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In Conversation Anuradha Marwah
As it was a sex scandal that I was writing about the foremost challenge was to de-sensationalise. I knew I had to write in a way that would leave no room for titillation - otherwise the ‘real’ story, or at least the one I was attempting to tell, would get obfuscated. I decided on a very simple and direct style – aiming at the heart of violence. more Portrait of an Islamist radical
‘Writing purifies my blood’
Excerpts from the interview: Q) This is your first novel set in India. What inspired your new novel The Assassin’s Song? A) I have written about a mystic who lived eight centuries ago. I know intimately Gujarat where I come from. more
Retracing roots, creating identity
In this conversation with Manish Chand, Kapur-Dromson speaks about the mingling of Indian and Kenyan cultures and languages, the contribution of the Indian diaspora in awakening political consciousness among Africans and the need for Kenyans to move beyond Bollywood and clichés to understand Indians and their culture better. “It is important for people to know where and what backgrounds they come from,” she says in this interview. more
Globalisation a threat to poor countries
In this conversation with Manish Chand, Maathai speaks about her unquenchable passion for the green cause, the emerging breed of new leaders in Africa, her impression of India and what India and Africa can do together to create a more equitable, clean and harmonious world. Excerpts from the interview: Q) Your passion for environment and your lifelong commitment to the green cause has earned accolades all over the world. How did it all start? A) I grew up in the Kenyan countryside. That experience in the countryside when the environment was pristine has stayed with me since then. In those days, there were no cash crops, no coffee, no tea. I grew up seeing shorgum, palm trees, sweet potatoes which were all very economical food crops. The rivers were so clean that we could drink water straight from them. There were no agro-chemicals. That’s the background I knew as a child and that’s what influenced me a lot. Later on, I saw the land degrading. We could no longer drink water straight from the rivers. The rivers were full of silt because forests upstream were cleared. That’s the time I thought I must do something about it. If we really understand the role environment plays in our life and environmental education becomes part of school curricula, then a lot of people would be concerned about environment and would encourage others to do something about it. more
Indians are erotic people, but sexually repressed
In his new book, The Indians: Portrait of a People, co-authored with his wife Katharina (published by Penguin), Kakar essays a big picture or a grand narrative of what it means to be an Indian and what constitutes “Indianness.” In this interview with Manish Chand, Kakar explains how the land of the Kamasutra that flaunts erotic sculptures in temples of Konarak and Khajuraho slipped into sexual repression centuries ago that India is still recovering from. Excerpts from the interview: Q) What about the Indian attitude to sexuality? Don’t you think there is an element of schizophrenia towards sex and sexuality? A) We are a sexually repressed people who are also a very erotic people. Eros and ascesis (asceticism) have been two dominant strands of the India mind and way of life over centuries. Both have struggled for domination of the Indian spirit. On the one hand, there are temples of Konarak and Khajuraho that show the pleasures of oral sex and on another hand you have that hypocritical attitude towards kissing in Hindi films, which is only insinuated and rarely shown. more
‘India can build bridges. China can’t’
In his Beyond The Age of Innocence, Mahbubani, one of Asia’s leading thinkers, searchingly probes the paradox of America’ relations with the world that has changed from one of benefactor to one whose flawed policies have alienated 1.2 billion Muslims the world over. Subtitled “Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World,” the book, in the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. “summons the better angels of our nature in order to save America from itself.”
Described by The Economist as “an Asian Toynbee preoccupied with the rise and fall of civilisations, Mahbubani, who has served with the Singapore Foreign Service for 33 years, including two stints in the UN, triggered the Asian values debate of the 1990s with his incisive essay ‘The West and the Rest’. Manish Chand caught up with Mahbubani on a recent visit to India. Excerpts from the interview: Q) From what one hears, you are writing a book on the rise of Asia? A) Yes, my next book is about the rise of Asia. Asia will soon have three of the largest economies of the world. In the last two centuries only, Europe took over the global stage. The preceding eighteen centuries were dominated by Asian powers. As I wrote in an article in Time magazine last year, at the end of this century historians would want to know why Asian societies succeeded so late, taking centuries to catch up with a Europe that they had outperformed for millennia. more
I would go insane if I didn’t write
Rajmohan Gandhi
The book demystifies Gandhi and illuminates his evolution at various stages in his life from the youthful days in London struggling with vegetarianism and the English gentleman mannerisms, experiments with satyagraha in South Africa, his stewardship of India's freedom movement and his last days struggling with communal bloodbath unleashed by the country's partition in 1947. more
Straddling Two Worlds, Two Cultures
Badami made her debut with Tamarind Mem – a sensitive portrayal of the changing face of mother-daughter relationship with all its attendant inter-generational conflicts in a modernising world. Her second novel, The Hero’s Walk, has won a slew of awards including the Regional Commonwealth Writers Prize, Italy’s Premio Berto and was also named a Washington Post Best Book of 2001. more
The Taj Mahal was more than a monument of conjugal love built by Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal; it was as much a statement of imperial power and glory, says Ebba Koch, the author of "The Complete Taj Mahal and The Riverfront Gardens of Agra" (published by Thames and Hudson).
Anything Indian has a Great Chance of Success
In this interview, Ellena speaks about her tryst with the enchanting world of Indian textiles, her experience of working with weavers in different parts of the country and the burgeoning popularity of the Indian ethnic chic in fashion marts of the world. “Anything Indian has a great chance of success these days,” she says with the confident air of one who knows what it takes to script a success story in today’s globalised world. more
Violence Saddens Me
1857 atrocities like war crimes
In a conversation with Manish Chand, Dalrymple speaks about his inspiration behind writing The Last Mughal; the art of writing history; the uncanny parallels between the 1857-58 events in India that saw the first serious challenge to the British rule and the post 9/11 world; and his deep love for India and Indians. more
The East India Company can’t be wished away
Robins is acutely conscious of the “uneasiness” this re-appraisal can stir among both the British and Indians, but he is clear that forgetting is not the way out of this shared history between Britain and India. more
Interview with Vikas Swarup
In this interview with IndiaWrites (www.indiawrites.org), Swarup speaks from Durban about his tryst with literary celebrity, how the idea of writing a novel based on a popular quiz show struck him and the increasing global appeal of Indian Writing in English. more
Post 9/11 World Very Unhappy to Live In
A) I believe today a set of factors, conditions and circumstances leading to a clash of civilizations has sharpened. Those who had a vested interest in putting forward this thing must be smiling and laughing. They couldn?t believe what they were saying then would become so successful. more
Naipaul is just very naive: Farah
A born story-teller, an instinctive rebel (her next book is abut rebellion), a life-long political activist (as she sometimes likes to describe herself), a rescuer of endangered languages, Lindsey hunger for freedom and creativity. more...
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Q) Your latest novel Dirty Picture is based on a real-life sex scandal in Ajmer? How did you grapple with the creative challenges of transmuting real life incidents into fiction?
Neera Kapur-Dromson, a fourth-generation Kenyan of Indian origin, has wrestled with kindred issues of identity, roots, cultural clashes and self-creation as long as she can remember.
Psychoanalyst and novelist 
Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, was born to an immigrant Indian family in the then British colony of Singapore. He has also written a defining book on the Asian value systems called “Can Asians Think” (1998). His next book maps out the rise of Asia and resistance it may face from the world’s leading powers, including the US.
Rajmohan Gandhi, author, academic and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, has written a new biography of Mahatma Gandhi that sifts myths and legends from the real man with all his flaws and humanity.
Taj was a symbol of imperial power
Berenice Ellena, the French clothes and costume designer who flits between Paris, Venice, New Delhi and Srinagar, has authored a splendid book on the magic of Indian textiles. Called India Sutra, the book is packed with detailed information for textile lovers and is lavishly illustrated with evocative photographs of Indian weavers and craftsmen engaged in creating fabrics that find their way to fashion capitals of the world.
To be a writer in a nation scarred by relentless ethnic violence and a Muslim in a post-9/11 world distorted by mindless stereotyping and hate-mongering takes a lot of courage and an almost fanatical belief in the power of words. Ameena Hussein, award-winning author, publisher, editor and sociologist, has been a privileged witness to the mania, madness and mayhem that has afflicted Sri Lanka over decades and has artfully bridged the thin line between the personal and the political in her fiction. "Writers have power. Writers are the witnesses of our time," Hussain says in this interview. 
Author William Dalrymple is in love with India and its capital Delhi -- his adopted home for many years and the principle theatre of action in his new book The Last Mughal -- a captivating portrait of the last days of the Mughal empire and the poet-emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II.
More
than one hundred years after its demise, the ghosts of the East
India Company – the pioneering corporation that morphed into
an instrument of imperial rule in India - are itching to be resurrected
from collective oblivion. This is what Nick Robins, a historian
by training and the head of socially responsible investment funds
in Britain, has done in his new book The Corporation that Changed
The World that looks at the history of the company from the “21st
century eyes” and its impact on globalisation and multi-nationals
in today’s world. 
Life imitates art sometimes. Vikas Swarup is a diplomat and not a gambler, but his debut novel Q and A, published last year by Random House, has scored big in literary sweepstakes winning him not only a huge advance and handsome royalties but also a much-coveted literary award in South Africa -- the Boeke Prize. Q and A -- the story of a penniless waiter who wins a mega quiz prize by finding answers to tricky questions embedded in the texture of his life itself -- has been translated into many languages, including French and Hindi. The novel is also being made into a film.
Q) Is the world safer five years after the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington? Do you think that the much-touted clash of civilizations has become a reality of sorts and there is less understanding and tolerance in the world than before?
Writers can create emotional maturity: Collen
I can't go on, says Beckett's Unnamable. I will go on. A writer's injuries are his strengths, and from his wounds will flow his sweetest, most startling dreams.
And Proust, too, killing himself to write his book comes close to the concept of dharma when, echoing Balzac, he says that in the end it's less the desire for fame than 'the habit of laboriousness' that takes a writer to the end of a work. But dharma, as this ideal of truth to oneself, or living out the truth in oneself, can also be used to reconcile men to servitude and make them find in paralyzing obedience the highest spiritual good. 'And do thy duty, even if it be humble,' says the Aryan Gita,
'rather than another's, even it be great. To die on one's duty is life: to live in another' death.
My discovery over the years is that the mother tongues have so much in them, so much that is alive, and are much more pervasive, in all strata of society, in all ages from children to the very old, men and women, literate and non-literate. What holds them together? It's not Sanskrit. It's these mother tongues. I think I went into linguistics because of that. That spoken languages had to be very, very important. It was important in my youth to have discovered this.
Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them. Maybe I wanted to find more rigorous ways of thinking. We are talking now about the earliest writing I did and about the power of language to counteract the wallow of late adolescence, to define things, define muddled expression in economical ways. Let's not forget that writing is convenient. It requires the simplest tools. A young writer sees that with words and sentences on a piece of paper that costs less than a penny he can place himself more clearly in the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by daemons. He doesn’t know why they chose him and he is usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.
I am trembling with cold