Thou art translated
Yesterday the Times of India fluffed the globalization of the Indian publishing industry — a worthy thesis. And it did so by name-dropping (1) bartending for dummies; (2) Khaled ‘Melodrama’ Hosseini; and (3) The Secret, whose thesis that the universe rearranges itself to suit your desires is trivially refuted by my sex life. The story then chose the most ridiculous quotes and passed them off as straight news:
Sitting around Oxford Bookstore’s Cha Bar in Delhi, I count the books that go off the shelf one evening. Five girls picked up The Funda of Mixology by Mainiak Dhar; other books which sold like hotcakes were The Secret, and Khaled Hosseini’s Thousand Splendid Suns and Vir Sanghvi’s Man of Steel…
“Reading a book is now a status symbol“… Mohini Chopra, 42, believes in choosing bestseller books only, “That’s because they’ve been chosen by an impressive jury.” [Link]
The real news here is that some absolutely brilliant absurdist is now writing for the ToI.
on Monday, March 24th, 2008, 3:57 pm in Humor, Literature, Media, Times of India › 
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Manish I kinda agree with this lady and her article.
Last year during my India trip I interviewed a book seller and someone who started a small publishing company. I asked him what kind of books sell the most in India and who are the most read writers..and he came up with the same list..Rushdie, seth, naipaul, aynrand..
But what I dont agree with her is Indians like to read a lot..out of every twenty indian girls I meet one girl reads books..out of every fifteen guys I meet one guy who reads books..very few indian guys and girls read books..when I look at stats in my own family out of 50 in my family, probably 5 people read books ..
thats my biggest problem cant find people who are heavily into reading and intellectual stuff..
There’s no question India’s far more about socializing than reading, unless you count 20 minutes of the ToI between masala paranthas in the morning. But this article is ridic.
Its been 12yrs since I moved away from youth social scene in India.. In my small town youngsters go to temples and movie theatres and flirt there…and vaise bhi hyderabad doesnot have hip socializing youthful book reading crowd..In Hyderabad if u want to see hip crowd you can just go to shopperstop or hyderabad mall, people are dressed atleast in hip clothes, wear sunglasses and hold a coke can..thats how hip they can go..u rarely find people in book stores in hyderabad..only people u see in book stores are people the age of my dad checking out books..Its not like mumbai or chennai or calcutta scene..
socializing no socialises people dont read books that much period in cities like hyderabad..except rare people like one of my cousin bro who buys books and sits in some isolated corner in his house sometimes trying to read amidst his kids, cooker sounds, his wife’s yelling at kids or my aunt or uncles old age complaints..
my cousin sis is masters in literature but rarely reads anything…may be a book once in two years…my mom is also masters in literature , when she is in India with my little nephews running around her, she hardly reads..my dad read every nite from 1 in the nite till 4am in the morning only quiet time he got to read as he was also a book addict like me and couldnot live without books and intellectual growth…
U know when I was 18 to 20 yrs old and in India, I used to see huge reading arguing crowd in coffee houses..specially retired old men reading books, having book clubs and arguing about newspaper article or book they read..I miss that..u dont even see that now a days..
thanks to ur blog and you I read a lot and know how other people think about the same book I read..I owe u bigtime for that Manish…how was mumbai that way Manish..did u find a lot of young crowd reading books?
how about here..how many Indian friends of yours read books? may be probably a lot more than in India right..
I just agree with the list of authors in that article that indians read more often than others..