Manish beat me to it, but SAJA has a literary spectacle planned for March 12 that you should all attend. While I am not sure if tickets are still available, it might be worth your while to check it out.

The $35 entry fee for the event at the CUNY Graduate Center may seem steep but it goes towards a great cause – SAJA Reporting Fellowships Program.

“The world's major media outlets are all over the tsunami disaster and its immediate aftermath. Some of the best-known names in the business are on the ground, reporting the story and beaming back images for us all. But what happens after this? Soon, the media pack will move on to another disaster, another scene of violence, another ”trial of the century.“ And the tsunami, its victims and the rehabilitation will receive much less attention.

SAJA plans to do something that plays to its strength and could help the victims in a way almost as important as money: coverage of their stories as they rebuild from the devastation and tracking what happened to the billions that poured in.

The idea is to help a group of journalists (reporters, photojournalists, documentarians, etc) from the U.S. and Canada cover the affected areas SIX TO NINE MONTHS after the disaster and have their reporting available to a wide global audience. SAJA will develop detailed plans and logistics on the program with input and contributions from various partner institutions.”

Allow me to whet your appetite. Sure there will wine and samosa (what a combo!) there, but under one roof, from 2.30 p.m to about 6 the following authors and poets will read from their work:

Anita Desai Amitav Ghosh Jhumpa Lahiri Suketu Mehta Pankaj Mishra Kamila Shamsie Manil Suri Shashi Tharoor Marina Budhos Abha Dawesar Siddhartha Deb

Kiran Desai Jonathan Franzen Elizabeth Kadetsky S. Mitra Kalita Pooja Makhijani Meera Nair Maniza Naqvi Asra Q. Nomani Akhil Sharma Meena Alexander Vijay Seshadri

When Manish called it an literary orgy, he wasn't kiddin'.