Ranjabati, photographed by Avinash Pasricha

Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi is Gopal to him. Aijaz Ahmed is Aijaz. Amit Chaudhuri has a knack for creating spaces as also breaching them, in his own literary style that he refuses to classify as “post-colonial” or a reaction to the Empire.

Conversing with Tilottama Tharoor of New York University at the launch of his new title Clearing a Space: Reflections on India, Literature and Culture, published by Permanent Black, Chaudhuri found himself responding to Tharoor’s remarks on his first novel rather than his current compilation.

But the audience at Oxford Bookstore — a combination of writer-theatre person Anjum Katyal, kantha expert Shamlu Dudeja, German consul-general Gunter Wehrmann, critic Manasij Majumdar and school principal Anuradha Das — did not complain. Getting these diverse people together was of course Mayna Bhagat, who put everything in perspective with her: “We didn’t understand much, but what we did will remain with us.”

Starry no-show

It was slated to be a showbiz shower but proved to be a damp squib. The crowd at Willow & Birch at The Park made small talk, sipped on white wine and then some red, made a beeline for the aperitifs and grew restless, but few of the stalwart panelists for the launch of the series The Legends of Indian Cinema on August 25 made an appearance.

Mrinal Sen was ill. Buddhadeb Dasgupta was shooting his film. Only Aparna Sen obliged. In a cream and black kantha ensemble with a chunky silver neckpiece, she managed to look fetching at 60-plus, but fretted at the delay. Her husband Kalyan Ray could do little apart from hugging her every now and then.

Eventually, the show began with Cinemaya editor Aruna Vasudev introducing the series. Aparna lauded her effort in bringing out books on cine legends of yore at a time “when we are subjected to such films as Singh is Kinng and Phoonk”.

Her story

Ranjabati Sircar would be remembered by most as a brilliant, beautiful dancer who died young — at 36, in 1999. But the First Class First in English literature from Jadavpur University also had an incisive pen. Her writings have now been collated by Aishika Chakraborty and published by Thema.

Ranjabati: A Dancer and Her World was launched last Thursday with a copy each being handed over to Shanu Lahiri, Sankha Ghosh and Ranjabati’s uncle Pinaki Ranjan Chaki.

“When a keen mind like Ranjabati’s writes on dance, it becomes invaluable,” says Sudeshna Banerjee of Thema. “As early as 1980s she was writing on the thinking body and the moving mind, ideas that are being explored only now,” says Aishika, a member of Dancers’ Guild that was founded by Ranjabati’s mother Manjusri Chaki-Sircar and the platform on which Ranjabati showcased Navanritya, a feminist intervention in modern Indian dance.

The book also contains a wealth of photographs by renowned lenspersons like Avinash Pasricha, Dayanita Singh and Ray Clark.

PM’s girl

The Prime Minister’s daughter was in town. Upinder Singh, the oldest of the three of Manmohan’s children, was here for the launch of her second book, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India published by Pearson Longman.

A no-frills person, she is known to have first proposed to her future husband when she was a student at St Stephen’s. It was only when she joined as faculty did Vijay Thanka say yes.

At the newly opened Indian Centre for Cultural Research, Upinder, much like her father, held her own ground in the presence of formidable historians like B. D. Chattopadhyay, Rajat Ray, Hari Vasudevan and Sugata Bose. While Vasudevan lauded Upinder’s attempt to make history challenging and attractive to students, Chattopadhyay spent most of half-an-hour pointing out lacunae in the PM’s daughter’s work while admitting “I was a little jealous when I saw the book”.

A 704-page history tome, it is replete with brilliant shots of Ajanta, ancient pottery from the archives of Purana Qilla and the stick figures of Harappa.

Pearson, while doing up the ICCR venue very tastefully with some of Aditya Arya’s photos, went stingy on the guests, offering them tea at nine in the night after a prolonged evening that started at six.