Anna is season’s flavour at 17th Delhi Book Fair

Anna Hazare seems to be the flavour of the season.  At the 17th Delhi Book Fair, which opened at Pragati Maidan on Saturday, the social activist almost stole the limelight from the fair’s theme of travel and tourism. While some stalls at the book fair displayed Hazare posters and pictures, a slim biography of Anna Hazare, published by Diamond Pocket Books in both Hindi and English, was flying off the shelves.

“Anna Hazare’s biography is the best seller of the day at our stall. We have sold about 100 copies of the book since morning,” said Ashish Gupta, director Saraswati House, a publisher who has set up a stall here. The stall also shows a large picture of Anna Hazare and the India Against Corruption logo at the cash counter.

The small biography of Hazare in English is called Anna Hazare: The New Revolutionary; while the one in Hindi is titled Krantidoot: Anna Hazare. The small books, apart from a brief biographical sketch of Hazare also has chapters on major scams in India, ‘philosophy of Anna’ , a note on The Jan Lok Pal Bill etc. “There is a lot of interest in the Hazare book. People from varied backgrounds want to know more about the Jan Lokpal,” says a salesman at the Diamond books counter which has prominently displayed copies of the book.

Full report here Hindustan Times

The world of underworld

Aabid Surti's “Sufi – the Invisible Man of the Underworld” gives an insightful account of Mumbai's underworld

The success of the recently released Once Upon A Time in Mumbai is still fresh in our minds. What made it impressive was the story behind the making of the smugglers of Bombay of the 1970s — now called underworld dons. The era of the '70s saw the height of gold smuggling, and names like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, Yusuf Patel and Vardabhai emerged as famous gangsters.

Aabid Surti's Sufi – The Invisible Man of the Underworld, just published by Diamond Pocket Books, compassionately tells the story of the making of Mumbai's organised crime world.

“Sufi…” is actually a biography that the 78-year-old author prefers to call a ‘jugalbandi' with Iqbal Rupani (alias Sufi) — a dreaded name in the Bombay underworld but a devout Muslim. Both grew up in the dark alleys of Dongri — the centre of smuggling activities in the '70s — and saw “how people like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, Yusuf Patel and other dons progressed step-by-step and how poor Muslims turned to crime, apart from the nexus between politicians and criminals,” says the author. The 410-page book covers the period between 1935 and 1965 and “all the characters and their names are true”, he asserts. ”I am aware of that life as I have grown up in that ghetto where I have seen Karim Lala as the supreme don, Haji Mastan moving up the ladder and Dawood Ibrahim playing gulli-danda with other kids,” says Surti who, like the above mentioned names came from an extremely poor family who could barely manage two meals a day.

Full review here Hindu