Category: Fiction

  • Once was Bombay

    Pinki Virani

    This is the best ‘Bombay’ book i’ve ever read. It shows us a view of Bombay through the images of characters that even non residents will identify as belonging to Bombay – the actor, the bhai, the encounter cop, the politician, and so on. Pinki Virani obviously feels for Bombay, and reflects the myriad range of a Bombayite’s emotions now – anger, frustration, cynicism all stemming from Bombay’s change from then to now
    What’s wonderful about the book is that it stays true to the title and takes you on a journey in time – to how a place or a road came to be called so, and the societal changes that time has brought about there. It also has some incisive takes on the machinations that has transformed Bombay into what it is now.
    Long before Mumbai there was Bombay, and i can identify a lot with the difference it makes to the people who have seen the change, even though i don’t live there. This book easily gets into my all time favourites.

  • You are here

    Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

    I picked it up because it was written by a fellow Indian blogger. And yes, I prefer Indian fiction. But I’m guessing I am not exactly the target audience 🙂
    Considering the author’s profile, I’d say the book is at least faintly autobiographical.
    Arshi, the protagonist, is a twenty something, 21st century Indian woman, who lives (or at least tries to) live life on her own terms, only she doesnt seem to be sure what they are. A potentially interesting premise of self discovery in an urban Indian milieu.
    But in that sense it disappoints. Here are a couple of things that put me off. While it could be an attempt at stark portrayal, i felt that a lot of things had a force-fit twang, added to get a “yup, am with it” effect. Also, the title was very ironical in the sense that the story seemed to be going all over the place. A very lifestream flow which didnt work for me because of its predictability.
    However if Indian chick lit is your scene, you cannot afford to give this one a miss. And having said all that, I’m still happy that a blogger has become an author. 🙂

  • The First Man in Rome

    Colleen McCullough

    Its a timeless tale of power.. but timeless as it is, ancient rome is a great setting for the tale… and it is well told, with the neat detailing – for the characters, the lives they lived, and the conditions they lived in…
    The wonderful writing makes it easy for the reader to imagine the magnificent civilisation that still influences the world we live in, in many ways… a must read.. and i will start the sequel to this – The Grass Crown very soon

  • On the Road

    Jack Kerouac

    A different America from the packaged version we get to see these days. Its a book that perhaps matches the times it was set in.. its, i think, essentially a book that looks at the wanderlust of Sal Paradise, the protagonist, his travel companions, influences and perhaps, at the very base, a quest for freedom..of self
    A warning though, you’ve to be very patient, and allow for boredom to set in, in between. Its not the ‘finish in one read’ kind of book.

  • Keep off the Grass

    Karan Bajaj

    Karan Bajaj’s debut novel reminds me a lot of Chetan Bhagat’s first work, perhaps because of the similarity in milieu- IIT and IIM. Karan Bajaj is an IIM alumnus, and so this does seem a bit autobiographical. Well, even if its not, its definitely introspective, and is at its root, a person’s search for himself.
    Samrat Ratan is the protagonist, who takes a break from his hotshot investment banking life on Wall Street, and gets into IIM-Bangalore. Its an interesting book, if not spectacular, and is definitely worth a read, if only for the analytic construction of the final lesson ‘ happiness is about being comfortable in your own skin…. living a life of your own, and not an imitation of someone else’s reality’
    Of course, even that is only a perspective, but it happens to be one I agree with 🙂