The January Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) - A Roundup

I was very excited when my husband told me in late December that he had a conference coming up in Jaipur on the 22nd and 23rd of January. I had been wondering how to convince him, for us to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival in the middle of our maddenning househunt and relocation to Delhi.

The fates were working in my favor and given our common interest in literature,  I was set to join him as we also tagged Sunday into this break, aiming to attend at least 3 of the 5 days.

We had decided to drive to Jaipur to enjoy the Indian countryside and mustard fields in bloom.

It had been over 4 years since we had eaten @ a dhabha, so we had to stop midway for breakfast of paneer pakodas (cottage cheese fritters) and anda burji (scrambled eggs, Indian style)

With sated tummies and the fog lifting mid-way through the (normally) 4 hour drive, we were now much more relaxed and able to enjoy the rest of the journey.

The company had provided really lovely accomodation at the Le Meridien, Jaipur But, while this was a brilliant property - well suited for conferences. It is a fair bit out of the city and almost an hours drive (in traffic) to the Diggi Palace Hotel where the Literature Festival was on.

So with the fog and late arrival at hotel necessiating immediate lunch :), by the time I reached the venue on Friday (22nd Jan) it was already 3:30 and more than half the scheduled programs for the day were over.

When I got out of the car, the first venue I saw had a "We the People Debate"  on the topic "Can the Internet Save Books?" being moderated by Barkha Dutt on the Front Lawns. Not being a great Barkha Fan and finding little new light being shed on the subject, I decided to wander around and get a feel of the place.

The online program (which I had duly transcribed into an .xls file - highlighting the events that I did not want to miss) indicated that events would happen simultaneously at 4 different locations of the grounds - Durbar Hall, Mughal Tent, Baithak and Front Lawns.

At this point, I should mention that entry to the Jaipur Literature Festival is completely free. This being its 5th year, it has since last year received immense media coverage and hence the crowds were really thronging the venue. Yet the crowd was extremely well behaved. No shoving or jostling. Seating on first cum basis. Those who did not get seats would politely sit on the floors in the aisles or stand on the sides or at the back. Best selling authors would also politely stand at the sides if the venue was full by the time they arived. But then authors are overall a very well mannered lot.

There was a delegate pass on a sliding scale costing around 2500Rs on the first day, (and 500 less on each subsequent day if I remember right)  which entitled holders to eat all 3 meals on the premises and a wonderful goody bag. But since breakfast and dinner was included in our hotel package, it did not make sense for us.

Just one of the little suprises - At one of the sessions; a quiet gentleman was sitting beside me, who raised a very intelligent question at the end. He was actually the Chief of Police of Jaipur. Where else would you see that in this country? (a quiet, unobtrusive, non assuming, non attitude throwing, well read Police Chief?)

Vasundhara Raje was present almost everyday for at least an hour or so with just one plain clothes person guarding her with nary a gun in sight. The media was falling over themselves to get a soundbyte from her (I wouldn't call it an interview), but I overheard a group of school girls saying "woh aurat kaun hain? aur media un ke peeche itne paagal kyun hain?" (Who is that woman and why is the media hounding her?) - Just the ex Chief Minister of your State darlings!


There were a few film personalities around - Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Girish Karnad, Rahul Bose, Neena Gupta, On Puri among others. But the "celebrities" at this festival were undoubtedly the authors.

A few bookshops like Full Circle had set up tents on the premises where you could buy books if you liked. Bestsellers and books by the authors were being sold, for those who wanted to pick up something after listening to an author speak or wanting to get an autograph on.

Girish Karnad for example was polite but clear that he would not sign on the notebooks that were being pressed on him by gaggles of giggling schoolgirls. He was very polite in saying that "My books are avilable at the bookshop, I am here for awhile. If you bring one of my books, I will sign it for you, but on principle, I will only sign on my own books"

Other authors were either of similar viewpoints or generally obliging all their fans. But even William Dalrymple(WD) was forced to draw the line when one of these schoolgirls(SG) took out a pirated copy of his latest book Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India and asked him to autograph it. I was right there when it happenned.
SG: Sir, Please Sign this book for me
WD: This is a pirated copy. I have not yet seen a pirated copy of Nine Lives, is it out already? I'm sorry, but I cannot sign this.
SG: Please sir, please sign it for me.
WD: I'm sorry, but I will not sign a pirated copy. (In an aside to Geoff Dyer-GD standing nearby) Geoff would you autograph pirated copies?
GD : (self deprecatingly) I don't think I'm popular enough for my books to be pirated, I've never been faced with one myself.
SG: But what is the problem Sir? Why will you not sign my book?
WD: Please buy an authorised copy of my book from the store here and I will be happy to sign it for you, but I will not sign a pirated copy.

I must mention that these schoolgirls I speak about are from a very reputed school in Rajasthan. The girls were all from Highschool (14-16 year olds) or engineering college (16-19yr olds) so old enough to know better. For the most part, they were well behaved, but there were some of them who were treating the whole thing as just another picnic.

They were at their worst when Chetan Baghat walked in. Of all the fantastic authors around, he, the least significant, who has written so much cr@p (Have you Read "One Night at the Call Centre"?) was surrounded by hordes of girls who were later heard whispering "You know? he smiled at me." Shows what a little controversy (3 Idiots and the credits for it - the orchestrated drama was still in the news) can do to a persons recognisability.

What I did like about the festival was that every session started on time. 4 parallel sessions, multiple award winning authors, eager fans and public wanting more time for question-answer sessions - yet every session started and ended on time. Authors politely asked fans to step out of the tent or off the main area, so the next group could get started and patiently autographed books for their adoring public on the side.

Brilliantly managed. Although I do think they will need to shift to a larger venue next year as the location was bursting at the seams this year.

Will write seperate posts about some of the sessions I attended - individually.

But to sum up, this is a wonderful idea with fantastic implementation, co-ordinated by Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple and I hope and pray that it continues to grow in the coming years.

Kim's Review : Palace of Illusions

For the first time, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni writes about Indian mythology rather than just characters influenced by it or stories inspired by mythology.

In the genre of speculative fiction, she retells the story of the Mahabharata from Draupadi's point of view. Draupadi plays an essential role in the epic. If not for her, perhaps the Pandavas might not have lusted for revenge against their cousins as much.

Divakaruni takes the commonly known episodes of Draupadi's life, starting with her "birth" from the fire with Drishtadyumna and the prophecy at her arrival, her swayamvar and subsequent marriage to five husbands, her laughter when Duryodhana accidently falls into a pool in her palace at Indraprastha, her being staked and lost in a game of dice and the attempt to disrobe her in front of Dritarashtra's entire court and the miracle by Krishna, Krishna's assistance at the time when Durvasa and his numerous sages arrive at the Pandava's residence during vanvas, Kechakas infatuation with her and his death at the hands of Bhima during their year of being incognito, the loss of her 5 sons in the war and her being the first to fall by the wayside when she and the Pandavas begin their trek towards the heavens.

With this framework, Divakaruni fills in the blanks. What did Draupadi think about being the "girl who will change history"? What was her relationship with her father, her brother, her mother-in-law, her 5 husbands?

The introduction of the character of her nurse - Dhai Ma - helps to bring in a lot of background and history, which are narrated as stories. Divakaruni's Draupadi is an immature, impatient feminist who is filled with anger and the desire for vengeance (against Drona on behalf of her father and then the Kauravas).

She paints Kunti as a controlling mother who did not want to let go of her hold over her sons hearts and the obedience she commanded from them. Kunti in "The Palace of Illusions" constantly tests Draupadi and chastises her often.

The feminist Draupadi bemoans her empowerment of being granted 5 husbands yet having to follow an arrangement which has rules made by men. - 1 year in turn with each husband while attempting to put the others out of her head completely. She says "instead of a boon which turns me into a virgin before I begin my year with the next husband, I would have much preferred to be given the boon of forgetfullness - being able to forget the time I spent with the other 4 while I am with my current husband".

While the Mahabharatha has many strong female characters, Kunti, Draupadi, Gandhari, Amba, Subhadra they do not have much of a voice. Divakaruni attempts to give that voice at least to Draupadi.

This is a brilliant work of fiction and definitely worth a read.

Rating: 4.5/5





Also published on desicritics.org

Kim's Review: Cuckold

After Ravan and Eddie I was itching to read "Cuckold" as this is a book that Kiran Nagarkar himself considers his masterpiece. In the midst of packing and leaving, I did not have the time to buy or read the book. On subsequent visits to India, we bought up all the latest best sellers (Egypt takes time for new books to be relased due to censorship issues) but sadly the Cuckold lost out in the race to my baggage, primarily because of its size and weight.

Once we moved back to India, this was one of the first books that I picked up. The premise itself had seemed very interesting. A fictionalised biography of Maharaj Kumar of whom little is known except that he was the son of the famous Rana Sangha of Mewar and the husband of Meerabai(hence the title).

Nagarkar has carried out a lot of research into Rajput history of those times and he sets his story against the backdrop of real events.

Although Nagarkar says "I was writing a novel, not history. I was willing to invent geography and climate, start revolts and epidemics, improvise anecdotes and economic conditions and fiddle with dates. As luck would have it I didnt get a chance to play around too much except in the case of the main protagonist, about whom we know nothing, but the fact that he was born, married and died"

The period during which Meerabai lived was momentuous. Rana Sangha her Father-in-law had united the in-fighting Rajputs for the first time, Babur was showing interest in conquering Hindoostan, Rana Sangha's kingdom was surrounded by the hostile Lodi Dynasty in Delhi, Muzaffar Shah II in Gujarat and Sultan Mahmud Khalji II of Malwa.

Nagarkar has used known incidents and woven them into his tale. His hero Maharaj Kumar is a brave warrior and a forward thinker who plans many grand and innovative schemes like a water and sewage system for the fort, a brilliant tactician who prefers to watch his enemy in action and then plan an attack as opposed to the straight on confrontation preferred by Rajputs of those times, who ultimately becomes a victim of his circumstances.

The book is a wonderful introduction to Rajput history and culture which can reinvigorate interest, in someone who has been inured to history by lacklustre textbooks.

Politics, scheming, spies, romance, affairs, eunuchs, concubines, cheating wives, dancing queens - this novel contains them all. Nagarkar is a wonderful story teller on the lines of the bards of yore. Each characters development is well etched out and their actions become completely believable.

Its a wonder Bollywood has not yet seized on this book. It would be a far more gripping story than Jodhaa Akbar.

Rating: 4/5

    
Also published on desicritics.org

Penguin Spring Fever - Trickster City

Today was a fitting finale to the Penguin Spring Fever celebrations. This evenings program encapsulated everything that the festival stood for. The theme for this finale was  - Discover the uniqueness of Delhi
To start off the evening, was the recent release "Trickster City". Shveta Sarda is the translator of this unique anthology whose stories have been written by a group of 20 somethings who live in neighbourhoods like LNJP colony, Dakshinapuri and Sawda-Ghevra in Delhi. What is unique about this collection is that it gives voices to stories which otherwise may have just been statistics in a social workers register. Neelofar, one of the writers and Shveta alternated reading passages from the book in English and Hindi and had the audience spellbound. I've read some of the stories from the book (they are short stories) and will review it when I'm done. But this is definitely a must-read.

Sam Miller then read an excerpt from his last years release "Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity". Sam Miller was a BBC correspondent in Delhi in the early 1990's. He has returned and lived in Delhi since 2002. His book is more about Delhi as seen through his eyes while he walked about the city.

William Dalrymple, then read from his novels set in Delhi. "City of Djinns" and "The Last Mughal" effectively tying up the Delhi of Millers book to the Delhi portrayed in Mahmood Farooqui's upcoming book. What can I say about him? He is an author who always has his audience eating out of the palm of his hand!

 


The last reading for the day was by Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Husain from Mahmoood's yet to be released "Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857" It was a pleasure to see the two of them in action again. Its been almost 4 years since I last saw them perform in Bombay. While todays reading was not half as flamboyant, (You have to try and watch a Dastangoi performance at least once in your lifetime, they are next performing in Pune on April 12th) it was very illuminating. Mahmood has been researching papers at the National Archives and his book attempts to explain 1857 through the voices of the common man rather than the parroted lines in History text books. The book is a collection of translations of letters of various people during the time of the uprising and seige on Delhi. There are letters from butchers, hawaldars, thanedars and the like. We could have listened to the 2 of them all night.

The audience who had foregone the IPL, Liverpool-ManU & Navroze celebrations, to be here, was completely spell bound.

A beautiful end to the evening was the 2 hour Qawwali performance by the Nizami Brothers. Ghulam Sabir and Ghulam Waris. They performed the traditional qawwals and sang about national unity and integration among other traditional themes.

Listening to a performance like this can truly put you into a spiritual trance if you stop trying to control your mind, close your eyes and just go with the flow. the little kids who are training to be qawwalis gave us a short performance and there was so much potential there. The eldest of the 3 boys already has remarkable control over his voice for his age and they are sure to take this performance art further.

Wonderful evening, beautiful memories. Waiting for the next literature festival now.

Penguin Spring Fever - Advance Booking

Today was a different kind of an evening at the Penguin Spring Fever. 2 theater personalities read out sections from yet to be released Penguin Books.

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel; Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna and Jimmy, the Terrorist by Omair Ahmad.

The crowd was way thinner than last Sunday and  Monday. I guess that was because there were no authors around.

I had hoped that even though the previews were to be read out by theater personalities (something they really should have done last Monday for the Metro Reads) the authors would be around to discuss their work. A lot of people seemed to have the same idea, because once they realised that there were no authors around, a major portion of the meager crowd also left.

The actors were doing a good job of reading out sections of the novels, but the main reason people go to a Literature event is to hear the authors talk about their thought process and interact with them.If its just a reading, I might as well wait for the book to be released and read it in the comfort of my home.

"One Amazing Thing" sounded interesting and I think I will pick this one up. I left after the "Beatrice & Virgil" reading as it was already quite late. (Today for the first time, they started late. Were they hoping / waiting for more people to arrive?) So I missed the third and fourth books. But then I guess I'll just decide whether or not to buy them, the normal way I browse for books.

Read my review of "One Amazing Thing"

Penguin Spring Fever - Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese by Sidin Vadukut

The crowd today was half as much as yesterday, but that was to be expected given that today was a working day and its difficult for working professionals to reach a venue by 7pm unless they work next door (such are the problems of Corporate Life)


90% of the audience was there to hear Sidin Vadukut speak. Sidin has been blogging at http://www.whatay.com/ since over 6 years and has enough of a regular following for his brand of humor, that Penguin gave him a book deal.  Dork is the result of that deal. Sidin promises part 2 and 3 will be out soon and he was sure there was scope for many more.





Unfortunately before we got to hear what most of us had come for,  we were faced with a Marketing disaster from Penguin. Penguin has started a new series called Metro Reads. This has been widely covered in the papers. They are short novellas that can be read anywhere (or on the metro) and the media buzz around it was enough to make us curious to check out the books in a store.

Since Penguin is also selling some of its books on location @ IHC, we flipped through some of them and were still considering whether we should pick one up, among the other 15 books that we bought today. But since we weren't convinced about them, we decided to wait to hear the authors speak before buying any of them.

Story writing and story narrating are 2 entirely different skill sets. Unfortunately the 3 authors chosen from the Metro Reads section weren't very good narrators when they read out excerpts from their books and they lost the audience attention almost immediately. People were talking, texting and tweeting as long as these authors spoke. It was very telling that when the floor was opened to questions, NOT A SINGLE person had a question to ask.

Basic rule of marketing: do not put people in the floodlights if they are not yet ready to handle it. As the publishers, Penguin does have a responsibility of giving ample coverage to their authors, but the authors also must be equipped to handle this coverage. It is easy to say that they are first time authors, they will learn on the job, but I've seen secondary school students with more confidence and conviction when speaking in public.

Fortunately once that was out of the way, Sidin and Vinay took center stage and then it was a laugh a minute. Including when the author insisted that "Einstein" Varghese was a visionary who should share shelf space with others of his ilk like Bhagwan Rajneesh and Nandan Nilekani and the guy at the sales counter, promptly complied.

There was a lot of audience interaction even during their conversation and even more so when the floor was opened for questions, with audience directing questions @ Sidin and Robin and sometimes both, so we got to see a bit of MPD on stage :)

The book is really funny and anyone who has been to a B-School will truly appreciate the humor. But it will still be an extremely funny read for anyone who has ever held a corporate job. As Sidin said, every office has its share of psychos.

Penguin Spring Fever - Kal, Aaj aur Kal - Writings on the Mahabharata

Penguin India is currently conducting a festival of Literature at the IHC. Penguin India started 23 years ago (Penguin is 75 years old) and has since then become the publisher of choice that most Indian authors aspire to.

This festival which is a celebration of the 75th anniversary is a chance for the public to interact with its well known and budding authors.

The 14th of March saw Gurcharan Das, Namita Gokhale, Shashi Tharoor and Bibek Debroy meet for a discussion on Kal, Aaj aur Kal - Writings on the Mahabharata.

Gurcharan Das has written "The Difficulty of Being Good - On the Subtle art of Dharma, Namita Gokhale has written a childrens edition of the Mahabharatha in 40,000 words. Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel is a series of stories of modern day India running parallel with stories in the Mahabharatha and Bibek Debroy is half way through writing the first complete English translation of the Mahabharatha by an Indian.

Bibek's endeavour is to try and present the situations and decisions and actions in a context relevant to its times. For eg: he says that Dushasan baring his left thigh and asking Draupadi to sit on it, isnt as vulgar as interpreted today by the baring of his flesh. To put it in context of those times, the left thigh was reserved for the wife and the right thigh for the daughter or child. So while it was a vulgar invitation to be his "wife" it isn't as vulgar as it is currently interpreted.

Given the context of the recent "Women's Reservation Bill", the discussion started with the role and power of female characters in the Mahabharatha. Draupadi's polyandry, Kunti's sons with fathers other than her husband, Gandhari's decision to blindfold herself were all brought into consideration.

The conversation then moved onto the concept of dharma and Gurcharan Das illuminated the audience on how the concept of dharma had changed across the ages. Including as recently as the 19th century, when the Christian missionaries landed in Calcutta and equated religion with Dharma.

The audience questioned the role of Krishna as a God and if the authors in the panel believed in the divinity of Krishna and if they beleived that he was divine then the question was raised as to why he allowed the massive war and destruction to take place. Gurcharan Das narrated 2 incidents to clarify this. He spoke of Krishna meeting an ascetic in the Rajasthan desert after the Kurukshetra war was fought, who asked the same question. Krishna replied that it was not something that he could control, bringing into play the role of destiny.

In another incident Krishna is believed to have replied that it was time to rid the world of the kshatriyas who were creating havoc and destruction on earth.

An audience member asked how the panel could say that women were empowered in the Mahabharatha when Kunti felt compelled to relinquish her eldest born son and not claim him as her own through all the shame he was put through, until matters came to a head with the possibility of her valiant eldest son fighting against all her other children.

There were two different points of view on this matter. The first was that while having a child out of wedlock was acceptable for a married woman in those times, it may not have been so for an unmarried girl. The second was that Kunti simply panicked. She used a mantra whose power she didn't completely believe in and the consequences made her panic and these caused her subsequent actions. And later when she saw Karna it was too late to publicly accept him as her own.

All the authors had a depth of knowledge of their subject and the audience could have listened forever. Looking forward to more such illuminating discussions in this week.

    

Kim's Review : In an Antique Land

In an Antique Land was a unique book for me, as its two threads focus on a small town that I grew up in for the first 20+ years of my life and a Country that I have lived in for the last 3 years. So I had a unique connect with this book.


Not so suprisingly, the description of my hometown did not ring a bell as it focussed mostly on the town as it existed 800+ years ago. The description of rural Egypt created a veritable clang in my head as I kept thinking to myself "How true" or "Yes, I know someone who would have reacted the exact same way"

This is a book of non fiction. Amitav Ghosh chanced upon a letter between Abraham Ben Yiju, a Jewish merchant living in Mangalore, India, and Khalaf ibn Ishaq from Egypt, written in 1132AD. Part of this narrative focuses on Ghosh's search for more documents relating to Ben Yiju and part of the narrative tries to imagine the world that Ben Yiju lived in.

The other narrative in the book, covers Ghosh's stay in rural Egypt (Mashawy and Lataifa) and it was this section that I found infinitely more interesting and hence hope to pick up his book of essays The Imam and the Indian which promise to shed more light on this phase of his life.



It is in this second narrative that Amitav's gift of story telling is showcased, while in the first narrative it feels stilted, focussed on facts and doesn't flow as naturally. Blending history with a a current travelogue is an art perfected by William Dalrymple and sadly in comparison, Ghosh didn't match up.

While Ben Yiju did spend time in Egypt and his letters were written to people living there and most of the surviving documentation came from the Geniza Documents cache from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in the Coptic Cairo area of modern day Cairo and Fustat of Ancient Cairo, this is the only point at which the two narratives seem to meet. For the rest of the book, they just continue parallel to each other.

In the final chapters, when Ghosh heads out towards the tomb of a Jewish Saint in rural Egypt venerated by Muslims and Jews alike, I hoped it would bring about a meeting of the parallel stories, but unfortunately it didn't.

Both narratives on their own are great and very illuminating, I just didn't see the point of putting them together.

Its a great read for someone visiting the Fustat area or interested in observations/revelations from the Geniza Cache or life in Rural Egypt.

Also Published on desicritics

Kim's Review : First Family

The main story was rather gripping, engrossing, unravelled well and was generally well put together, but I found the digression into the story of one of the Private Investigators on the case, completely extraneous. It did not explain any behavior relevant to the case, nor did it shed any light on the main plot or add to it. It was just a distraction from start to finish.

In general, I do like Baldacci's writing style, but I wish he had edited out this substory in this particular book, it just slowed the pace down, while the rest of the story was racing. I'm not sure if this story would be of more interest to someone who had read Simple Genius or Split Second, because those are some of Baldacci's books I haven't read yet. But this book still works well as a stand-alone.


At 658 pages, the book is a little unwieldy for reading in bed, but great for travel time reading in a car or a plane.

Plot synopsis is that the 12 year old niece of the First Lady has been kidnapped and everyone the FBI, the Secret Service, Private Investigators hired by the First Lady are racing to find the child, before it is too late.

Kim's Review: The Bollywood Cookbook

I can never resist stopping and browsing at a bookshop. and heaven help my poor husband if there is a Book Sale on!

Since we are still in transit, we are living in a guest house where the kitchen is guarded by the (well since they are so young, I can't call them Maharaj's)  Rajkumars of the guest house and I am on a cooking break. We are living out of the suitcases we were able to carry with us on the flight and the rest of our possessions lie in a warehouse until we find a home.

But this could not deter me from buying books at the fantastic 10-90% discount sale at Om Bookshop across its locations in Delhi and NCR. I finally managed to sneak into one of their outlets when the husband wasn't around and came back with a load of books, one of which was The Bollywood Cookbook: The Glamorous World of the Actors and Over 75 of Their Favorite Recipes by Bulbul Mankani.

The book has over 75 recipes as well as part interviews, part nuggets and photographs of the Film Stars whose contributions have  been used in the book. Hence this book can also double up as a coffee table book and the reproduction of some old film posters like "Guide",  "Bobby", "Umrao Jaan", "Pakeezah" could spark off some interesting conversations.

The pictures are lovely and the printing quality is good. The photos of the food that accompany the recipes can easily tempt you into cooking from the book. Some of the traditional recipes like the Manglorean Coconut curries have been given a low fat, low cal twist by the stars, their parents or their cooks.

Contrary to what is sometimes perceived as my indiscriminate picking up of cookbooks, I do read a couple of recipes to get a feel of whether the author is being authentic to the taste of the dish and if ingredients will be easy to find. This book scores high on both counts. Just like someone who reads music, can visualise and hear what the notes will sound like, some foodies who are avid cooks will have an idea what the finished product will taste like, just by reading a recipe.

The reason I don't bake is because I can't follow precise instructions, so I do jiggle with the quantities recommended to suit my own tastebuds and mood, so I cannot tell you how accurate the measurements are. And I have not yet been in my own kitchen to put the recipes to the test, but they seem to have potential.

Some of the stars also share their favorite restaurants with you. I was suprised to see that 2 of Nandita Das's favorties, Aap Ki Khatir and Swagath in Delhi mirrored my own. It somehow makes them more human to read their likes and dislikes about food.

The recipes are Pan Indian and some of them have an International twist to them too. Contributions from Shah Rukh Khan, the Bacchans, the Roshans, Shabana Azmi, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor among others, span Lucknowi, Mughal, Manglorean, Parsi, Marathi, Rasta and Bengali recipes. So it does give you a wide range of cuisines to choose from.

My only crib about this book so far, is that on page 127 where the recipe is for Suneil Shetty's Uppitu, the accompanying picture is of some paneer dish.

If Bollywood and Food are dual interests to you, then this book is worth your while. Even if just one of the 2 interests you, there is still a lot you can get out of this book.

If you would like to sample a few pages of the book before buying it online, this Amazon link lets you Look Inside.