'I think he would have liked to have thrown a ringed fence around India to keep out the modern world,' says historian Judith Brown.
Indian-born author Manil Suri has bagged this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award, a dubious distinction given annually by Britain's 'Literary Review'.
Making her film debut with The Householder, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala wrote more screenplays than novels, winning two Oscars -- for A Room with a View and Howards End. She kept her distance from the film crowd, seeking refuge in the 'protective' company of her two life-long collaborators, Director James Ivory and Producer Ismail Merchant.
'Even apart from the Bengal famine, there was a great deal more bloodshed and deceit than I was prepared for.' 'Almost every one of the acquisitions was won by extreme extortionate methods and what came out was that these relatively honest officers found themselves doing very dishonest things.'
Rediff.com reproduces the 1997 feature about Laxman, his passion for crows, and of course, his genius.