On the Shelf

THE UNHURRIED CITY: WRITINGS ON CHENNAI
Edited by C.S. Lakshmi
Penguin
Price: Rs 395

Politics, culture and the accoutrements of urban life have always co-existed in an easy, though changing, equilibrium in Chennai. In this collection, essayists, poets and fiction writers come together to map this city that heeds a traditional rhythm yet opens its arms wide for new migrants. An interesting point about the city’s renaming is made by Ashokamitran: “Madras was Madras the whole of the 1950s and 1960s… Madras may have been a name given by the British but in these two hundred years it has accumulated a lot of history and achieved a certain expansiveness. It then belonged to everyone and no one. But now with a new name it has well-defined claimants.” Arundhati Subramaniam in turn puts in verse the claims made by the city on inhabitants and visitors alike: “City that creeps up on me/ just when I am about to affirm/ world citizenship.”

BLUE IS THE COLOUR OF HEAVEN: A JOURNEY INTO AFGHANISTAN
By Richard Loseby
Penguin
Price: Rs 250

Afghanistan has always been on the itinerary for the sturdiest of travellers. And now with the Taliban displaced from Kabul and the world’s mightiest militaries engaged in a war on terror within its territories, the country has once again become a travel writer’s destination. Afghanistan’s booksellers and rug-makers have been profiled, its caves combed and its stories documented. But, oh, how much more there is to know about this land. New Zealand-born Loseby too has a story to tell and he tells it well. And like travellers of longago, he takes the tough, long road to the top of the world, through Iraq and Iran before joining up with the Mujahideen.