In honour of Anita Desai's
being recognized as a Lifetime Fellow by Sahitya Akademi

Asia Society India Centre and Random House India invite you to the re-release of

Ismail Merchant's

In Custody

(based on the novel by Anita Desai)

Tuesday, 4 December 2007 at 9:00 pm

At Metro Adlabs, M G Road, Mumbai 400 001

Entry by invitation only
To register, please call +91-22-6610-0888 or
e-mail: admin@asiasociety.org.in

Published in 1984, Anita Desai’s novel In Custody revolves around Deven Sharma, a middle-aged man who once dreamt of becoming a poet but was forced to teach Hindi to support his wife and child. A sharply incisive social comedy, In Custody dramatizes the tensions between worldly and spiritual concerns through Deven's almost-obsessive attempts to interview Nur, the greatest living Urdu poet.

Ismail Merchant's feature directorial debut addresses a subject close to his heart: the expressive Urdu language of Northern India, in danger of extinction as political trends and modernization obscure its contributions to Indian culture. Anita Desai incorporated poems by Urdu author Faiz Ahmed Faiz in her screen adaptation of the novel. The film won the President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture in 1994.

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