I don’t know if Penguin is planning an anthology on Mysore, like those they have brought out on Delhi, Mumbai, and, now, Lahore – ‘City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore’. The publishers have commissioned one on Kolkata, says editor of the Lahore anthology Bapsi Sidwa, who is better known for ‘Ice Candy Man’, and her novel based on Deepa Mehta’s film, ‘Water’.

 If an anthology on Mysore is not in Penguin pipeline, an enterprising local publisher could be persuaded. Any ideas on this,  Mr Vijendra Rao? (whose collection of essays ‘Run of the mind’ was released recently;  see excerpts ‘Tribute to CDN’). Scores of authors and essayists have written about Mysore. RKN, his brother RKL, and CDN would be obvious candidates. T S Satyan’s ‘Alive and Clicking’ has chapters relevant to any anthology on Mysore. Loads of writings in Kannada on Mysore would merit inclusion.

 Would be nice if those who are knowledgeable in this department could chip in with names, so that we built up, here on the web, a list of names and relevant writings to entice even an uninformed publisher into taking up an anthology job.

Published work of established writers apart, one could ask well-known Mysoreans – Mr Narayana Murthy, Mr Wadiyar,  Mr Krishna Vattam, Mr Shyam, the snake man – to share their thoughts on growing up in Mysore.

Ms Sidwa, in her anthology, includes short stories, poems and essays by Kipling, Iqbal, Faiz, Manto and Kushwant Singh; a passage from Zulfikar Ghose’s 1967 novel, ‘The Murder of Aziz Khan’; painter Krishen Khanna’s account of his return to Lahore after a lapse of 40 years; and Minoo Bhandara’s description of his teenage days in Lahore, where he once found himself, at a cinema house, sitting next to Ava Gardner (then in town, filming ‘Bhowani Junction’).