Category: Books

  • Mumbaistan

    Piyush Jha

    Piyush Jha’s Mumbaistan has “3 explosive crime thrillers’ as a descriptor, and a blurb from Ekta Kapoor that promises “entertainment, entertainment and entertainment.” All things considered, both sets of promises have been kept.

    The first story – Bomb Day – has a set of stereotypes that one would associate with the subject – a prostitute, a cop, terrorists from across the border, a man with a past who is manipulated most of the time. To me, this was the slowest of the three novellas, but that’s only a relative measure, since you’d not be bored. The plot does keep moving, but there is a sense of predictability and cliches that seem to weigh it down. However, this is still a good “behind-the-scenes” look at the terrorists who hold a city to ransom and the law enforcers who try to prevent them from prevailing. (more…)

  • Backseat

     Aditya Kripalani 

    Judging by the date of publishing, this is probably the prequel to the school of writing (not genre, but language skills) that has one Mr.Tripathi as its patron saint now. The word skills are right up there – my favourite would have to be “help her bare the night” which, in the context of dance bars, was unintentionally very funny. There were enough bloopers around to indicate that the above was not clever wordplay.

    The plot itself is fairly predictable except for patches, and the pace makes it bearable. The characters are uni-dimensional, though on a few occasions, they get out of their skin and go roaming randomly. The language is Marathinglish, and it’s possible you might pick up a few non-English phrases by the time you finish the book. (more…)

  • Sons of Sita

     Ashok K Banker

    The final book in Ashok Banker’s Ramayana series. It is also the concluding part of the Uttara Kaanda, and is set a decade after Rama banished Sita. Luv and Kush, her sons, grow up in the hermitage of Valmiki, and from the first page, set out, unwittingly, on a collision course with their father.

    The author departs from the various versions I have read and puts a new spin on the events leading to the family reunion. I can’t be sure, but it would seem as though Banker’s version of Ayodhya is modeled after a superpower, complete with a political group called Republicans! Its acts of aggression, citing necessities that would seem selfish to an objective viewer, are easily comparable to what the US has been doing. Rama is portrayed as a king who takes on the mantle of an emperor on advice from a set of people motivated by their own vested interests. His relationship with his brothers has moved away from one of affection to more between that of a monarch and his vassals. (more…)

  • Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan

    William Dalrymple 

    “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” This book brings that quote to life! More than the book itself, kudos to Dalrymple for choosing a subject that has so much of relevance in the contemporary era! In fact, I wish it were written a few years earlier. ‘Return of a King’ is the story of the British (East India Company) invasion of Khurasan (modern day Afghanistan) in 1839 in an effort to establish their man Shah Shuja ul-Mulk, (descendant of the Ahmad Shah Durrani, regarded to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan) on the Kabul throne in place of the incumbent Dost Mohammed. That was the easy part, but as one Afghan commented then, the British had gotten in, but how would they maintain this status quo, or even get out? In a couple of years, the Afghans, in an ever changing mixture of coalitions, rebelled against the British and massacred them on their way back to Hindustan. The British then created an Army of Retribution to avenge this, and ended up bringing things back to square one.

    What set off this chain of events is something I have read about in some Sherlock Holmes adventures and seen alluded to in other works like ‘Kim’. The Great Game, an international milieu of intrigue that pitched the mighty powers of the time – Russia and Britain – against one another. Afghanistan, as per British intelligence, was where Russia was poised to strike next, to control Central Asia. This was supposed to be achieved with Dost Mohammed’s help. The Russian plans were far less threatening than reported by the British and ended up creating a war that need not have been. There is some amazing parallel here with what the Russians (80s) and the Americans (now) tried to do in Afghanistan! (more…)

  • Serious Men

    Manu Joseph

    “All a man really wants is to be greater than his friends”- Ayyan Mani’s belief is indeed the theme that runs through ‘Serious Men’ though it manifests in different ways across classes. The jacket pitches the plot as the ramifications of Mani’s efforts to raise himself above his peers by creating the myth of his son’s genius, but the story belongs as much to the scientist Arvind Acharya as well – an eccentric genius heading the Institute where Mani works, and whose contempt for his peers and views about the direction that physics should advance in, make him a target.

    The narrative switches between the two characters – from Mani’s first salvo in showcasing his son’s non-existent mental abilities to the office politics at the institute to Oparna’s entry in Arvind’s life and so on. The author fully uses the characters to philosophise, (“Hope is a lapse in concentration“) but it’s woven in excellently and doesn’t jar at all. There is some amazing wit – usually acerbic when Acharya is involved (“I have been inside your mind. It was a short journey“)- as well, and again, in line with the nature of the characters. What I really liked is how the author has fleshed out the characters – not just the main ones, but those in a supporting role as well. Their motivations, their own little quirks, all point to a deep insight on how the human mind works, though it is surfaced in unusual ways. (more…)