Mehta read from a recent piece he wrote on the current US elections and also a brief section from his best-seller Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. The passage from the book referred to the local trains in Mumbai. He brought up the anti-immigration positions of the Republican Party candidates and added: "I would like give John McCain and Sarah Palin, two second class tickets for the Mumbai Borivali local train."
Desai, author of the Man Booker Prize winner The Inheritance of Loss expressed regrets that she had only recently applied for the US citizenship. But she hoped that Obama would win the presidential elections.
Suri, who is currently promoting his second book, Age of Shiva, read from the opening chapter. But before that he poked fun at McCain. "I live in Washington DC and there is a financial crisis going on and if it gets any worse I might have to suspend my reading and go back," Suri said referring to McCain's brief suspension of his campaign, to show his concerns about the current economic situation.
And Sharma, who read from True Grit, a novel by Charles Portis, had the audience laughing-out-loud as he walked up to the mike and said: "Hi my name is Akhil Sharma and I am an elitist." Obama is often accused of being an elitist by his Republican opponents.
Image: Suketu Mehta at the fundraiser
Also read: NRIs switching support to Obama
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