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My Friend Sancho
My first novel, My Friend Sancho, is now on the stands across India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
To buy it online from the US, click here.
I am currently on a book tour to promote the book. Please check out our schedule of city launches. India Uncut readers are invited to all of them, no pass required, so do drop in and say hello.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
And ah, my posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
I feel hugely sorry for this kid. In her world, it might be a huge deal to become “the…
The Times of India reports: The government has banned Fashion TV for nine days after finding a program it…
Forget Robert McKee and Syd Field: If you want to learn how to make a successful Hollywood film, watch…
Daniel Pepper of CMS has a worrying story up on how RTI activists in India are increasingly facing a…
This sentence says so much about the level of parliamentary debate in India today: Finally, marshals were called in…
20 December, 2007
Atheism = Not Collecting Stamps
Chad English of Ottawa has sent this superb letter to the Economist:
SIR - You ask what accounts for the failure of atheists to organise or wield influence ( “Believe it or not”, December 11th). The answer is easy. Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. When you understand why there are no ‘aphilatelist’ conventions, you will understand why atheists don’t congregate.
We don’t want power and influence as a group. We don’t care if a government member is an atheist any more than we care if they collect stamps. What we do care about is that government officials can separate their personal religious beliefs from their governing duties. A philatelist government that pushes laws favouring stamp collecting at the expense of those who don’t collect stamps is a bad government. The same is true of a religious one.
The separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of a free society. Failure to embrace this principle is to the eventual detriment of the church, the state, freedom, and society.
See you at the next non-meeting.
Chad English
Ottawa
Bravo!
(Link via email from Joby Joseph. Earlier posts on atheism: 1, 2, 3.)
Posted by Amit Varma in
Miscellaneous
