Proofreading

Have been dipping into First Proof: The Penguin Book of New Writing from India. So far, from the fiction section, Indrajit Hazra's Post-mortem and Mitali Saran's Afterlife are unusual, readable and quirky -- with the character from Afterlife reminding one of Ignatius from John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

From the non-fiction section, Jerry Pinto's The Woman Who Could Not Care is wonderful -- a pop cultural reading of Bollywood's Helen, queen of the nautch girls. It's an extract from his forthcoming book on the subject, which one now can't wait to get one's hands on.

Pinto is, of course, also executive editor of Man's World, the current issue of which is a fiction special. You can check it out here, though registration is required. You'll find the fiction sandwiched between aesthetic layouts of scantily-clad women.