Ahem

I had long given up on Amitava Ghosh's Glass Palace. I thought it was a series of events that just went on and on. I read about 10 pages and put it aside a couple of years ago.

Ghosh keeps returning to coincidences: everyone you meet and everything that happens in his books will appear again and show more meaning. It gets quite tiring sometimes. His Calcutta Chromosome is choked with such coincidences, until your head spins.

Ba alias Win Ross, whom we met on our train journey to Hubli last month, mentioned the book and said Ghosh was a great writer. So, I took up the book again, and was quite disappointed. No insights whatever.

Oh, by the way, Ba was quite a find. Since he got on at Bhubaneswar at 7 in the morning, till we got off at Hubli next day at 12 noon, we talked and talked and talked. And he's got 5,000 books in his house in Madgaon!! At least now I should make that long put-off trip. Talking to him was like travelling the world.

Meanwhile, on Singur and land acquisition, the story continues to get funnier by the day. The CPI-M without Anil Biswas seems like too many cooks. Only hope they continue to be at it. We want the broth to spoil.

Was watching the rail budget coverage on some Hindi channels yesterday. I guess they were trying to entertain (sic! on a news channel?!), but it was downright stupid. Song and dance with Laloo and Rabdi look-alikes. As broadcast people fall over themselves trying to newstain, therein might lie some hope for print.