ALTER IDEM

Some months ago, I had introduced you to N . Well... N is someone I run into quite often. Every time, our interaction is restricted to smiles - a benign one from my side, and a shy one from his. This morning, N 's dad dropped in and gave me these chillies - sent by N from the patch that he has been cultivating near his home. I was quite touched, and glad! There are exactly eight chillies.... enough for more than a week! And, anyone who has used chillies can tell - these are 'export-quality'! I must confess here.... even though I have been managing a couple of chilli plants in our kitchen garden, I end up harvesting what remains after the crows and the bulbuls have had their party. I guess, N has whatever it takes to make a good farmer. Maybe, I should encourage him by giving him some of the vegetable seeds that I have .................... and, then, hope and pray that he gives me some of the results!!

This book gave me my first nightmare in recent memory! And, no.... I'm not referring to the 933 pages!! So much has already been written about Shantaram - 'powerful', 'original', 'vivid', 'compassionate', 'impressive', 'publishing phenomenon', 'extraordinarily vivid', 'gigantic, jaw-dropping, grittily authentic saga', ..... the book is all of these! Many people out there feel that it is one of the better books written about Bombay - the city. Maybe, it is. In fact, people who are familiar with the Bombay of the '80s will be able to tell the facts from the fiction. They'll, perhaps, recognise some of the people in the book..... Shantaram was meant to be my 'monsoon-book'. But, I started reading it sometime in December. After the first 200 pages or so, things became a little hectic and I picked up the book again last week....and, read a major portion on a very lonely day. In the book, t...