Books

Bibliofile

Memoirs from Mahesh Bhatt to Naseeruddin Shah and then of course there is Chetan Bhagat

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Bibliofile
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Life In His Hands

It’s common in the ad world that when a hotshot leaves an agency, many clients move with him. This may be happening in publishing too. Aleph was all set to come out with the big book by Bollywood badshah Mahesh Bhatt, about his life, his films, his women. Ravi Singh, Aleph’s co-publisher, was working with the filmmaker on the book. But when Ravi quit Aleph (reportedly over the company giving in to pressure to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s On Hinduism), Bhatt wan­ted to go with him. It is not exactly clear what Ravi is going to do next—David Davidar, Aleph’s top boss, had said in his farewell letter Ravi wanted to be an “independent consultant”—but Mahesh Bhatt sure is betting on his talent and experience.

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Says Naseer

On the subject of books by film folk, another big one coming up soon is Naseeruddin Shah’s memoirs by Penguin. He will talk about his journey from Sardhana, near Meerut, to his unique position in Bollywood’s parallel and mainstream films for over three decades. But, apparently, the thespian talks mostly about himself in the book—there are just a few lines on Shabhana Azmi, a cursory mention of Smita Patil and hardly a nod to Om Puri. Now, Naseer has been quite vocal in the past about rubbishing Bollywood and its ways, but it will be interesting to see how far he goes here.

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Off The Blocks

He writes rattlingly about love, bothering little about its shades of pain and exhilaration, and has bestsellers to show for it. Chetan Bhagat's latest offering: Half Girlfriend. Maybe you can try half the book.

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