reading habit
Editor’s note
Last year, Business Standard asked: Is Manu Chandra arguably India's best chef? Answer: yes. But the overachieving genius behind a string of ground-breaking restaurants—Olive Beach, Monkey Bar, Fatty Bao, Toast & Tonic, Cantan—is also a serious book nerd, and therefore, the perfect candidate for our Book Addict’s Quiz.
What is your most powerful childhood memory of a book?
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. My mother used to read it out slowly and rather theatrically to us as kids. Explaining parts of the epic poem which we may not have grasped easily. Bits of it, and its characters remain with me to this day.
<While the rest of us plebes wax nostalgic over Enid Blyton…>
What line of literature or poetry do you quote ad nauseam?
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time”
AND
“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.”
Both are from ‘A Psalm of Life’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
<This explains the over-achieving thing then....>
What book do you regret re-reading?
‘James and the Giant Peach’ by Roald Dahl—because the mental imagery that it sparked in me as a child was more vivid than reading it as a grown up.
<Yes, even nostalgia isn’t what it used to be...!>
An author you adored as a child and have not thought about in years?
James Herriot, probably. He was almost mandatory reading in an animal-loving household—and also probably why as a family we’ve always been kind and helpful to all creatures great and small.
<How can you forget Gerald Durell?>
What book would you gift to your worst enemy?
‘50 Shades of Grey’ if my enemy is intelligent. The writing style and cheap smut should drive anyone crazy.
<You know this… how?>
I would love to see a movie/series adaptation of __ starring __ as __
The Rama series by Arthur C Clarke starring Gary Oldman as Commander Norton.
<Ooh, unexpected and unusual!>
A book review that was better than the book?
I don’t usually read book reviews, but one in the New York Times spurred me to buy a book during lockdown. The review by Jennifer Senior was better than JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy… though it does put a lot of what is happening in the US into context.
<Ah yes, apologies for American rednecks tend not to age well now that one of them is in the White House>
What book do you pretend to have read?
Wendy Doniger’s ‘On Hinduism’. I’ve tried a few times, but my recall with names is so bad that I forget what the preceding chapters were about. It’s very hard to follow it out of context.
<Hmm, who do you hang out with that you have to pretend to have read Doniger…>
What is the first “forbidden” book you read in secret?
‘Satanic Verses’, I think. It was wrapped and kept at home. All copies had disappeared [due to the ban] and it was something no one spoke of openly. I was probably too young to get what the brouhaha was all about.
<No smut??? Hope you’re ashamed of yourself>
What book/author still counts as guilty pleasure?
Honestly, I don’t really go back to the same books that much. Because there’s just so much new ground to cover. But if it had to be someone. I’d go back to re-reading all the Arthur C Clarke’s and Isaac Asimovs of my school/early college years. Science fiction and fantasy fiction have always fascinated me.
<Like we said… book nerd>
Send us a photo of your tsundoku pile
<120/100 just for Scarlett Thomas! Finally, something a little light!>
Thank you for playing, Manu! FYI, vouching from personal experience, every Manu Chandra restaurant comes with a 100% guarantee of a very safe and very delicious meal.
