Just as a kite flies against the wind, one must defeat resistance or fall to the ground. This is what entrepreneurship is. Take risk, fly high or be ordinary. We all take risks in our lives. Sometimes we take risk because there is no other option and sometimes because that is our choice. Women are inherently risk takers. You ask
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A snowy landscape strewn with barren, dying trees. A world so white that the horizon blends perfectly with the ground, not leaving any scope to demarcate between sky and snow. You might be imaginative enough to be envious of me sitting on snow and writing this article. Alas, this sums up a description of Siberia from ‘Kane and Abel’ by
Read moreCategorized as a superhero fiction, a part of speculative fiction by the author; the story narrated by the author often blurs boundary. A part “social satire”, a part “super-villain” story, a part study of human evolution; The Legend of Yuck-Man begins as a story of exploitation and displacement fostered by greed and augmented by capitalism; however, it soon descends in
Read moreThe cover page of this particular book grabbed my eyeballs. Seeing it and without reading the synopsis (a first for me!) I had decided I want to read this one. It lets out such a strong message. Kudos to Geetali for a splendid job. Smita and Krishnaprem are in love. They are ambitious people. Also dealing with their own complications.
Read moreI picked this book up because I had seen the seriously hilarious movie The Perfect Murder based on a book of the same name by Keating. If you haven’t seen the movie, do go ahead and watch it… It is one of the lesser known gems of Indian Cinema. However, this was the second time that a Merchant Ivory film led me
Read more‘Reflections on contemporary living and relationships’ – the tagline that accompanied this book of collected essays said more about the content than anything else. Having been a Times of India subscriber since it began publishing a few years ago in my city, I have gone through Ms. Nangia’s columns in the special glossy Sunday Times supplement, Times Life. The short
Read moreI picked this book up at the Bombay airport a few years ago and read it on my journey to Delhi. At that point, I just remembered Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron as the movie that had that timelessly funny Mahabharat scene, which as college students we would watch on loop sometimes, on Youtube. The rest of the movie was a blurry
Read moreSoorina Desai’s debut novel, Anamika, was first published in the year 2005 and republished in 2015. It is the story of Anamika and Rajbir. Written with an eye for detail, the story describes a time when India had newly gained its freedom. Romance in that era was very different from what we understand today. There’s a certain old school charm
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Poetry is an expression of experience, so I noted very recently. When we write, it is borne from that experience, be it emotional or observational, or even inspired by the work of another poet. I love reading. One of the blessings of this life has been that love for reading that has been inculcated in me since childhood. One of
Read moreThis virtually unknown book came to my attention as I was trawling Amazon’s book pages during one of their umpteen ‘Dhamaka’ sales. Filled with anecdotes that went on behind the scenes during the making of ‘Sholay’, I found the book a terrifically fun read. ‘Sholay’ started off as a four sentence story idea that Salim and Javed had about a
Read moreI remember asking my mother if she remembered the Emergency in the 70’s and she told me, “Yes, a lot of people went to jail; but corruption went away. Trains, buses used to be on time.” That and the undeniable fact that Indira Gandhi had induced the Emergency to satiate her hunger for power, had been my narrow viewpoint on
Read moreI was somewhat surprised that I liked The Zoya Factor so much. I expected to merely pass the time on a flight with the book; what ended up happening was that I was perhaps the only one not sleeping (or not trying to sleep) on a late night flight, completely hooked to Anuja Chauhan’s first. The story line and plot
Read moreAgni Sreedhar’s bio on wikipedia reads as former gangster, writer, critic and artist. His book Daadagiriya Dinagalu (Kannada), winner of Karnataka State Sahitya Akademi Award, has been translated into My Days In The Underworld – Rise of the Bangalore Mafia. The translation, by Sreedhar himself, stays colloquial and the tone of the book is naturally street side. What an exciting
Read moreThis was the first Jhumpa Lahiri book I read and from the get go, I was enchanted by the poetry of Lahiri’s prose. It is a little difficult for people who have grown up reading Jeffrey Archer’s short stories – people like me who expect every story to have a beginning, a premise and an end – to fully appreciate
Read moreThe first thing that I noticed about the book when I saw it was the cover. In an explosive pink color, the cover is cluttered with a huge hyperlink mouse pointer image with little badges surrounding it. Yes, Start-ups in this technical age revolved around computers. For the sake of argument, which business doesn’t? I could make out the title
Read moreSyed Hussain Zaidi’s Byculla to Bangkok is touted as the sequel to Dongri to Dubai but it fails miserably, leaving very few traces of coherence in chronology. It is the first time in my life that I have been disappointed by a Hussain Zaidi book; even Rahul Bhatt’s sob story, Headley & I (co-authored with Zaidi), was far more tolerable.
Read more‘Being an avid reader of crime fiction myself, I have always harbored an ambition to make my own humble contribution to this genre,’ said writer Sourabh Mukherjee in an interview. ‘The story, of course, had its germs in my own interests in human psychology and in the complexities of human relationships, especially in these times of changing social order.’ ‘Also,
Read moreTo me, ‘God of Small Things‘ has always been the gold standard for the kind of book that should win a Booker. Booker winning book after book since has disappointed me sorely. The Booker Prize it seems, is more about the one eyed amongst the blind and not really the best book of the year. That said, ‘The White Tiger‘
Read moreI normally like to read the blurb and the prologue before selecting a book as I believe some synopsis do not do justice in getting the right feel of the story. The blurb of this one highlighted a very different kind of a subject and that made me pick it up at the very first instance. Naina and Manish are
Read moreAs a lover of books based on Indian mythology, I opened Jagmohan Bhanver’s The Curse of Brahma with a bit of apprehension. And, there was a certain reason behind that. Lately, a number of retelling of Indian mythologies had disappointed me. But, to my own surprise, this book captured my attention in the Prologue and then I could not stop
Read more“It’s not right, but it’s okay. I’m gonna make it anyway… Don’t you dare come running back to me… I’d rather be alone than unhappy.” This number by Whitney Houston has been playing on my music system ever since I accidentally discovered it while looking for Anuj Tiwari’s novel of the same name. The song examines a woman confronting her lover about his infidelity.
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