Monday, May 07, 2012

शहर और सिनेमा: मिहिर पंड्या की नयी किताब

An early shout-out for a book that I’m going to make time to read over the next few weeks (it will take a while because my Hindi-reading speed is very slow). शहर और सिनेमा: वाया दिल्ली (Shahar aur Cinema: Via Delhi) is by my young friend Mihir Pandya, who blogs at आवारा हूँ – the book examines representations of the city, specifically Delhi, in Hindi cinema over the decades. (Apart from being a subject that interests me personally, it is also very relevant at the present moment – what with Delhi having just completed 100 years of being India’s capital, and Indian cinema having just entered its hundredth year.) There are essays on movies ranging from Ab Dilli Dur Nahin, Tere Ghar ke Saamne and Chashme Baddoor to Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Khosla ka Ghosla and Dev D, as well as the transcript of a long conversation on cinema and Delhi, which was organised especially for the book – the discussion features Mihir along with writer-historian-Dastango Mahmood Farooqui, NDTV India’s Ravish Kumar, Delhi Belly writer Akshat Verma and writer-historian Ravikant.

I’ve often complained in this space about the lack of good film literature in India, and Mihir tells me that this is even more the case in Hindi publishing. If the quality of the film writing on his blog is anything to go by, his book will help fill this gap. Distribution and display are always a problem for Hindi publications, so I’m glad Flipkart is making it available – here’s the link. Please do spread the word to anyone who might be interested.

9 comments:

  1. who is Mihir Pandya? Is he a journalist?

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  2. Anon: research fellow in Delhi University. You'll find some information on the blog.

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  3. I would love to read this book. This is a topic that has interested me since a long time. The only problem? It's in Hindi. I hope there is an English translation of the book coming out soon. ;)

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  4. Sudipta Bhattacharjee10:45 PM, May 10, 2012

    Jai - I owed you a big thank you for pointing me to Mihir's blog vide one of your earlier posts.
    Getting introduced to Mihir's blog was one of those rare moments when I was really happy about being effectively trilingual (Bengali being the third language). Otherwise most of my knowledge of Hindi gets used up in translating tax statutes/notifications from UP/MP/ Rajasthan :-( To elucidate, I am a tax lawyer by profession and often have to deal with stuff like "Uttar Pradesh me maal ke pravesh par kar adhiniyam :-)which only I seem to be able to read in my office (That's another irony since most of my colleagues have Hindi as their mother tongue!)

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  5. what movie is the picture on the cover from?

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  6. Anon: Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (which I wrote about here).

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  7. The book is out of stock on Flipkart! If that means copies of the book are being fast sold out, I'm really happy for the writer. I've read some of his blogposts in the past (the site is oddly blocked in my office now) and really enjoyed his writing.

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  8. Yes. The book is 'out of stock' on flipkart from last four days. Don't know that it's a good thing or bad (first time author you see ;-) ) had talk with the publisher yesterday and they assured me that the book will be again 'in stock' soon. Hopefully in a day or too.

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