Hindustan Times Interview
I was going in to teach the other day when a message arrived in my inbox. The lady at the other end, a journalist, wanted me to respond to five questions that she had sent me. They were a part of a regular feature called “Just a Minute” (that is exactly how long I took to answer the questions) and my responses would appear on the Books page in the Hindustan Times. (P.S. I’m told the ‘interview’ was in the paper on April 9.)
>
> 1. A word you love using?
>”Paper”
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> 2. A word you hate using?
>”Interesting”
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> 3. The most overrated writer?
>”It’s a tie: Salman Rushdie-Rohinton Mistry”
>
> 4. The most underrated writer?
>”Amit Chaudhuri”
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> 5. The book by your bedside?
>”J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man”
Hell. Have you ever been interviewed for that hideous “Bibliofile” column in the Sunday Asian Age? Was discussing just this sort of thing at a panel discussion during the Kitab festival recently - about these easy-consumption author bytes that are served up by most newspapers.
Having said that, it’s fun to see the expression on Lord Naipaul’s face when a gawping 21-year-old rookie reporter asks him at the Magic Seeds launch, “Sir, have you written any other books?”
Comment by Jabberwock — April 15, 2006 @ 7:11 am
Absolutely brilliant Top 5 list. My favorite is the tie between Mistry & Rushdie. Although I wouldn’t hesitate to throw Vikram Seth onto that pedestal as well.
Comment by Vikash Singh — April 15, 2006 @ 3:32 pm
Very entertaining. Somehow I was not surprised by the “paper” answer. I love that essay of yours “Once in love with paper”; it made it into my “about” on my blog! Also find perverse pleasure in the salman rushdie citation. Ok, this has probably taken more than a minute…
Comment by RL — April 15, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
Mistry-yes…but rushdie??? although reading his latest book right now, and I can begin to see why he’s somebody’s answer to that question.
Comment by sonia — April 17, 2006 @ 4:34 pm
I think the question is, which Rushdie? I haven’t been that impressed by any of the fiction he’s written since ‘Moor’s Last Sigh,’ but I think some of his essays in the two nonfic collections are quite good, and I’ll always love Midnight’s Children. His output is so variable. My most overrated: Updike.
Amit Chaudhuri managed to capture so perfectly some of the anthropological peculiarities of Oxford-grad-student life that it’s unnerving to read. As if the novel is peeking over your shoulder, and into your head.
Comment by elizabeth — April 18, 2006 @ 6:23 pm