And Where, My Friend, Lay You Hiding?

Ananda Mukerji's book is a work of lyricism and insight - elegant, nuanced and written in crystalline prose.

And Where, My Friend, Lay You Hiding
Author: Ananda Mukerji
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Pages: 264
Price: Rs 295
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 81-7223-461-9

A chance encounter on a train sparks an unlikely friendship between Shonjoy and Anjani Prasad. While Shonjoy is the English-speaking son of a cultured and well-to-do-Bengali family in Allahabad, Anjan is a small-towner from unfashionable Mirpur, whose manner betrays his simple breeding. But they both share in interest in books, and like all intellectuals in Allahabad in the 1950s, become enthusiastic habitues of the famed India Coffee House - sanctuary for writers and pretenders - where they try to best each other's writing efforts. Then shonjoy cops out. Lured by the promises of the big city, he moves to Calcutta and world of advertising, whilst Anjan, resolute in his wish to be a writer in the truest sense, travels to the depths to which his Muse beckons him.

HT Image