Promise in another land
A.J. Philip
The Last Jews of Kerala
by Edna Fernandes. Penguin/Viking.
Pages 205. Rs 450.
ON a visit to the Jew Town at Mattanchery in Kerala, I accosted an old Jewish woman selling souvenirs and booklets to know a little more about her community, but she simply refused to talk. Twenty years ago, the Jews of Kerala had already become a Museum community with tourists harassing them with awkward questions and some even invading their privacy in their homes by peering through their windows.

Charismatic filmmaker
Rachna Singh
Under Her Spell
by Dileep Padgaonkar.
Penguin Books.
Pages 263. Rs 550.
AS a teenager I would often stay up late at night to watch old films screened by Doordarshan. One such film was Ingrid Bergman’s Notorious. This black and white film with its stark cameos was the start of my obsession with cinema.

How class and gender have changed
Amarinder Sandhu
Globalization on the Ground — Media and the Transformation of Culture, Class and Gender in India
by Steve Derne.
Sage Publications. 
Pages 243. Rs 495.
IN the ‘golden summer’ of 1991, India opened the doors of its economy and over the years it has been transformed by globalisation. The economic liberalisation has increased consumerism and created new job oppurtunities.

In the city of dreams
Gayatri Rajwade
Urban Voice 3 — Bombay: New Writing
Frog Books.
Pages 181. Rs 195.
THAT there is a multitude of writings available on and about Mumbai, more now than ever before, is not surprising. The city forms an opinion in your mind before you can even breathe in the humid air wrapped deeply around its fish.

Feathers, flocks and fangs
Aditi Garg
Wild City — Nature Wonders Next Door
by Ranjit Lal.
Penguin Books India.
Pages 282. Rs 275.
HOWEVER, sophisticated and civilised man may become, he will always feels the pull towards his roots, the wild. Having descended from apes (or vice-a-versa, as the book suggests) he can at times find downplaying his primate-like characteristics very difficult.

Tale of a reckless reader
Michael Arditti
Apology for the Woman Writing
by Jenny Diski.
Virago.
Pages 282. £16.99.
MANY novels have explored the experience of writing, far fewer that of reading. Its title notwithstanding, Apology for the Woman Writing is one of the latter.

An evening with Ahmad Faraz
Amarjit Chandan writes about a candid interview with the Urdu poet in London in
1985 for his book Humsukhan
WHEN I met Ahmad Faraz in a pub in Piccadilly London, we both talked about the news of the hanging of a 30-year-old South African poet Benjamin Moloisi.