Books
World at risk without climate justice
Praful Bidwai’s book The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future is written at a time of deep diplomatic despondency.
In dark Mumbai, the plots thicken
Mumbai has long been the favourite Indian locale for fictional crime. Guru Dutt’s Baazi and Raj Khosla’s CID created a shadowy noir vision of Bombay as early as the 1950s. Contemporary realist depictions of Mumbai’s gritty underbelly really took off with Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998). That cinematic fascination has, over the years, acquired not just justifiably feted successors like Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, and the much-anticipated 1960s-set Bombay Velvet) but also underrated work by top-class practitioners — Hansal Mehta’s sadly ignored 2002 film, Chhal, Shashanka Ghosh’s madcap Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part 2.
A fine romance
Some writers have a flair for a turn of phrase, for articulating an idea in a way that seems outlandish and yet, just right. Deborah Baker, Pulitzer Prize finalist, novelist Amitav Ghosh’s wife and biographer extraordinaire, has that gift.
