On Beauty & Bhansali’s Cinema—My Debut Book, On Pre-order

The book will be out in November-end. The pre-order links are live.

I joke that I go on smoking sabbaticals, because quitting is an irrelevant thought, implauble at best, and I suppose this is me emerging from my substack sabbatical, a habit equally implausible to quit. We keep coming back, though this time round, it has been a while.

I began this substack as an archive for my thoughts, but then it became a way to muscle myself into having thoughts. The archive stopped being a passive recipient but an active participant, it nudged me to populate it. I needed to have things to say, and the format allowed me to meander and circulate, often without finishing a thought, or over-finishing others. I don’t hold myself too strongly to standards of coherence, anyway. You would know — you are here.

I am writing this to say that I have not been penning here regularly because Frontline decided to publish my jottings as fortnightly columns, Counter Culture. It is what I would have written here, only more coherent, and less randy. If you have not been reading these columns, I offer you an archive. It is nice to have a publication offer you the space to sketch yourself out, even if it means, some weeks, squeezing yourself dry.

I am also writing this to say that I have a book in gestation. It is titled On Beauty: The Cinema of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The book will be out November-end. Amazon has opened pre-orders. This is the link. It is currently being sold at a 20% discount. If you choose to be conscientious and wait for the book to arrive at a brick and mortar store, thank you, for the impending purchase of the book and the eternal erection of the spine.

This is going to be the first of three monographs — the next one is on Mani Ratnam, and then, Mira Nair. The point was to shift focus away from biography towards artistry, and not just artistry but the very act of spectatorship. What does it mean to see when so much of what we see is filtered through judgment, judgment being not what comes after, but before seeing, through seeing. I don’t have answers necessarily, I don’t even have questions. I have words, and I want you to put your money beside them.

Writing this in the midst of my two jobs, one column, curation and film programming, amidst a life that is not terribly un-social was to write this in trains, in airports, on the back on bills, in the morning hours before the day well and truly begins. I use my phone religiously to take notes, and the opening pages of most of the books I read this past year is littered with notes about this book. To write so haphazardly is to begin thoughts but not have the time to finish it, and by the time you revisit the shard, it makes no sense — off to the bin, you seductive half-phrase. Can you imagine the book that would be? I can’t. I don’t want to — I have this.

Scroll recently put out an excerpt from the book. It is from the chapter Darshan in Devdas.

I am really out of depth here. I don’t understand how any of this works — book sales, self sales. I was told to be more shameless about promoting my book, but I also realize that there is a threshold beyond which shamelessness becomes self aggrandizement and I have seen so many people make that leap, I don’t want to be next in line. Was briefly considering making the book cover a Grindr bio, but don’t want to kill what little is left of my youthful exploits. You think that thick slab of muscle wants to fuck a book cover? Another example, my book was, briefly, a bestseller in the “Photography Books” section — that I assure you, it is not. I have stopped asking questions whose answers won’t necessarily make my life easier. If you have suggestions, please write to me. If you would want to cover the book, please write to me. Otherwise, please write to me.