Delhi Caferati Meet Report

09 Jan 2005
Chez Anjan Ray
New Delhi

Our fourth Caferati meet and the first in 2005 was marked by many positive 'signs', besides being well attended and good fun.
Peter Griffin was in town and we had the pleasure of his company. Not only did he re-cap Caferati for us - the focus of the forum and what it intends to and could do, he also read some rather wonderful response poems with Annie. Peter, Annie would you post the poems - many of us would like to linger over them and those who weren't there yesterday would enjoy reading them.

Anjan's book 'Just Beyond' had been launched on the 3rd of this month, and he read us the last story. Anjan writes really well - tight tales told in a manner where you focus on the story so completely, only later realizing how cleverly the words are woven to create pictures in your mind. We all are thrilled to have personally autographed copies by the author! The book is published by Stella & I reccomend you pick it up.

Stella Publisher, Jyoti Sabherwal, joined us at Anjan's invitation. Two interesting things she mentioned were: she's interested in stories and books for children; and she herself has transalated and continues to transalate Amrita Pritam's stories.

Narendra read an excerpt from the Introduction of Bill Bryson's "A short History of the world". Some of us are going to look at intros more carefully. Its funny how we always skipped the intros when we were younger and now we read them slowly, specially us writers, as they give us a glimpse into the author - his hows and whys.

Minx read an almost-haiku - please post Minx, Danish read 2 powerful poems - I notice one is already posted, Richa read a piece from something by Douglas Scott about Fengshui and living in buildings built for dragons- rather witty and well-written; and she recited a poem from memory that she wrote many years ago and I suspect was brought back to her because of the experiences she has gone through in the past 10 days. Richa went as a volunteer to the tsunami- hit areas. I dug out a story from my 25 years ago (This makes me sound really old - I'm not!) and I shall post it. Vijay recited some urdu poetry which was hauntingly beautiful , but Vijay, we will have to request you to bring transalations the next time - the Caferati members come to specifically share writing in English, some don't understand Urdu and its unfair to them to move away from the focus.

The others - Rajesh, Poonam, Trish, Anuja, Rupa, Rekha, Raj didn't read but that didn't stop them being very much a part of the meeting. Anjan, the pizzas & lunch were great, thank you. But perhaps the others are right - we'll go back to a post lunch timing the next time - the writers are hungry & impatient for words and critical discussions on writing.
Happy writing & see you online and at the next meet. We missed all of you who couldn't be there! Cheers - Anita