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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
Check out this piece by Shikha Dalmia on the role that market forces play in perpetuating the caste system.…
Our right-wing lunatics are so funny sometimes that it’s hard to hate them. Balbir Punj has a bizarre (but…
Having resumed blogging, it was natural for me to head over to the ToI site for the potential double…
The Hindustan Times reports that two Karnataka ministers were caught watching pornographic videos “when the house was in session.”…
This personal essay by me appears in the winter edition of Forbes Life India. I feel the ground sway…
10 July, 2007
Dear Mrinal Pande
Dear Mrinal Pande
In your column today you insinuate that all opposition to Pratibha Patil is based on her gender. That is unfair. Some of us are opposing Ms Patil not because we’re worried about the empowerment of women, but because of personal flaws that have nothing to do with her gender. Allow me to ask you two questions.
One, are you comfortable with a president who claims that she can converse with spirits? To me, this would indicate a mental health problem, and I hope you would agree with me that our president needs to be of sound mind.
Two, Ms Patil had once expressed her support for forcible sterilization of people with hereditary diseases. Is it not fair to ask that she at least indicates that she has changed her mind on the subject, even if she doesn’t actually apologize for it? Ms Patil supported Indira Gandhi during and after the Emergency, and surely it is fair to worry that she might still represent those values.
Please note that I am not expressing my support for Bhairon Singh Shekhawat by opposing Ms Patil. I am merely bemoaning the fact that the UPA did not choose a better candidate. I would have been delighted if that candidate was a woman, as long as she had the character and intellect that the office of president deserves.
If you would care to stand for the post, Ms Pande, I would support you wholeheartedly. But not Pratibha Patil.
Regards
Amit Varma
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Previous posts on Pratibha Patil: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Posted by Amit Varma in
