80passes the baton. Meliza could write a thesis about her compli-
cated feelings about Rupi. Jeet tells Lady, “you know, Rupi kaur
outsells Homer?” Lady wants to talk about how Rupi made it
because she’s an instagram poet. Jeet says, “you know she’s sold
like millions of copies of books.... she outsells Homer.” Lady to
Jeet: “Why do you keep bringing up this Homer guy? Just tell
him to get on instagram.”
New terminology. What do you call a male panel mod-
erated by a female, where the male
panellists type up the questions they
want asked without being requested to
type up such questions, and then hand
it to the female moderator with a ‘now
you don’t have to worry your pretty little
head about anything’ look? Manellis-
ing? Malapropriation? Male-adroit?
side conversation about author styles
and loveability quotients. everyone
agrees anuja Chauhan is rocking the
boho chic grey hair look. abeer Hoque
got Bangla-Nigerian-New york nexus
street cool hip look going on. Hansda
sowvendra shekhar has immense
propensity for checks. sandip Roy does
hats very well. Joshua Ferris’ bags may or
may never have arrived from New york,
but his hair and spirits remain in consistently good shape. Writ-
ers that other writers most wanted to go up to and talk to but
were intimidated on account of the gorgeous factor: Michael
Ondaatje and amy Tan. Most adored indian writer (probably of
all time): kiran Nagarkar. Writer with the best spectacles: Rabih
alameddine.
Random hit list of people i accost at party tell me who they
were most excited to hear at the festival: Uk journalist gushes“in the
19th century,
the centre of
literature was
london; in the
20th century it
was new York;
and there is
no doubt that
the global
capital of 21st
century writing
is Mumbai”
Pico iyerbooks diary