Altaf Tyrewala: On Mumbai and the decay of India’s literary culture

Altaf Tyrewala, stylistic chameleon and satirist extraordinaire, charts the tragedies of unread books and bowdlerised language in his first collection of short fiction, writes Aditya Mani Jha: The Sunday Guardian

In these very pages, circa December 2012, Sanjay Sipahimalani wrote a stirring piece called In Memory of Mumbai’s Bookshops. He said, “I miss reading a glowing review of a new novel in the morning and finding it on the shelves that very evening. I miss the manager running up to me and saying breathlessly: ‘You should check out these short stories by this writer called David Foster Wallace, he’s really very good.’ I miss scanning the new arrivals section to discover that the title I couldn’t afford in hardback was now available in paperback. I miss feeling deliciously guilty — and broke — when I went ahead and bought the unaffordable hardback.”