Sayari Debnath

6 days ago | scroll.in | Sayari Debnath

“Magic, he said, was very limited, limited to itself: it was what it was and nothing more.”Argentinian writer César Aira’s 2013 novella The Famous Magicianbegins with the musings of a writer who resembles Aira in many ways. “Past sixty and enjoying a certain renown”, the writer feels he has “already read too much” and there’s nothing new that he really wants to read. In addition to this, he has hit a writer’s block.

1 week ago | scroll.in | Sayari Debnath

For many Indians, owning a home is their biggest dream. Not the house that has been passed down to them from their parents, but the one that they have bought with their own money. This is an expensive dream, and not meant to be realised early in life. Owning a house is like doing penance – there must be sweat and blood and decades of hardship, and the fruit it will bear will have been sweetened with perseverance and sacrifice. Every hardworking, decent Indian knows this.

1 week ago | scroll.in | Sayari Debnath

In one “ghost” story by Satyajit Ray, a well-to-do writer – an intellectual – is stranded by a farm on a deserted road. The scarecrow guarding the crops makes for an eerie company. The longer the writer looks at the scarecrow, the more human it appears to be. Especially the clothes that it has been made to wear. The shirt, torn and discoloured, looks familiar too. When the writer eventually dozes off, he dreams of the servant he had fired on charges of thievery. He used to wear a similar shirt.

2 weeks ago | scroll.in | Sayari Debnath

“Cause of death: Haemorrhage and shock due to penetrating injury to heart as a result of piercing by metal spikes.”A servant girl is found dead in Srivastavas’s plush mansion in South Delhi’s elite Panchsheel Park. No more than 17 years old and a confirmed orphan with no family, Jyoti’s death should cause no ripple in the city’s vast and terrifying crime scene.

2 weeks ago | scroll.in | Sayari Debnath

I have a soft spot for the debut works of major writers. It’s so endearing to witness the writer struggle with all the things that every new writer does – the timelessness of the story, the individuality of language, and above all, to offer the reader a great reading experience. John Williams published his first novel, Nothing But the Night, when he was only 26. He went on to write three more novels – Butcher’s Crossing (1960), Stoner (1965), and Augustus (1972).