Quasar Thakore-Padamsee,

theatre actor and director

A member of Literature Live!

Committee, The Mumbai International Litfest, and

QTP’s playreading club, The

Great Texts, Quasar ThakorePadamsee considers himself barely a fiction reader. He is currently reading Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion, a book about the origins of cricket in South America and recommends Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi.

Tell us about your favourite books and authors. Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Ram Chandra Guha's Beyond The Boundary, even though it's a cricket book, it's made me appreciate the city I live in so much more.

Book-to-movie adaptation you loved and why? I enjoyed the Dirk Gentry series on Netflix. The series is completely reimagined for the visual medium in different way, but still holds on to all the bizarreness of the author. There's also, 1984 (with John Hurt), it is just superb.

A movie you wish was originally written as a book?

Heat or The Insider by Michael Mann. There is a lot that is unsaid in both these films, and it would be great to know more about the characters.

If your life was a book, what would it be called?

I'm not sure, but friends who know me seem to think it should be called Back Story Because I'm always giving some random context to things.

Has becoming a reader changed you as a person?

Very much so. It changes how one articulates things. It provides perspectives that ordinarily you wouldn't have access to.

Do you have any favourite reading spots?

I love the vibe of Mumbai's Kitab Khana, Title Waves and Trilogy Library. Then there's Leaping Windows because of the Graphic Novels, and the Prithvi Bookshop for books on theatre and performance. Recently, my favourite reading spot has become my rocking chair at home. I used to love reading on the bus or train, but now I get easily distracted by the phone.