Book Shelf

Book Shelf
DEEPA SAHI

Ik haseen nigaah ka dil pe saaya hai...

The one thing that strikes about Deepa Sahi is her laughter. It's relaxing. The way reading is to her. ``Books take my mind off the rigorous routine that life can be, especially if you are in the media. When everyone's talking the same things, you are meeting the same people, it's books that bring in that fresh whiff of air.'' So what kinds does she read. ``Broadly, all kinds -- fiction, anything on computers and even what they call pulp fiction -- Robert Ludlum et al.

A lot of my time goes into reading stuff right on the net. The latest I read was a take-off on Einstein's theory of time. Then I've been reading Hindi short stories to brush up my language!'' she laughs. And what about her favourites? ``Hmmmm, the last book I read that's stayed with me is Biography of Geisha. Then there has been `Only the Paranoid Survives', and books on survival in the business world.'' Hey, that's interesting, and she adds another one to the list -- ``Love inthe time of Cholera - a classic love story.

I read anything at random if it interests me, gives me a perspective on life, helps me find myself in the world so typically `caravan'ish.'' On her kind of good author, she says; ``Any author who doesn't dismiss the details, some experiences as `stupid', for, sometimes, it's these very trivial looking experiences that are most universal.'' You said it.