Tehelka is an Indian weekly political magazine. Its editor-in-chief is Tarun Tejpal. The first issue of the magazine was published in 2000 as a news website, Tehelka.com. It transitioned through a printed newspaper format until it became a magazine in 2007.

It first received local prominence in 2001 when it exposed match-fixing in Indian professional cricket. The same year, an investigation it carried out on defence procurement, called Operation Westend, received international attention, and led to the resignation of Indian Defence Minister.^[2][3]

History[link]

In 2003, Tehelka was relaunched as a weekly newspaper, funded by 200 founding subscribers and other well-wishers. In 2007, Tehelka once again underwent a transformation, and shifted to a regular magazine format. In September 2007, it came up with a Hindi news based web portal "Tehelka Hindi". In October 2007, it once again captured widespread attention for an elaborate sting operation that claimed to have captured on hidden camera several perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat riots admitting to horrendous crimes, and revealing the riots to be part of a well-planned conspiracy that had state sanction. In October 2008 Tehelka launched its first fortnightly Hindi magazine. Right now Tehelka has four highly successful editions of its Hindi magazine - three regional editions and one national. Sanjay Dubey is the Executive Editor of Tehelka's Hindi editions.

In 2001, Tehelka.com exposed the alleged culture of bribery at the Ministry of Defence (India) (MoD) by setting up a bogus London-based company, and contacted MoD officials for selling thermal binoculars to the Government of India.^[2][4][5] Tehelka claimed to have filmed Bangaru Laxman (the then President of the ruling party BJP) taking a bribe for helping the bogus company in procuring government contracts. During the process, Tehelka also met Jaya Jaitly, the head of Samata Party and a close aide of the defence minister George Fernandes. There was an outcry when the scandal broke, and George Fernandes resigned although he was not accused of taking bribe. Laxman also resigned, while Jaya Jaitly accused Tehelka journalists of being Pakistani agents and raised doubts over the authenticity of the tapes. The tapes were sent to UK for forensic examination, and were confirmed as genuine.^[4]

Tehelka in media[link]

The Tehelka exposé has been documented time and again through various media sources. Veteran Indian journalist, Madhu Trehan, has penned an entire book on the expose and its aftermath. The book, Tehelka as Metaphor, is a forensic study of the sting operation and alleges it was retaliation by the Indian government. In 2004, Art Silverblatt and Nikolai Zlobin described Tehelka as a "muckraking site" in their book "International Communications: A Media Literacy Approach"^[6]

See also[link]

• Barak Missile Deal Scandal
• The Truth: Gujarat 2002

References[link]

External links[link]

• Story of the birth, death and re-birth of 'Tehelka'

Jessica Lal (1965–1999) was a model in New Delhi, who was working as a celebrity barmaid at a crowded socialite party when she was shot dead at around 2 am on 30 April 1999. Dozens of witnesses pointed to Siddharth Vashisht, also known as Manu Sharma, the son of Venod Sharma, a wealthy and influential Congress-nominated Member of Parliament from Haryana, as the murderer.

In the ensuing trial, Manu Sharma and a number of others were acquitted on 21 February 2006.

Following intense media and public pressure, the prosecution appealed and the Delhi High Court conducted proceedings on a fast track with daily hearings conducted over 25 days. The trial court judgment was overturned, and Manu Sharma was found guilty of having murdered Lal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on 20 December 2006.

Background[link]

This article reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry. To meet Wikipedia's quality standards and conform to the neutral point of view policy, please help to introduce a more formal style and remove any personally invested tone. (January 2011)

On 29 April 1999, Jessica Lal was one of several models working an unlicensed bar at a party in the Tamarind Court, which was within the Qutub Colonnade, a refurbished palace overlooking the Qutub Minar in Mehrauli. By midnight the bar had run out of liquor and it would in any event have ceased sales at 12.30 am. At 2 am Lal refused to serve Manu Sharma, who was with a group of three friends, despite him offering her 1000 Rupees. Sharma then produced a .22 pistol and fired it twice: the first bullet hit the ceiling and the second hit Lal in the head and killed her.^[1][2][3]

A mêlee followed the shooting, during which Sharma and his friends — Amardeep Singh Gill, Vikas Yadav, and Alok Khanna — left the scene.^[1] Thereafter, it was reported that contact could not be made with Sharma's family, including his mother, and that they were "absconding".^[4] After eluding police for a few days, with the assistance of accomplices, Khanna and Gill were arrested on 4 May and Sharma on 6 May. The murder weapon was not recovered and was thought to have been passed on to a friend who had been visiting from the US and who may subsequently have returned there.^[2][3]

The case by now involved several prominent people. Sharma himself was the son of Venod Sharma, who at the time of the shooting was a former minister of the national government and by the time of the subsequent trial was a minister in the Haryana state government. Yadav was the son of another state politician, D. P. Yadav. Bina Ramani, who had redeveloped the premises where the party took place, was a socialite and fashion designer who allegedly had contacts in high places and whose daughter knew Lal as a fellow-model. Singh managed the distribution of Coca-Cola in Chandigarh.^[5]

Amit Jhigan, an accomplice of Sharma, was arrested on 8 May and charged with conspiring to destroy evidence, as it was believed that he had retrieved the pistol from its original hiding place near to the club. While he was remanded in custody, Yadav was still at large and it had also proved impossible to locate his father, who had promised to deliver his son to the police.^[3]

It had by now become clear that the party, which was claimed to be a farewell function for Ramani's husband, George Mailhot, had in fact been open to anyone willing to pay. Ramani, her husband, and her daughter Malini were arrested on the same day as Jhigan. They were charged with operating an illegal bar and, although released on bail, had to surrender their passports. There were several lines of inquiry regarding the family, including whether or not Ramani — a UK national — had the necessary permits to operate a business in India. Another concern was to establish whether or not she had concealed evidence by ordering the cleaning up of blood at the premises, although by 19 May it had been announced that charges relating to this alleged destruction of evidence could not be brought.^[3][5][6]

Yadav presented himself to Delhi police on 19 May but was able immediately to leave because he had acquired anticipatory bail papers. He claimed to have been in Bombay and elsewhere during the previous few weeks, and refused to comment regarding whether he had been in contact with his father. He admitted that Sharma had stayed with him on the night of the murder but denied being present himself at the Tamarind Club or having any knowledge of the events that had occurred there until the next day, when he told Sharma to surrender to the police. A complex legal situation involving his paperwork meant that the police did not arrest Yadav at that time.^[6] Subsequently, he had short spells in custody and longer periods when he was freed on bail, with decisions and overturnings of them being made in various court hearings.^[2][7][8]

First trial[link]

Charge sheets were filed with the court on 3 August 1999. Sharma was charged with murder, destruction of evidence and other offences, while Khanna, Gill and Yadav faced lesser charges, including destruction of evidence, conspiracy and harbouring a suspect. Others similarly charged were Shyam Sunder Sharma, Amit Jhingan, Yograj Singh, Harvinder Chopra, Vikas Gill, Raja Chopra, Ravinder Krishan Sudan and Dhanraj. The last three named had not at that time been apprehended.^[2]

According to the BBC, India has a "snail-paced judicial system" and its conviction rate is below 30%.^[9] Seven years after the case was opened, on 21 February 2006, nine of the twelve accused were acquitted, including Sharma. Jhingan had already been discharged and both Ravinder Kishan Sudan and Dhanraj, were still at large. The prosecution had been affected by 32 of their witnesses becoming "hostile". These included Shayan Munshi, Andleeb Sehgal, Karan Rajput, Shiv Lal Yadav and two ballistics experts, Roop Singh and Prem Sagar. Subsequently, in February 2011, it was announced that all 32 would be facing charges for perjury.^[10][11]

The trial judge commented after the outcome that

The court has acquitted them because the Delhi police failed to sustain the grounds on which they had built up their case. The police failed to recover the weapon which was used to fire at Jessica Lal as well as prove their theory that the two cartridges, emptied shells of which were recovered from the spot, were fired from one weapon.^[11]

The Hindu newspaper also reported that the judge was aware that the prosecution was not assisted by the hostility of their witnesses, three of whom had seen the shooting, and by the fact that forensic examination contradicted police claims that two cartridges found at the scene were fired from the same weapon. Finally, the judge believed that the police had failed to provide a sufficient explanation of the chain of events which led up to the killing.^[11]

Reaction to acquittal[link]

The reaction to the verdict was one of outcry. The New York Times described the situation a fortnight later

Most noticeably among India's urban middle class, the acquittal has released a pent-up frustration with an often blundering and corrupt law enforcement bureaucracy and a deep disgust with the rich and famous who, by all appearances, manipulated it to their advantage.^[12]

There were numerous protest campaigns, including ones involving SMS and email, seeking to obtain redress for the perceived miscarriage of justice. Rallies and marches took place, as well as candelit vigils.^[12]

V. N. Khare, a former Chief Justice of India, implicitly criticised the trial judge, saying that it should have been an "open and shut" case and that

Sometimes when the police, the prosecution and the lawyers all have connections with the criminals, the judge should be slightly proactive. He should try to get to the truth, and not depend totally on the evidence provided in court. In a case like this, he is not going to get proper evidence. Mostly the judiciary is depended on the evidence provided by the investigative agencies, but now when the situation is so bad, the judges have to wake up, be proactive and find the truth.^[9]

The Delhi police commissioner announced an investigation to determine where things had gone wrong, and said that among other things it would examine whether there had been a conspiracy, including possibly by tampering with the evidence.^[9]

Appeal and conviction in High Court[link]

The police petitioned the High Court for a review of the case and on 22 March 2006 the court issued warrants against the nine defendants who had stood trial. Eight of them were subsequently bailed in April, with restrictions imposed on their ability to leave the country. The ninth defendant, Gill, had not been traced since the original issue of warrants in March.^[13]

On 9 September 2006, a sting operation by the news magazine Tehelka was shown on the TV channel STAR News. This appeared to show that witnesses had been bribed and coerced into retracting their initial testimony. Venod Sharma was named in the exposé as one who had paid money to some of the witnesses.^[14] Facing pressure from the central Congress leaders, Venod Sharma resigned from the Haryana cabinet.^{[citation needed]}

Judgement[link]

On 15 December 2006, the High Court ruled that Sharma was guilty based on existing evidence, and also criticised the trial judge, S. L. Bhayana.^[15]

The judgement said that the lower court had been lax in not considering the testimony of witnesses such as Bina Ramani and Deepak Bhojwani, stating regarding the treatment of the latter's evidence that

With very great respect to the learned judge [Bhayana], we point out that this manner of testing the credibility of the witness is hardly a rule of appreciation of evidence. ... Obviously, this reflects total lack of application of mind and suggests a hasty approach towards securing a particular end, namely the acquittal."^[15]

In particular, the key witness Munshi came in for serious criticism. The judgement says, of his earlier repudiation of the First Information Report that "[Munshi] is now claiming that the said statement was recorded in Hindi while he had narrated the whole story in English as he did not know Hindi at all ... We do not find this explanation of Munshi to be convincing." Regarding Munshi's testimony that two guns were involved, the judgement says: "In court he has taken a somersault and came out with a version that there were two gentlemen at the bar counter. ... [W]e have no manner of doubt that on this aspect he is telling a complete lie."^[15]

On 20 December 2006, Sharma was punished with a sentence of life imprisonment and a fine. The other accused, Yadav and Gill, were fined and given four years' rigorous imprisonment. A plea for Sharma to be sentenced to death was rejected on the grounds that the murder, although intentional, was not premeditated and Sharma was not considered to be a threat to society.^[16]

Sharma's lawyer announced that the decision would be appealed in Supreme Court because the judgement was wrong in holding Bina Ramani to be a witness.^[16]

Parole for Sharma, 2009[link]

On 24 September 2009, the government in Delhi paroled Sharma for a 30 day period so that he could attend to some matters relating to his sick mother and the family business. ^[17] The parole was extended by further 30 days, during which he was seen to be partying in a night-club and his mother undertook public functions.^[18]

Sharma returned himself to Tihar jail on 10 November 2009, two weeks before his parole expired.^[18]

Supreme Court confirmation of sentences[link]

On 19 April 2010, the Supreme Court of India approved the sentences and said that

The evidence regarding the actual incident, the testimonies of witnesses, the evidence connecting the vehicles and cartridges to the accused — Manu Sharma, as well as his conduct after the incident prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The High Court has analysed all the evidence and arrived at the correct conclusion.^[19]

Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who represented Sharma in the Supreme Court, assailed the High Court verdict, alleging that the media had prejudged the issue and conducted a campaign to vilify his client. The Supreme Court accepted that there had been an element of "trial by media" but believed that it had not affected the decision of the High Court.^[19]

See also[link]

• Law in India
• No One Killed Jessica - a Bollywood movie about the case

References[link]

External links[link]

• News summary at Rediff.com
• News summary at the BBC

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011)

Shoma Chaudhury is an Indian journalist, currently serving as the managing editor of Tehelka, a weekly news magazine published from New Delhi, India. She has been in the field of journalism for the last 15 years.^{[1][dead link]}

Shoma Chaudhury, Managing Editor, Tehelka, India, during the What Kind of Superpower will India Be? Debate at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit 2010 held in New Delhi, 14–16 November 2010.

Career[link]

Before joining print journalism, Chaudhury was employed at Doordarshan, directing more than 40 weekly television shows on books and writers. Her journalistic career began as Books Editor at The Pioneer later moving to the India Today, and then the Outlook news magazine. In 2000, she left Outlook to join Tehelka, which had just launched the website Tehelka.com. Following a high-profile expose on corruption in India's defence industry, the then NDA government forced the website to close in 2002. Only four of its staff remained to defend the magazine’s legal issues, one of which was Shoma.^{[2][not in citation given]} In 2004, the website was relaunched as a weekly news magazine.^[3] Since then, Chaudhury has been Director of Special Projects and Features Editor at Tehelka.^{[1][dead link]}

Writings[link]

Chaudhury's writings cover many prominent contemporary issues in India: communal strife, the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency, and conflicts between the Indian government and dispossessed people.^[4][5]

She has also written for several foreign publications including The Independent and the Financial Times. ^{[1][dead link]} She appears occasionally in various international media as subject expert on numerous discussions related to contemporary India including an appearance on the Riz Khan show on Al Jazeera English channel in a discussion on Maoist insurgency in India in April 2010. ^[6] She has featured in panel discussions at various international events including the India Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum 2010 at New Delhi held in November 2010,^[7][8] the India Europe Forum (April 12–13, 2010) held by the Instituto Cervantes at New Delhi,^[9] the World Editor's Forum 2009 ,^[3] the Jaipur Literature Festival '10 ,^[10][11] the Hay Festival in Kerala (November 2010)^[12] and various other events.^[13]

Views[link]

Shoma Chaudhary is a severe critic of the current state of the Indian media. Speaking on a panel on investigative journalism at the 16th World Editors Forum, she remarked on the state of journalism in India as "pathetic" as it had become "a corporate rather than a political act". She was critical of the "focus on advertisement revenue" rather than public interest, adding that "journalism has thus been undervalued, and this needs to change.^[3] On another occasion she was quoted as saying:^[14]

India's political, corporate and media establishment sounds like a mobile cocktail party, gliding, champagne glasses in hand, in and out of each others' drawing rooms, television studios, boardrooms and award ceremonies like actors in an elaborate charade.

She was critical of the nature of the recent Radia tapes controversy calling it a "mistake", noting that the tapes "end abruptly or seem to be missing bits of the conversations (which means)... Someone has carefully edited the tapes". She was also critical of the nature of the debate of the controversy that followed, observing that it had "distracted from the larger question of journalistic ethics... to.. just become a misogynistic, medieval witch hunt.” ^[15][16]

Literary critic[link]

She is also a noted literary critic in India ^[17][18] and was one of the judges of the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2006.^[19] She also serves as a literary consultant with the British Council.^{[1][dead link][20]}

Recognition[link]

In 2009, Shoma was awarded the Chameli Jain award for Outstanding Woman Mediapersons. The award recognises journalists for "excellence, impact, social concern, innovation, style and originality of work in the print or broadcast medium".^[21]

She also won the 2009 Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism award in the category of Film and Television (Print) for her "unconventional edge in her interviews with Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan engaging them in conversations ranging from journalism to politics to Islam.^[22]

References[link]

Vikram Seth (Punjabi: ਵਿਕਰਮ ਸੇਠ, pronounced [ˈʋɪkrəm ˈseːʈʰ]; born 20 June 1952) is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.

Early life[link]

Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 in a Punjabi family to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta (now Kolkata). His family lived in many cities including the Bata Shoe Company town of Batanagar, Danapur near Patna, and in London.

His younger brother, Shantum, leads Buddhist meditational tours. His younger sister, Aradhana, is a film-maker married to an Austrian diplomat, and has worked on Deepa Mehta's movies Earth and Fire. (Compare the characters Haresh, Lata, Savita and two of the Chatterji siblings in A Suitable Boy: Seth has been candid in acknowledging that many of his fictional characters are drawn from life; he has said that only the dog Cuddles in A Suitable Boy has his real name — "Because he can't sue". Justice Leila Seth has said in her memoir On Balance that other characters in A Suitable Boy are composites but Haresh is a portrait of her husband Prem.)

Seth spent part of his youth in London but returned to his homeland in 1957. After receiving primary and commencing secondary education at the Doon School in Dehradun in India, Seth returned to England to Tonbridge School.^[1] From there, Seth studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he developed an interest in poetry and learned Chinese. After leaving Oxford, Seth moved to California to work on a graduate degree in economics at Stanford University. He then went on to study creative writing at Stanford and classical Chinese poetry at Nanjing University in China.

Having lived in London for many years, Seth now maintains residences near Salisbury, England, where he is a participant in local literary and cultural events, having bought and renovated the house of the Anglican poet George Herbert in 1996,^[2] and in Delhi, where he lives with his parents and keeps his extensive library and papers.

Seth self-identifies as bisexual. In 2006, he became a leader of the campaign against India's Section 377, a law against homosexuality.^[3]

Work themes[link]

A polyglot, Seth detailed in an interview (in the year 2005) in the Australian magazine Good Weekend that he has studied several languages, including Welsh, German and, later, French in addition to Mandarin, English (which he describes as "my instrument" in answer to Indians who query his not writing in his native Hindi), Urdu (which he reads and writes in Nasta’liq script), and Hindi, which he reads and writes in the Dēvanāgarī script. He plays the Indian flute and the cello and sings German lieder, especially Schubert.

Business acumen[link]

Seth's former literary agent Giles Gordon recalled being interviewed by Seth for the position:

Vikram sat at one end of a long table and he began to grill us. It was absolutely incredible. He wanted to know our literary tastes, our views on poetry, our views on plays, which novelists we liked.^[4]

Seth later explained to Gordon that he had passed the interview not because of commercial considerations, but because unlike the others he was the only agent who seemed as interested in his poetry as in his other writing. Seth followed what he has described as "the ludicrous advance for that book" (£250,000 for A Suitable Boy^[5]) with £500,000 for An Equal Music and £1.4 million for Two Lives.^[6] He prepared an acrostic poem for his address at Gordon's 2005 memorial service:

Gone though you have, I heard your voice today.

I tried to make out what the words might mean,

Like something seen half-clearly on a screen:

Each savoured reference, each laughing bark,

Sage comment, bad pun, indiscreet remark.

Gone since you have, grief too in time will go,

Or share space with old joy; it must be so.

Rest then in peace, but spare us some elation.

Death cannot put down every conversation.

Over and out, as you once used to say?

Not on your life. You're on this line to stay.^[7]

Writing[link]

[edit] Travel writing: From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet

Seth has published five volumes of poetry. His first, Mappings (1980), was originally privately published; it attracted little attention and indeed Philip Larkin, to whom he sent it for comment, referred to it scornfully among his intimates, though he offered Seth encouragement.^[4]

In 2009 Seth contributed four poems to Oxfam which are used as introductions to each of the four collections of UK stories which form Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' book project.^[8]

Novels in prose[link]

[edit] The "novel in verse": The Golden Gate (Hybrid)

The first of his novels, The Golden Gate (1986) is a novel in verse about the lives of a number of young professionals in San Francisco. The novel is written entirely in Onegin stanzas after the style Aleksandr Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Seth had encountered Charles Johnston's 1977 translation of it in a Stanford second-hand bookstore and it changed the direction of his career, shifting his focus from academic to literary work. The likelihood of commercial success seemed highly doubtful – and the scepticism of friends as to the novel's viability is facetiously quoted within the novel; but the verse novel received wide acclaim (Gore Vidal dubbed it "The Great California Novel") and achieved healthy sales. The novel contains a strong element of affectionate satire, as with his subsequent novel, A Suitable Boy.

"The Golden Gate, an opera in two acts with music by Conrad Cummings and libretto from the novel-in-verse by Vikram Seth adapted by the composer" is currently (2010) in development by LivelyWorks and American Opera Projects and receives a staged workshop production at the Rose Studio at Lincoln Center in New York City in January 2010.

[edit] A Suitable Boy

After the success of The Golden Gate, Seth took up residence in his parents' house back in Delhi to work on his second novel, A Suitable Boy (1993). Though initially conceived as a short piece detailing the domestic drama of an Indian mother's search for an appropriate husband for her marriageable Indian daughter against the background of the formative years of India after independence, the novel grew and Seth was to labour over it for almost a decade. The 1474-page novel is a four-family saga set in post-independence, post-Partition India, and alternatively satirically and earnestly examines issues of national politics in the period leading up to the first post-independence national election of 1952, inter-sectarian animosity, the status of lower caste peoples such as the jatav, land reform and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords, academic affairs, inter- and intra-family relations and a range of further issues of importance to the characters. The Indian journalist and novelist Khushwant Singh has said of the novel that, "I lived through that period and I couldn't find a flaw. It really is an authentic picture of Nehru's India."^[9] The novel was, despite its formidable length, a bestseller, and propelled Seth into the public spotlight.

A Suitable Girl (not yet released)[link]

Seth has confirmed (July 2009) that he is writing a contemporary novel including characters from A Suitable Boy, to be published in 2013.^[10] He describes A Suitable Girl as a "jump sequel", with Lata looking for a "suitable girl" for her grandson.

[edit] An Equal Music

Seth's third novel, An Equal Music (1999), set in contemporary Europe, focuses on the lives of classical musicians and their music.

Some readers and critics complained that Michael, the protagonist, was simply not a likeable (or unlikeable) enough character to sustain interest throughout a substantial novel and that the focus on the music for its own sake can be trying for the uninitiated. However, Paolo Isotta, one of Italy's most significant music critics, wrote in the influential newspaper Il Corriere della Sera of the Italian translation that no European writer had ever shown such a knowledge of European classical music, nor had any European novel before managed to convey the psychology, the technical abilities, even the human potentialities of those who practise music for a living^[11]

Seth credits his then-partner, the French violinist Philippe Honoré, as inspiring him with the idea for An Equal Music in an acrostic sonnet on Honoré's name in the epigraph:

Perhaps this could have stayed unstated.

Had our words turned to other things

In the grey park, the rain abated,

Life would have quickened other strings.

I list your gifts in this creation:

Pen, paper, ink and inspiration,

Peace to the heart with touch or word,

Ease to the soul with note and chord.

How did that walk, those winter hours,

Occasion this? No lightning came;

Nor did I sense, when touched by flame,

Our story lit with borrowed powers –

Rather, by what our spirits burned,

Embered in words, to us returned.^[12]

Seth together with Philippe Honoré marketed a double CD of the music mentioned in An Equal Music, performed by Honoré.^[13]

Libretto[link]

[edit] The Rivered Earth

The Rivered Earth, released in late 2011, consists of four libretti taking inspiration from the Salisbury house where English poet George Herbert lived and died which also serves the illustration for the book cover. The libretti is written to accompany music by Alec Roth, and quite a few of the pieces were adjusted and rewritten to suit Roth's style. The venue for the libretti are churches, including Salisbury church. The four parts are entitled 'Songs in Time of War', 'Shared Ground', 'The Traveller' and 'Seven Elements'. They are inspired from Chinese and Indian poetry and even George Herbert's house which Seth later bought. They pieces are also accompanied by four pieces of calligraphy in Chinese, Hindi, English and Arabic by him. ^[14]

[edit] Biography/Memoir: Two Lives

Two Lives, is a non-fiction family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, and published in October 2005. It focuses on the lives of his great-uncle (Shanti Behari Seth) and German-Jewish great aunt (Henny Caro) who met in Berlin in the early 1930s while Shanti was a student there and with whom Seth stayed extensively on going to England at age 17 for school. As with From Heaven Lake, Two Lives contains much autobiography.

Range[link]

Seth's range is demonstrated by the historical accuracy of A Suitable Boy, with the nuanced cultivated-Indian English of the narrative voice and the entirely in-character voices of the principals of the story; the correspondingly accurate depiction of northern California yuppies of the 1980s in The Golden Gate; and his portrait of the world of western classical musicians in An Equal Music. He has continued to produce volumes of poetry at intervals alongside his publications in a range of other forms, including translations from Chinese poets.

A film of A Suitable Boy was slated to go into production in 2007, an earlier attempt at a television serialisation having been abandoned.

Bibliography[link]

Prizes and awards[link]

• 1983 – Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet
• 1985 – Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) The Humble Administrator's Garden
• 1993 – Irish Times International Fiction Prize (shortlist) A Suitable Boy
• 1994 – Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) A Suitable Boy
• 1994 – WH Smith Literary Award A Suitable Boy
• 1999 – Crossword Book Award "An Equal Music"
• 2001 – EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Best Book/Novel An Equal Music
• 2005 – Pravasi Bharatiya Samman
• 2007 – Padma Shri in Literature & Education

Notes[link]

• Chaudhuri, Amit (ed.). "Vikram Seth (b. 1952)." The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature. New York: Vintage, 2004:508–537.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Vikram Seth

• Literary Encyclopedia biography
• Emory biography
• Contemporary Writers Biography
• Vikram Seth at the Internet Movie Database
• 1999 BBC audio interview with Vikram Seth
• "Poetic License" by Cynthia Haven, "Stanford Magazine," May/June 1999
• video interview with Vikram Seth
• 1990 BOMB Magazine interview with Vikram Seth by Ameena Meer

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (December 2009)

Nitoo Das (Assamese: নিতু দাস) is an Indian English poet from Assam and lives in Delhi. She teaches literature at Indraprashtha College for Women, University of Delhi.^[1]

She is the author Boki, a collection of poems.^[2] She is one of the major new literary voices in English from Assam.

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• Literature from North East India
• Indian English Literature

References[link]

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