Till the Pips Squeak

Recently, actor-author Jayant Kripalani and author-columnist Shobhaa De participated in a lively conversation

On the evening of 14 May at Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, actor-author Jayant Kripalani and author-columnist Shobhaa De were in a lively conversation about Kripalani’s new book of short stories set in Kolkata—New Market Tales. Over the course of the interaction, both came down heavily on India’s principal metropolitan cities. Kripalani said he felt people too often romanticise ‘the garbage’ about Kolkata. De said that Mumbai is like a lemon that has been squeezed dry by all and sundry. She observed that even Hindi movies, for which Mumbai was a muse for years, were now increasingly about Delhi. To which the effervescent Kripalani responded: “That is because all the villains are in Delhi.”