Quill and Canvas

There is a quaint little bookstore in Gurgaon, India called Quill and Canvas run by Shobha Sengupta and her husband Vivek. It is what you would expect your own cosy attic to be. Cramped but cosy, full of books of all genres, paintings by contemporary artists all existing cheek by jowl. I remember going there for a panel discussion with Sankarshan Thakur of Tehelka (http://www.tehelka.com/) the magazine that is credited with some sensational exposes, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (media person and economist) and Amit Baruah is the Foreign Editor of Hindustan Times.

The panel was divided on whether the economic development in India was widespread enough to be inclusive. Paranjoy and Sankarshan were vehemently against giving a good report card to the economic agenda for India. Amit and I talked of the need to have a critical mass of development before the focus could be turned to distribution and inclusive growth.

 Yesterday I came across this piece for Hindustan Times newspaper dated May 25th 2009 written by Shobha. She talks about the dilemmas of categorizing books in a bookstore. The growing popularity of chicklit. The decline in writing standards and other troubles in a bookstore!

A tidal wave of chicklit books has flooded the Indian market. In the six-and-a-half years I have been in business, I haven’t seen anything like this. When we started off, we had a bestsellers’ section, then demand forced us to create a separate fantasy section and a year later a section on graphic novels was added. Now, I have two shelves for the chicklit section.

This variety of books is written by fun-loving and street-smart women and is meant for non-serious readers. Its readers are fed up of ‘depressing’, ‘erudite’, ‘powerful’ and ‘socialist’ novels of yesteryears. But those who love good literature cannot figure out why these books exist. My 20-year-old daughter once complained about their language and grammar. “Why do you stock such books, mom?” she asked. “I am in bijnas sweetie,” I said.

It was Chetan Bhagat who became a phenomenon with his Five Point Someone. Abhijit Bhaduri’s Mediocre But Arrogant came out in 2005 and in 2007 Advaita Kala’s Almost Single. In 2008 we had a deluge: The Zoya Factor (Anuja Chauhan), You Are Here (Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan) and Pink or Black (Tishaa). Then there were Those Small Lil Things (Rahul Saini) and Keep Off the Grass (Karan Bajaj).

For the uninitiated, here is a sample of the works: In his foreword, Saini writes: “I am basically Punjabi by nature AND MY ENGLISH SUCKS. BUT I WILL STILL BLOODY WRITE THIS BOOK!!!!” (emphasis author’s). Madhavan’s book cover is plastered by blurbs like ‘Get cosy with hot guy at pool party’, ‘Do not disturb: perfect make-out session in progress’. Dude, what’s happening?

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