The Last Word: Obituaries of 100 Indians Who Led Unusual Lives
Rahul Bedi
Roli Books
303 pages; Rs 395
Collecting newspaper columns into a book is a favourite pastime of seasoned journalists but the effects of this exercise are mixed. Unless there is a thematic consistency to the work, which can hardly be the case for a weekly/fortnightly column, it makes little sense to put disparate pieces of journalism next to one another.
Rahul Bedi has nevertheless published a selection of the obituaries he wrote for Britain’s Independent newspaper over two decades beginning in the late 1980s. The book is marketed as the
