Last weekend I was in Kuala Lumpur (KL), and compared to last time (that was about two years ago), this time KL looked better, more cosmopolitan, more beautified. My personal opinion. Or was it all because of the onset of the month of Ramadhan. The denizens of KL would know better.
While I got to meet some interesting inter-racial couples during my stay, one of the most interesting things to happen was to be able to attend Sharon's monthly reading session. The reading was in the afternoon and because of the torrential rains, I got late from a meeting, and thanks to a convoluted address, I could barely make it to the reading session.
When I reached the venue in Bangsar, Aneeta Sundararaj was reading a story from her anthology, Snapshots. After the reading, the effervescent Aneeta even gifted me an autographed copy of her book. That was so nice of her.
The gathering comprised of young Malaysian writers and poets and I could sense a sort of great energy among the writers. The fact that they cared to meet up for a literary event in the afternoon of a weekend says a lot about them.
After the event, Sharon, Sharanya, KG, and myself went to a nearby cafe and had a nice chat. Sharon is doing a great job in cultivating reading and writing in the city.
Afterwards, I went over to Silverfish Books to say hello to Raman. Raman was about to shut down the bookshop but I was lucky enough to browse there for sometime. I got a copy of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. It was a wonderful read. More about that later.
Next day when I met Sharanya again to discuss about Indians in Malaysia, she told me about the Rushdie-Amitava Kumar spat. I could not believe it first but I had to when read about it in Amitava's blog and saw Rushdie's comment. One more proof that blogging has really arrived!
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