Anupama Raju's review of "Arriving Shortly" in The Hindu

The Hindu : Arts / Books : Experience has no theme

Kankana Basu's review of Table for Four in The Hindu

The Hindu : Arts / Books : Dinnertime thrills

Vikram Seth: Face to face

Much much more exciting than being on a panel at the Lit for Life festival that concluded recently in Chennai was the run-up to it - lunch with Vikram Seth.  No, read that as VIKRAM SETH!
A writer who has occupied so much of my mind-space that I tend or tended to think of him as a giant, facts not withstanding. The man is a few inches shorter than me and I am not very tall myself - at 5 feet 2 inches.  I gasped so loudly when I saw him that folks from the Hindu's Lit Review broke into peals of laughter.  The first thing I said to him was: "I am completely overwhelmed" and of course he said, "You shouldn't be." Even as I got him to autograph my now ancient copy of "The Golden Gate" and a friend's copy of "Mappings", I took a good look at his face.  So different from the photographs I had seen.  A very wrinkled forehead, kind, rather large eyes, receding hairline...
Over lunch, he spoke about various things: about whether or not there was a "h" in the "lata" that is part of my name, about his strategy for protecting his time.  He made me and a friend close our eyes and repeat after him the words: "I am afraid that is simply not possible". That, apparently, is the line he uses with most people.
I returned home to the reality of knowing that there are just far too many people and things that I cannot say that line too! And yet, the idea of leading a pure writer's life is so appealing.

Madras, My Dear

I was surprised to find my poem "Bionote" (which is also about Madras) featured in the historian S.Muthiah's column in The Hindu (August 29, 2011). The link:

The Hindu : FEATURES / METRO PLUS : Madras, my dear

Reviews/Profile

The Hindu's Metro Plus featured a small profile of me following the launch of my  books "Table for Four" and "Arriving Shortly". The link:

The Hindu : Arts / Books : Hidden stories

I also found two reviews of "Table for Four" -


http://blog.uread.com/post/8466668687/review-table-for-four

http://anithawrites.blogspot.com/

Table for Four

After a wait of two years, Penguin India has finally published my novel "Table for Four".  It is available on Flipkart, Infibeam and the Penguin India site (look under "coming soon").   The book was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2009.

Flipkart link:

 http://www.flipkart.com/books/0143068199?affid=nme




From the back cover (A note about the book)

It is their last evening together. Maya, Sandra and Derek, graduate students at UC Santa Cruz and house-mates for three years, prepare to sit down at the tortoise listening table for dinner with Uncle Prithvi, the house-owner. It’s a cheerful and quirky household: Sandra is prone to ‘Orkut attacks’; Derek silently pines for the wistful-lookinge Afghan boy in the photo on his wall, taken while a war-journalist in Afghanistan; Maya, who has the hots for Derek, is inexplicably terrified of the ocean; elusive Uncle Prithvi communicates through notes he leaves all over the place.

Sad at parting, perhaps forever, and half tipsy, they play a game of telling stories—their own stories. As the evening deepens, unexpected secrets and fears of the four lives are unveiled. Sandra, abandoned at birth, tells of growing up in an orphanage with her precious twin, disabled Solana, only to be separated by circumstances; Uncle Prithvi rues the loss of his beloved daughter, whom he betrayed when he sought a new life with Karen in the US. And, Maya and Derek, who suddenly absents himself, cannot bring themselves to voice their tragedies—except in a soliloquy.

Mysterious and compelling, Table for Four is a rumination in miniature ivory of the burden of secrets and the pain of remembering and accepting the betrayals, loss, and tragedies of our lives.


The writer Kavery Nambisan has called it a "charming, fast-paced book with racy dialogue".

Of Lochs and Castles in the Air

I spent late spring and part of the summer of 2010 on the University of Stirling’s picturesque campus working on a draft of a second novel. My first month in Stirling was fairly cold and frosty though the shops were optimistically displaying "summer" clothes. I concluded quite early on that in Scotland summer is something that occurs solely inside people’s heads.


After the hustle and bustle of Chennai, Stirling felt unreal and once the students had left for the summer, the campus turned into hauntingly beautiful acres of empty space. Too quiet sometimes for those like me who have just left behind a densely populated city. But the quiet time helped kick start my work. The other thing that fed my writing was the “objective” frame of mind you acquire about things you have left behind.


I spent my mornings and afternoons writing – either in my apartment or in my room in the Department of English Studies. The staff and faculty at the department were very welcoming and friendly and I got to know quite a few of them over coffee or lunch.


In the evenings, I would take off on a long walk around the loch, passing the swans and their signets and yes, an eighteenth century Italian style castle (the Airthrey castle) which now houses the Department of law. I would return to my apartment and spend a couple of hours reading fiction borrowed from the University library.


As an academic and a mother of two school going children, I often tend to forget for months at a time that I am a writer. That identity melts and disappears into other roles – more pressing and urgent. At Stirling, no one was aware of these other roles – they knew me only as a “writer from India” and so, for the first time, I felt as though I was walking on the right side of the road – not against the flow of traffic but with it! I didn’t have to steal time from anything or anyone to write and that was lovely. I had vast stretches of uninterrupted writing time – especially precious when you are working on longer narratives where it is so easy to loose the thread of words and ideas.

Sometimes though I missed the happy chaos, the small talk and the constant interruptions of my life back home. In many ways, it is this that makes up the “stream” of my consciousness, I think.


As with anything, there were a couple of not so nice things about the experience. One was the apartment itself which – though convenient – was not a pleasure to live in. The other was the fact that nothing much (by way of literary events) happens in Stirling itself. Edinburgh is the centre really and as a visitor from India it is not very easy to connect to/with local events and writers. These connections take time and three months is just too short for all of that to happen.

I gave a reading at the department which I atleast thoroughly enjoyed! I read from my short story "These Things Happen if You Don't Watch It", an excerpt from my forthcoming novel Table for Four and a couple of poems. Towards the end of my stay in the U.K, I also participated in a reading held at Lauderdale house, London. I shared a platform with three other poets and translators.


On the whole, I felt as though I was back to being a student again and I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that there were no “official” demands on my time. That freed me up in ways too complex to explain.