SECTION: ARTS & LETTERS; Pg. 16
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HEADLINE: Literary Thoughts From Baghdad to Bombay
BYLINE: By GARY SHAPIRO

The Indo-American Arts Council and Rubin Museum of Art co hosted a reception last week in honor of Shashi Tharoor's "Bookless in Baghdad: Reflections on Literature, Writing & Writers" (Arcade). The cosmopolitan crowd enjoyed fried papadum, fruit, wine, and cheese. The author, who is undersecretary general for communications and public information at the
United Nations, read from his book.

The debonair Mr. Tharoor opened with a self-deprecating note that he had taken the liberty of publishing a book without actually writing one - the book collects essays on literary topics that have appeared in various publications over the past 10 years. The wide-ranging volume contains
essays on Winston Churchill, V.S. Naipaul, R.K. Narayan, and Salman Rushdie, as well a discussion of Hollywood and Bollywood.

Mr. Tharoor read from the essay "The Anxiety of Audience," in which he told of being forced to think about the writer's craft. Once during an interview, Dr. Ranjan Ghosh of the University of Burdwan, near Calcutta, asked Mr. Tharoor the postmodern question, "Do you think your text belongs to you?"

Mr. Tharoor noted that he writes, as George Bernard Shaw said, for the same reason a cow gives milk: "It's inside me, it's got to come out, and in a real sense I would suffer if I couldn't." Mr. Tharoor said it would be "as futile to claim ownership of it as for a cow to assert she owns the milk she has provided."

By way of background, Mr. Tharoor explained that he had never taken a writing course:

I didn't even study literature at university. I thought that would be like learning about girls at a medical school. Indeed, my favorite story of the craft of teaching writing is that of the British instructor who told his students that to ensure commercial success, a story needed to contain
religion, aristocracy, sex, and mystery, and be brief. The briefest submission duly came in, three sentences long: 'My God!' exclaimed the Duchess of Argyll. 'I'm pregnant! Who did it?'

The well-traveled Mr. Tharoor also read from the book's title essay about his visit in 1998 to the "book souk" in Baghdad. Books were sold along a street called Al Mutanabi, named for a famed 10th-century poet. He saw titles that seemed out of place on a street in an Arab country: "a
paperback of Leon Uris's 'Exodus,' for instance, or even more startling, Grace Metalious's 'Peyton Place.'" Many newer volumes for sale were Korans, which were selling more quickly than pulp fiction.

Mr. Tharoor said he had heard stories - "perhaps apocryphal" - about bargains at the book souk: like the foreigner "who had picked up a first edition of T.E. Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' for the equivalent of seven cents in Iraq's dramatically depreciated currency (at a penny a
pillar, the buyer clearly had acquired his wisdom on the cheap)." Seeing the books for sale in Baghdad, Mr. Tharoor was reminded of the old saying: "The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, and the Iraqis read."

Seen were Ambassador Mihnea Motoc, of the Permanent Mission of Romania to the United Nations; Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, of the permanent mission of the Republic of Singapore to the United Nations. Also in attendance was the publishing director of India Today International, Chander Rai, who attended St. Stephen's College in Delhi, the alma mater of
Mr. Tharoor, to which an essay in the book is devoted. So was Pratima Ram, country head of American operations of the State Bank of India, who was with her niece, Sejal Shah, who is returning to New York to become an assistant professor at Marymount Manhattan College. Ms. Shah has been a writer-in-residence at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

IAAC executive director Aroon Shivdasani opened the evening. Also giving remarks was Donald Rubin, who said the Rubin Museum, devoted to art of the Himalayas and surrounding regions, has hosted 300 events since opening last October. He pointed out in the audience a member of the museum's advisory board, Bawa Jain, secretary general of the World Council of Religious Leaders of the Millennium World Peace Summit. Nearby was Dilip Mirchandani, an author of business histories, including "One Way Up Wall Street: The Fred Alger Story" (F.A. Management), a biography about the legendary manager; Imrana Khera, program manager of South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow, which promotes full participation of South Asians in the civil and political life in America; freelance writer Chris MacLeod, who was headed to Lincoln Center to hear the Wayne Roberts band; Richard Shogan of the house cleaning company, Imacuclean; John Brademas, a former president of New York University; Asad Lalljee, director of development for the IAAC; London based Dr. Joan LaRovere, who works in pediatric intensive care and is director of international affairs at the Virtue Foundation. In
attendance from Turtle Bay were Chris deBono; Annika Savill; Ahmad Fawzi; Raymond and Soad Sommereyns; and Lydia Lobenthal.

This event was the most recent in the busy calendar of the Indo-American Arts Council, which promotes and builds awareness of Indian and cross-cultural art forms in North America. From October 12-14 at the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, IAAC will host an evening of contemporary dance in India featuring choreographer and performer Mallika Sarabhai and members of the Darpana performance group. From November 2-6, the organization will host its fifth annual film festival, held at the Walter Reade Theatre. In June of next year an IAAC music festival in Madison Square Park is planned.