Art of criticism

Rana Dasgupta

All India’s literary circuit is talking about now is a wonderful article by Tokyo Cancelled author Rana Dasgupta, where he gently takes apart the Indian media’s coverage of matters literary. These are the telling points Dasgupta makes: apart from a few critics who know literature inside out, books coverage in India borders on the ridiculous. Review space is cramped, ideas and debate are ruthlessly cramped down to fit page specifications. Attention is given to writers, rather than books, and even this is shallow, meeting writers as ‘celebs’, mostly conducted by journalists who have no idea what they’re doing, concerned only with projecting a pseudo-nationalistic vision of Indians doing well abroad and meeting rushing deadlines. There’s something for editors to think about.

Gaming is here

As someone who’s spent a large chunk of my formative years in front of computers notching up high scores, I was intrigued to see shows on Indian TV which set up teams of video gamers against each other, playing multi-player first-person shooters to win prizes. Gaming’s taken a huge leap in India over the last decade. Abroad, there’s even an active debate about whether gaming should be a competitive sport or not. There’s no doubting the mental challenge, strategic skills, co-ordination and sheer stamina involved in competitive gaming. And there are professional gamers whose dedication to the game rivals that of pro athletes in any sport. So if darts and bridge are sports, why not gaming? A rising star who might interest Indian fans is Ahmed Kholwadia, aka Asian Hawk, the UK’s football gaming champion, who’s currently participating in the Electronic Sports World Cup in Paris.

One more week to go, and Pottermania’s building, rapidly and steadily. Who is the half-blood prince? Who’s dying in this book? What international gang of pirates is trying to beat the complex international security arrangements and steal the secrets HP6 contains?

Olympic goals

Cheering for London

So London’s hosting the 2012 Olympics with Indian support, and India’s bidding to host in 2016 with British support. Will the Indian hockey team please note that in the 1948 Olympics, also held in London, the Indian team’s record was as follows: Played 5, Won 5, Goals for 25, Goals against 2.

The holy cows

As religion-related terrorism rears its ugly head again in India, it’s heartwarming to learn that somewhere out there, someone has a sense of proportion ? and a sense of humour ? about religion. Ship of Fools, a Christian web magazine that describes itself as the ‘Private Eye of the Christian world’, has launched a competition to find the most offensive religious joke. The aim is to provoke a debate about the line between the humorous and the offensive. “There are a million different reasons for comedy, but one is to prick pomposity. And when it comes to self-righteousness and pomposity, religion has been the unchallenged winner for the last 5,000 years,’ said comedian Mark Steel in a recent BBC interview.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

To Ashifkhan Jahurkhan, 25, who got married to his fianc?e in Mumbai over his mobile phone (in speaker mode) when he couldn’t make it to the wedding after the torrential rains in Gujarat.