Friends, since I review books I was wondering how to talk about each of the book nominated for The Hindu Prize 2013. I just finished reading all of them. I am saved the effort because Swati Daftuar did a fine job summing them up.
Here is the article.
Tags: Another Man's Wife, Foreign, Hindu Prize 2013, Roll of Honour, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, Vanity Bagh
Nandini has this way of spending so much time with the interviewee that one ends up spilling some beans and having so much fun. Two of my most exhausting and satisfying interviews have been with Nandini. Here is the second one, please read …
Tags: fountainINK, INK, Nandini Krishnan, Roll of Honour
Time after time, The Hindu really gets me right. This time it was Swati Daftuar an alumni of Asian College of Journalism and Welham Girls, both my alma maters. Thank you Swati!
‘I feel our literature lacks that seer point of view — one that shows a path or even adequately problematises our crises. That engagement, and not entertainment alone, remains the main function of literature. We are not there yet.’
Please read here …
Tags: Amandeep Sandhu, Roll of Honour, The Hindu Prize 2013 shortlist
This is what happens when you have been roaming the Dargahs and tombs of Sirhind and get late keeping your appointment with dear friend and contemporary intellectual from Punjab Daljit Ami. By way of penalty, he calls you to the studio and forces a brief interview on you. My first in Punjabi. Interview by Jaideep.
Please see here …
Tags: 1984, Bluestar, Khalistan, military school, Mrs. Gandhi, Punjab, Roll of Honour, schizophrenia, Sepia Leaves
Nandini Krishnan is a writer-journalist friend. Her first interview for the first story in her book on arranged marriages Hitched took place in my barsati in Delhi. I wasn’t the subject. But I had the opportunity to review the book recently for the Indian Express.
Please read here…
Tags: Arranged Marriages, Hitched, Indian Express, Nandini Krishnan
Friends, acknowledging my work as a technical writer, a technology magazine was the first to interview me when ‘Roll of Honour’ was released last year. Techgoss.com, came back again now to check how I feel upon being nominated. The quote is linked to the earlier interview. Thank you Suneetha Balakrishnan.
‘Roll of Honour evokes the agony of not being able to resolve the dilemma of who is the self and what is the self’s identity. Yet, it acknowledges, that a space larger than the narrow partisan interest of a community is available and must be acknowledged. For that we have to move beyond the pain. We must learn to heed to the wounds. The nomination does that for me: it heals me, both personally and as a writer. I feel I have been heard.’
See full quote and link to an earlier interview here …
Tags: Amandeep Sandhu, Roll of Honour, Techgoss, The Hindu prize 2013
With regard to the nomination, my author profile in The Hindu for the 2013 Prize short list. Links to an earlier interview too, please read here …
Tags: Amandeep Sandhu, Roll of Honour, The Hindu Prize 2013 shortlist
The hope that the book evokes is that the next generation will acknowledge the previous generation’s culpability in the violence and will work to bridge hearts. The book moves and even upsets the reader but that is needed if we have to work towards a society that chooses not to bury its ugly past. As a fight for justice, if victims, arguments, and evidences are the three basis on which the law acts, then the book does a fine job of expanding the canvas of the narration of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. My hope is that the possibility of justice evoked in fiction comes true in reality.
Tags: Amandeeo Sandhu, anti-Sikh, Helium, Jaspreet Singh
My interview with Canadian Indian author Jaspreet Singh on the publication of his new novel Helium on the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom from the point of view of a son of a senior police officer who facilitated the communal violence.
Tags: Amandeep Sandhu, Helium, Japreet Singh, The Hindu
An old friend from University called me today morning on my Bangalore number. I had activated the number only recently after five years. He told me that Roll of Honour is on The Hindu Prize 2013 Shortlist. I could not speak to him, I asked him to give me some time to recover. I put the phone down, broke down, checked the newspaper online, saw an email from Krithika at The Hindu informing me of the nomination and finally registered that it has happened. Roll of Honour is nominated along with another four books by the authors: Manu Joseph, Anees Salim, Manjul Bajaj, and Sonora Jha.
Thank you everybody. The friend who called, Bobby George, had quoted to me from the Talmud after Sepia Leaves was out, ‘A man is known by the tree he plants, the book he writes, and the family he raises.’ Thank you! See more here …
Tags: adolescence, fear, military school, Punjab, Roll of Honour, terrorism, The Hindu Award 2013