BLACK ’N’ WHITE: The facade of Waterstone

Black day for books

Sorry, but the case for allowing foreign retailers into India has not been made, not unless we want millions of small businessmen and women thrown on the scrap heap. Foreign retailers may be very good at what they do but their interests are not necessarily the same as those of India.

In the UK, Tesco, the supermarket chain which is about to enter India, has — many critics say — inflicted a blight upon the land. Last week, Debenhams wouldn’t discuss the department store it is opening in Delhi — does it have something to hide? This is a warning that if India lets in foreign retailers, the exercise could end in tears.

There is also an issue about how “products” are retailed. Take, for example, books. In the UK the biggest retail chain is Waterstone’s, which has 200 branches. The one in Piccadilly, with five floors and a basement, is the biggest bookshop in Europe. It has now found a novel way of relegating the most respected contemporary authors in English literature under the generic heading of “Black and Asian” literature.

Can Salman Rushdie (winner of the Booker and Booker of Bookers for Midnight’s Children), Vikram Seth (author of the bestselling A Suitable Boy), Arundhati Roy (Booker winner for The God of Small Things), Rohinton Mistry (author of A Fine Balance) and V.S. Naipaul (Booker winner for In a Free State and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature) really be dismissed as authors who have produced “Black and Asian” titles?

What on earth does this mean? Are the authors Black or Asian? Are the subjects dealt with Black or Asian — in which case why is E.M. Forster’s Passage to India not included? Or is this a way of marginalising authors of Black and Asian origin?

It would certainly be an education to know why James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, one of the landmarks of American literature, is included in this group.

It is significant that Kiran Desai’s recent Booker winning The Inheritance of Loss, though reduced by £7, is omitted. But Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, one of the author’s less successful works, is. There is even a “three for two” inducement to purchase this title. All this suggests Waterstone’s is less interested in encouraging people to read the best literature, more in tricking readers into parting with their cash.

What makes the inclusion of Naipaul under “Black and Asian” more baffling is that on the ground floor, there is a focus on the author, with nearly all his works on one stand. Putting books under “Black and Asian” is ultimately self-defeating for one passes by them quickly as one does with any shelf with the warning, “Feminist Literature” or “Black and Asian women’s writing”.

I thought great books, although located in one culture, are great because they transcend narrow nationalism, race and religion. The path that Waterstone’s has taken will lead to books being classified under “Muslim”, “Hindu” and “Jewish” literature.

The Cairo Trilogy and The Palace Walk by Nobel Prize winning Naguib Mahfouz, who died in August, are also listed under “Black and Asian”.

All these years I was labouring under the impression that he was an Egyptian and an Arab and hence neither Black nor Asian. But that’s modern retailing for you and it could be on its way to a bookshop near you.

FRIENDS IN DEED: Vanessa Redgrave with Shabana Azmi MEN IN BLACK: Vinod Sharawat (left) and Sameer HanchateFAB FOUR: The new set of stamps to be out in January

Sisters in arms

Rohit Khattar gave a party for Shabana Azmi last week at his new establishment, Tamarai, which The Observer has described as a “top-end pan-Asian restaurant in the West End”.

Sadly, Shabana had disappeared before I could talk to her about Vanessa Redgrave, who had presented her with the “Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award” for the actress’s work with slum dwellers.

Shabana called Redgrave “my hero”. Perhaps she means “heroine”. Anyway, Redgrave is to Britain what Shabana is to India, perhaps even more so. As with Bollywood, the entire Redgrave dynasty is in acting, but unlike Bollywood, it is on the basis of talent.

Thirteen years older than 56-year-old Shabana, Redgrave has, among many causes, long supported Palestinian rights and been a fervent opponent of America’s “war on terror”.

Earlier this year, Redgrave said: “I don’t know of a single government that actually abides by international human rights law, not one, including my own. In fact, [they] violate these laws in the most despicable and obscene way, I would say.”

India and the UK ought to organise a sister swap. In Britain, some Muslim women are fighting for the right to wear a burkha and are being strongly supported by a number of Muslim “community leaders”.

Boys in black

After the screening of Yatra (The Journey) at the London Film Festival, members of the audience came up to its 56-year-old director, Goutam Ghose, and expressed their warm appreciation. The central character in his story is a writer (Nana Patekar), who is torn between his love for his wife (Deepti Naval) and the Umrao Jaan-type music of a courtesan Lajvanti (Rekha). I especially liked the end where Lajvanti spirits away the body of her lover after he suffers a heart attack and dies in her arms. This happens just as the wife, who has been looking for her absent husband, arrives at Lajvanti’s kothi.

What was greatly encouraging was Sameer Hanchate’s film, Gafla, about a scam in the Bombay Stock Exchange. He and his lead character, Vinod Sharawat (“no, I’m not related to Mallika Sherawat but I can be if it helps”), who are both 29 and dress smartly in black, have a bright future, I’m convinced.

The film has done only “ok” in India, Sameer was honest enough to admit.

If he could cut out the unnecessary voiceover (why is it Indian filmmakers love voiceover in a medium which should be visual?) and remake the film in English, it would attract an international audience. Traditional Bollywood films, it should be apparent by now, will never achieve a crossover.

Films like Gafla represent the way forward. Incidentally, its theme is very similar to that of Rogue Trader, a 1999 English movie based on a real life scam operated by Nick Leeson, whose trading led to the collapse of his employers, Barings Bank.

Beatle mania

Mira Nair, who plans to make a documentary on The Beatles in India, ought to collaborate with Deepa Mehta and her talented ex-husband, Paul Saltzman. The latter, who was there with The Beatles in Rishikesh, has written the definitive book on the subject with exclusive pictures.

Here, in the UK, Royal Mail is also on the trail of the Fab Four, who are being honoured with a new set of stamps in January. Meanwhile, “Lady” Heather McCartney nee Mills is on the trail of just one Beatle. She wants Paul to give her money, that’s what she wants.

Tittle tattle

President Musharraf’s work of faction, In the Line of Fire, published in the UK by Simon & Schuster at £18.99, is now available at half price. It is understood he has given signed copies to Charles and Camilla who were his guests in Pakistan last week. It’s something the royal couple have always

wanted.