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The Tribune 2011 THE YEAR OF UPRISINGS BOOKS & BEYOND SUNDAY 25 DECEMBER 2011 DESI, WITH A ‘PHOREN’ TOUCH Books, conventional as well as electronic, took us to worlds beyond our individual immediate. Readers took to memoirs as well as fiction, even as they sought perspectives, both Indian and Western, to understand life and people By Roopinder Singh HE story of the man who contributed the another controversy, on Mahatma Gand- world order and this has brought new most towards moving us from words hi, with Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul: books like Indian Mujahideen: The printed on paper to those on electronic Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with Enemy Within by Shishir Gupta and The screens became a runaway bestseller of . Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam. 2011. Steve Jobs gave us the devices that Arundhati Roy, the great cerebral con- On the fiction front, Amitav Ghosh won changed our reading habits, and here he troversy queen, published a book without much acclaim with his detailed and multi- T was, being celebrated not only in his pre- writing one, and thus we had Broken layered work River of Smoke, Aravind ferred media, but also in the traditional Republic: Three Essays. Talking of writ- Adiga gave us Last Man in Tower, Aatish pulp book format. Reports of the ‘death ers who published books without writing Taseer Noon, and Tarun J. Tejpal The Val- of the book’ have been greatly exagger- them, the king of the bestseller charts ley of Masks. ated. Readership expanded, and both tra- continued his winning streak with Khush- Memoirs formed a significant part of our ditional publishers and e-book publishers want Singh on Women, Sex, Love and reading appetite, be they those of the vet- gained. Lust, which was compiled and edited by eran journalist S. Nihal Singh who wrote STEVE JOBS RIVER OF SMOKE THE VALLEY OF MASKS GREAT SOUL Internationally, authors too gained, since Ashok Chopra, as was Agnostic Khush- Ink in my Veins, or No Higher Honour by BY WALTER ISAACSON BY AMITAV GHOSH BY TARUN J. TEJPAL BY JOSEPH LELYVELD they were now being courted by both want: There is No God! which came out the former US Secretary of State Con- kinds of publishers. Of course, those who near the end of the year. doleeza Rice. Chandigarh’s own Abhi- REVOLUTION 2020: LOVE. DOES HE KNOW A A SHOT AT HISTORY BROKEN REPUBLIC: wrote really good books, like the Delhi- The man who has changed what the nav Bindra teamed up with sports writer CORRUPTION. AMBITION MOTHER’S HEART? BY ABHINAV BINDRA AND THREE ESSAYS born Siddhartha Mukherjee, added new word ‘bestseller’ means for Indian pub- Rohit Brijnath and gave an interesting BY CHETAN BHAGAT BY ARUN SHOURIE ROHIT BRIJNATH BY ARUNDHATI ROY feathers to their cap. This doctor-author lishing, Chetan Bhagat, built on his rep- account in A Shot at History: My Obses- got fresh recognition for his last year’s utation by selling lakhs of books within sive Journey to Olympic Gold. Business much-acclaimed book, The Emperor of days of releasing Revolution 2020: Love. tycoons gave their accounts of their lives, All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Corruption. Ambition. Often books that be it Vinay Bharat Ram whose From the While on his side of the pond, he won the critics love don’t make that much of an Brink of Bankruptcy: The DCM Story prestigious 2011 Pulitzer Prize in the gen- impact on bestseller lists. Among the top- made it to the bestseller list, or real estate eral non-fiction category, on the other 10 list we consistently have two other magnates Ansals and DLF. side; he also bagged the Guardian First Bhagat titles — 2 States: The Story of My Yes, while international publishers sold Book Award just before the year ended. Marriage and The Three Mistakes of My many books to Indian readers, including The writer of tomes Arun Shourie’s Life. Talking of numbers, we now have some through various kinds of electron- Does He Know a Mother’s Heart? Nielsen BookScan which is gathering ic devices and e-book readers, it was the touched the heart of everyone who read data from book stores and publishers traditional book that ruled the roost, and the story of his family’s battle with dis- nationwide. largely Indian authors found resonance abilities. We had yet another book, and We seek new understanding of the new among avid readers.

THE ENTERTAINERS

Sunny side up Sunny Leone, the Indo-Canadian adult film actress, emerged as India’s most-Googled celebrity, beating , Kareena Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. , who had met Sunny inside the house of Bigg Boss Season 5, offered her a role in Jism 2. He chose her over Mallika Sherawat and Bipasha Basu. Sunny was born Karen Malhotra to Sikh Punjabi parents in Ontario, Canada.

Chammak challoed,notRa.One Ra.One, an action-packed sci-fi thriller directed by Anubhav Sinha and produced by himself, promised to take cinema to the next level. However, despite a bumper opening, the most-talked about film of the year failed to click with the audience. “Chammak Challo”, a song filmed on Kareena Kapoor and sung by Akon, how- ever, was named the most downloaded song and video of the year.

Going Tanglish Saadda controversy Officially released on November 16, Why This A major part of the controversial song “Saadda Kolaveri Di, a song from the soundtrack of the Haq” starring Ranbir Kapoor from Imtiaz Ali’s upcoming Tamil film 3, written and sung by Rockstar, which became a rage with the youth, Dhanush, instantly became viral on social net- was shot at the Norbulingka monastery in working sites for its quirky “Tanglish” (portman- McLeodganj, Dharamsala. The sequence saw teau word of Tamil and English) lyrics. Soon, the people waving the Free Tibet flag in the backdrop. song became the most-searched YouTube video in Following orders from the Censor Board to blur the India. Within a few weeks, YouTube honoured the flag and the slogan, Ali removed the sequence. video with a Recently Most Popular Gold Medal Deletion of the Tibetan flag from the video caused Award for receiving a large number of hits in a wide protests in Tibet, Dharamsala and Chennai. short time. The song was composed by music director Anirudh Ravichander.

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