result of his many visits to the JJ Bridge in Mumbai, overlooking the houses lined nearby, as he expresses that, “The bridge allows me to be so close to their windows that I can literally smell their lives.”

The excerpts below reveal the everyday realization of life as an immigrant, through the lens of different characters from Translated from the Gibberish (Part One).

 

Abdul, a chef in Vancouver encounters a rat scurrying in his restaurant…

“That rat had found a way in but could not find a way out. That rat was him.” … “Abdul was a passport-less creature; he had used a tourist visa to enter Canada, and was now one of the invisibles.”

~

The only place where Abdul felt happy was at the cricket ground where –

“The soft carpet of grass had been a revelation. Unlike the dusty maidaans of Bombay, which sent him home with cuts and bruises, the grass was a homely rug— gentle and inviting. He had literally gone to sleep on it, feeling it against his back. He had been in Vancouver for more than a year by then, but this was the first time he had smiled. And the grass had smiled too. No one in Vancouver had smiled at him, but the grass did.”

~

Sujoy, an immigrant in New York, overcome by memories of his mother’s authentic recipes…

“He cooked the only way he knew how, the way his mother had taught him. But after he had eaten at some Indian restaurants in New York, the meaning became clear. Some of the meals had been great—but that was like saying the music in an opera was superb, except for when the soprano hit the wrong notes.”

~

On a Sunday morning, in their house in Mumbai, Sujoy’s father grabbed an atlas he won at a radio quiz show –

“And when he touched his atlas, he traced his fingers along its pages as a blind person would, as if searching for something.”

~

Majid, the owner of a sweet shop in Canada named ‘Almirah Sweets’, which meant –

“A treasury of sweetness. It was borrowed from the Urdu word for cabinet, but for Majid it meant a treasure chest of the most delectable delicacies known to man, woman, or beast. Of course, he did not mention the beast part to anyone, but he’d had a dream the night before the shop opened in which a fantastical beast had towered above him, baring its teeth and fangs; Majid had offered it some mawa dessert, and the beast had eaten the delicacy gently, and had blessed Majid instead of harming him. Majid interpreted the dream as a sign that no matter how foreign these shores looked, no matter how threatening its people seemed, his sweets would bring them together.”

Each narrative arc in the book conveys the pathos of hundreds of immigrants – their longing to return to their loved ones and the comfort of foreign land. Grab a copy of Translated from the Gibberish (Part One) and indulge in some nostalgic trips of your own!

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