Martin Amis, Cinephile

Allow me to set the scene. A sprawling chain bookstore, occupying one corner of an iconic traffic intersection in Bombay. Two men in security uniforms at the door. Red couches on the giant display windows. Ten years ago, if a camera—perchance perched on the terrace of a ritzy apartment in neighbouring Cumballa Hill, or the Zoroastrian Tower of Silence across the street—had zoomed into one of those couches on consecutive afternoons, it would have inevitably framed the same lanky college kid in shorts, with a load of magazines and hardbacks on his lap, reading until the men at the door had changed out of their uniforms and started rolling the shutters down at nine.