Category: Books

  • The Last War

    Sandipan Deb

    Sandipan Deb’s rendition of the Mahabharata in Mumbai. This is obviously not the first rendition of the Mahabharata in contemporary events – Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel, Mani Ratnam’s Thalapathi, Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti – but this one manages to shift the scene to what seems like an apt arena – the Mumbai underground. Bombay is Kurukshetra and Bombay is the prize.

    As with all the other renditions, it is practically impossible to fit all characters and events into the new canvass, so the author has been clinical in removing characters and reshaping events to fit his narrative. On a positive note, the interpretation is not altogether flawed, but is written very clearly on a simplistic level. Many characters have been well etched and can be seen as very close parallels of their originals. There are also contemporary incidents like match fixing, 9/11 etc which have been woven into the plot.

    (more…)

  • The Great Railway Bazaar

    Paul Theroux 

    Across Europe and through Asia in the mid seventies! Now that’s what you call travel – time travel for the reader. The journey begins in London, and after a bleak journey on the Trans Siberian express, ends there as well. There are thirty trains in this amazing chronicle, and they are as much about the travel experiences as they are about the culture of the age and the milieu of the countries they pass through. There are some excellent quotes I could identify with too eg. One always begins to forget a place as soon as it’s left behind. At one point, he also begins a short story that I have read in his later works!

    (more…)

  • Chasing the Monsoon

     Alexander Frater

    The monsoon – a phenomenon that has India in a tizzy every year. To me personally, the monsoons are a treasure trove of memories, associated with the various Junes that have been part of my life – childhood, college days, work – different places and different times. So I picked this book with quite some interest.

    Frater’s prologue tells us about his intent and motivation, but I’m afraid it tends to get a bit technical and I wouldn’t be surprised if people stopped reading the book because of it! But the chapters that follow are completely different, so do persevere. The first chapter is all about the immediate trigger that made the author set out – chasing the Indian monsoon from “where the rain is born” (to quote Anita Nair) to the wettest place on earth.

    Trivandrum is where it all begins and the author captures the tension across the country around the beginning of the monsoon pretty well. The weather forecasters, astrologers, politicians, and even regular folks – all have their theories and perspectives. One of the things that makes the book really good is the author’s reading and chronicling of the milieu he has been pulled into – sociocultural, economic, political and so on. His meeting with Kamala Das, the death of John Abraham, (Malayalam movie director) the Ambassador car’s preeminence, all add flavour to the narrative.

    (more…)

  • Mumbai Noir

    edited by Altaf Tyrewala

    14 stories, divided into 3 sections, edited by Altaf Tyrewala, that’s Mumbai Noir. A completely different version of the city from the usual grandiose, glamorous ones that most fictional works create, it definitely lives up to the title.

    For some reason, I saw more of Bombay in this than the current Mumbai – in terms of the city’s character and how the actions of various people across different stations in life helped create it. Altaf’s introduction sets up the overall tone and feel of the book pretty well, and sensitises us to the stories ahead.

    In the first section – Bomb-ay – Riaz Mulla’s take on how ordinary hard working people become pawns in the machinations of global terrorism is an excellent start. Paromita Vohra’s mix of internet and real life ‘romance’ and trust makes ‘The Romantic Customer’ a neat read. Devashish Makhija’s ‘By Two’ is quite surreal and tragic, and Abbas Tyrewala’s “Chachu at Dusk” has to be a contender for my favourite among the stories. It captures the transition from Bombay to Mumbai the best.

    (more…)

  • The Other Side of Light

    Mishi Saran

    I completely loved Mishi Saran’s earlier work “Chasing the Monk’s Shadow”, an inner journey as much as an actual one. In some ways I could associate it a little with Asha’s journey in ‘The Other Side of Light’, a work of fiction. The blurb says she has written short stories earlier, but I have to wonder whether this contains autobiographical elements, like many first time works of fiction do. (just a thought)

    The book is written in flashback mode as we get the current status of Asha’s life in the first few pages. We follow Asha’s life right from the time she was born – with a harelip. Childhood is zoomed through but college is an important part of the story – friendships and first love and the camera that, in many ways, defines Asha’s life later. The narrative is fairly linear, with Asha’s friends, love interests, parents and teacher playing important roles. History and events pop up every once in a while in the background and it’s almost as though the protagonist and the nation are being moulded by their experiences in parallel. (more…)