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The City and The City and The City #6 – Kolkata
March 9th, 2010 | 
Author: 
"My song shall be of Food, producer of strength, through whom the keeper of nectar smote the demon.
On you, O Food, is fixed the great Gods' desire. Great deeds are done under your sign, the Serpent slain" ~ Sadamada, from the Rig Veda
I would gladly sing this to the chicken paratha that finishes my day in the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, where we officially end Lit Sutra in the company of friends and colleagues from The British Council offices in Kolkata. I travel with China the next day to Goa for a final event with a partner organization but the meat and drink of the Lit Sutra activity has ended with its 72nd event, at the Oxford Bookstore.
The day began with a creative writing workshop at Jadavpur University, where we meet writers and academics Rimi Chatterjee and Abhijit Gupta, and students create short pieces based on a hybrid monster. While they Frankenstein away my friend and colleague Debanjan Chakrabarti, who blogged here recently on the Ian Rankin tour, whisks me to the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, established in 1792 and the second oldest cricket club in the world after the MCC. I accompany him to the Kolkata British Council office to catch up with colleagues I haven't seen since last year's London Book Fair before we dash off through the beepy, pastel Kolkata streets to the Oxford Bookstore, and China in conversation with Abhijit. China is razor-sharp on questions about the conspiracy of marketing departments to convince the world that literary fiction, or "Lit Fic" as he's dubbed it, is not its own genre, citing the reluctance (put gently) of the publishers of Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome to publicize the book winning the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award.
We are back at the CCFC for dinner and goodbyes and my heavenly paratha, the secret of which I am told is the addition of some vegetable oil to the pastry for maximum flakiness. Food for the Gods, no question. And no time for the sentimentality of mortals – it's hugs and handshakes…. and Goa.
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Photos from Kolkata
Photos from China Mieville's Lit Sutra tour, Kolkata leg, March 5th and 6th 2010
Jadavpur University students hard at work in China Mieville's "Writing the Imaginary" workshop
The British Council's Debanjan Chakrabarti, Head of Intercultural Dialogue, introduces China in conversation with Abhijit Gupta at the Oxford Bookstore
The audience squeezes in and fires their questions
Samarjit Guha, Head of Programmes, British Council East India, awards certificates to China Mieville's workshop students
The City and The City and The City #5 – Delhi
I am in Delhi an I've seen a monkey, a battered, bad tempered Tom Waits of a creature skulking in the trees overlooking the Park Hotel. Another guest throws a stone at it, and it's gone with a gruff gutteral protest.The lobby of the Park is part Star Trek Whoopi Goldberg bar, part teenage girl's plush aspiration. It has sci-fi chairs and glass bead curtains and a relentless house muzak playing 24 hours. It's a bit silly and camp and I like it. Delhi itself appears gently majestic and spatial, until we reach a little square of ice cream kiosks and fashion boutiques wherein nestles tonight's venue, the Full Circle Bookshop. China is in conversation with Samit Basu in front of an audience of writers and artists including Sarnath Banerjee and Amruta Patil.There is unashamedly geeky talk of monsters and world-building and book covers in a musty, humid, perfectly suited space, with wine, lime juice and cakes to boot. This is what it's all about: fantasy writer meets fantasy writer, two visions exchanging ideas.
Early the next day we are off to JNU for what we had assumed would be an academic lecture by China on Science Fiction Theory so are a tad surprised to be told that this will now be a reading and discussion with the literature students. China takes this in his stride and demonstrates his winning ability to go with the flow and deliver the goods every time. The content of the discussion is rigorous and meaty so I'm relieved when China lightens the mood by replying "haven't we come full circle?" to a question that contains two "conversly"s and that I hadn't, in all honestly, remotely understood.We lunch with Amitava Datta and Rebecca Chettri from the British Council in Delhi and feast on goat, prawns, sumptuous looking vegetarian dishes for China and a cream dessert garnished with paan, an aromatic and slightly narcotic product of the betel leaf. It's like nothing I've ever tasted, a mouthful of flowery perfume with an odd, but not unpleasant, soapy finish. You had to be there.
But before you know it, "there" is Kolkata.
The City and The City and The City #4 – Mumbai
Mumbai. Mumbai, Mumbai, Mumbai. Like whispers behind dusty glass, our latest stop registers an immeditate minor key sinister. I'm told by a British Council colleague that the black-roofed slums we see before landing are a political firework that no-one dares to light – public relations suicide if they are cleared, they are left to their own grim devices.
And perhaps it's a mischievous and unpredictable low-level demon of the Indian pantheon that hides there, plotting new ways to mess with poor Denise Mina's schedule. First interminably stuck in Dubai by an unforgiving Emirates, Denise is now delayed with Mark Billingham coming into Mumbai from Kolkata and we must begin The Detective and The Criminal Mind event at Landmark Mumbai without them.
Rewind a few hours And China and I are greeted with comical opulence at the jewel in the Taj Hotel chain at Land's End. I am escorted to my room by two lovelies in blue saris who describe the room's goodies in double act staccato. I am so floored by the five star lunacy of being treated so well, with the vision of the slums still stark, that they start to laugh, and beat a swift retreat to leave me gawking at the remains of the Sea Rock hotel, gutted in the Mumbai bombings of 1993.
We meet Andy Diggle and begin what becomes my highlight of the trip so far, a bumpy and exhilarating drive to the Landmark bookstore at Infiniti Mall. The first twenty minutes of this journey have me wanting to stop the car every few yards and investigate the blizzard of imagery: fruit stalls, repair shops, and so many vivid, intricate little doorways to a fresh universe that my mind just has to give up and surrender to the intoxication.
Amit Varma, the chair for tonight's event, Andy, and China hold the fort with vim and expertise in front of a feisty and combative Mumbai audience before Denise and Mark arrive for the final 20 minutes. The Fab Four, as they've been known since the beginning of the Lit Sutra writer exchanges programming, are a formidable team.
Curse that minor demon for allowing us just this sliver of time with them.
Photos from Mumbai
Lit Sutra event at Landmark, Mumbai, March 2nd 2010
Andy Diggle, China Mieville
Andy and China in conversation with Amit Varma
Amit and the Fab Four in action: Andy and China are joined by Mark Billingham and Denise Mina
The feisty full house
The City and The City and The City #3 – Bangalore
In China Mieville's The City and The City there are regions of "crosshatching", zones where the two cities that share the same interdimensional space, Ul Qoma and Beszel, seep into one another. Bangalore appears to have lots of these anomolies: Letchworth Garden City meets Ancient Rome meets a fascist Martian capital. It is crumbly and dusty and at the same time strangely beloved – a project that looks as if it's been abandoned half-way through by infant deities and then felt thoroughly sorry for and cuddled. China and I have spent the journey from Chennai talking comics, and I am now not only far more enlightened about the Marcel and DC universes but also desperate to get hold of something called the Amalgam series, an experiment by DC and Marvel in 1996 to hybridize certain key characters: mix Wolverine and Batman, for example, and they spawn something called Dark Claw. And it's now been agreed that Dr.Strange is the queen of homoerotic psychedelia (three-way-crossed with Professor X and Doctor Fate in the Amalgam comics, he becomes Doctor Strangefate).
This afternoon we're at Koshy's, one of the great literary drinking institutions of Bangalore, a survivor of the colonial age that stubbornly thumbs its nose at the silicon status of its home to squat proudly on a 99 year lease, on church land – a site where the British Council once occupied the second floor. China is here to meet a group of young writers brought together by Toto Funds The Arts while the organization's Saroti Vellani and CK Meena take me on a mini tour of the surroundings, pointing out the cricket ground and the legendary Mahatma Gandhi Road. I stop to watch while a wild dog negotiates the crossing of Bangalore's busiest street with such focused nonchalance I am tempted to put down my bag, give him a round of applause and shout "go on, my son!"
We then head off to the British Council for China's event in conversation with three of the Toto writers, who are knowledgeable, feisty and provocative about The Scar and The City and The City in front of a full house. We're then led off to Koshy's once more for a quick beverage as we end a couple of terrific days in what I now assume to be two of India's most relaxed and laid back metropolises.
India has welcomed us gently – now Mumbai awaits.
Photos from Bangalore
China's British Council Bangalore event in partnership with Toto Funds The Arts,
March 1st 2010
China Mieville reads excerpts from his forthcoming novel, Kraken
In discussion with Joshua Muyiwa, Poorva Rajaram, Deepika Arwind
Special thanks to Charu Sapra and all the British Council Bangalore staff
The Thrill of the Unknown – Audio
Listen to audio from China Mieville and Mark Billingham in conversation at the Landmark Bookstore, Chennai, February 28th 2010: The Thrill of the Unknown
more to follow…
The City and The City and The City #2 – Chennai
Jayne, the Chennai Live FM presenter interviewing China Mieville and Mark Billingham, is asking, "first three words you think of when I say Chennai". China: Lovely smell, humid. Mark: Quieter than Delhi.
Me: Fantastic power shower. Better then sleep, the plumbing in the Taj hotel belts out hot water from two shower heads so hard you forget you've just arrived and are running on caffeine. Sadly Denise Mina will not arrive in time for the day's programme after a storm and horrendous delays in Dubai en route. But the show must go on and first order of the day is a recorded interview at Chennai Live. Mieville and Billingham have hit it off immediately and the hour crackles with the energy of a burgeoning double act. There is talk of werewolves and vampires, and the Twilight series, aka "Pretty Sparkly Vampire Boy". The protocols of genre fiction come up several times during the day and will form the framework for the discussion in the evening at Landmark: listen to some audio from this here tomorrow.
There is a time for a quick visit to the Spencer shopping mall where I linger for a while to see the climax of a press-ups competition which promises its winner 65% off selected items. I am offered pimple cream and essential oils in the chemist before I'm allowed to pay for my razors and shaving foam, then it's off to the beautifully refurbished British Council centre where China and Mark do some press interviews for the Hindu and The Times of India.
Mark: Literary fiction is always measured by its very best. Genre fiction is always measured by its very worst. It's not a fair fight.
China: From constraints comes creation…
Early evening and we're with writer Shreekumar Varma for an event at the Landmark bookstore, which ends with a rush of questions and a scrum for signed books. Asha and Rajani from the British Council in Chennai then take us out for idli and dosa and vada, all pancakey variations on a delicious theme. I'm warm and full and the promise of sleep edges out the chance to see the beach.
Next stop: Bangalore
Photos from Chennai
Mark Billingham and China Mieville in the Chennai Live radio studio
…on to the British Council offices for newspaper interviews…
…a quick breather…
and a tour of the newly refurbished British Council Chennai centre with Communications Manager, Rajani Rajan
…then The Thrill of The Unknown aka Masters of The Unknown at the Landmark Bookstore
…and a mad rush afterwards for book signings
And all made possible by the three British Council Chennai goddesses Rajani Rajan, Asha Balaji, V Bhuvaneswari
