Happy Hour ... and Me

If there is a thing called being a ‘Mahabharata Person’ then that would be me. What I mean is, that I have read the Mahabharata a couple of times written by various authors. Till date the one written by C Rajagopalachari is one of the best books that I have read. However for a long time, I have been wanting to read the Ramayana, but never made an attempt to do so, until I came across this book. The first of this six-volume series, Rise of the Sun Prince, takes you through the divine story of Lord Rama from his birth up to his marriage. For generations we have been passed lessons of life via stories and mythology, where its purely upto the recipient how to interpret the underlying message or just absorb it as entertainment. Each of these stories have intricate layers embedded therefore spinning out multiple interpretations and one of those is what author Shubha Vilas has used while retelling the Ramayana. What I love about the book is that because it is split into multip...

I have always found Mythology interesting for the fascination and intrigue it created. When I first read some of  Devdutt Pattanaik’s work I thoroughly enjoyed it, because he added the dimension of relevance and began connecting mythology to the present day business world.  When his book, Business Sutra, a very Indian approach to management was released, I knew it would be my next read and  coincidentally  BlogAdda sent it across for review. Business Sutra uses mythologies, stories, symbols and rituals drawn from Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythologies to relate to how we Indians look at doing business. It aims at promoting new management thinking using the Indian way as linked to Indian arts, history and mythology as contrast to the western principles. Ingrained characteristics like our ‘jugadi’ nature, finding comfort in chaos and co-existing with ambiguity define us as Indian across the world. Such facets peculiar to us apparently find their roots into...

“India’s answer to ‘The Da Vinci code’” was the singular thought resonating in my head when I read the back cover of the Krishna Key. This is precisely what made the first half of the book highly predictable and snapped the thrill that Da Vinci Code presented, out from the rest. However the similarity in plot would be a highly unfair reason to dismiss the book off. Despite the ‘been there and seen it all’ plot, there are two things that bind the book together; primary one being Krishna himself, who is so full of fascinating stories and multiple facets. Second is the research that flows through pages after pages in the book, which is entertaining for people like me who have a thing for mythological fiction.  The Krishna Key revolves around Ravi Mohan Saini who accused of the murder of his childhood friend Anil Varshney. Varshney had left 4 seals with Saini and 3 others along with a base plate in another location. All these put together would point towards a well guarde...

“The Devotion of Suspect X” is the work of one of Japan’s best-selling crime novelists Keigo Higashino and this book has not just sold some million copies but also won numerous awards. Therefore, when I picked up the book, my expectations from it were sky high and unfortunately which came crashing down with a huge thud. Usually, thrillers and murder mysteries have such a compounding effect that it’s hard to put the book down. But in this case; even tough the plot was interesting, it was an effort to pull the book up every time I put it down. The book has a stirring start, where right at the beginning the murder happens and we know who the murderer was. But what we are not told is how the murder was covered up, and most importantly, why would a stranger help the murderer cover-up the crime. The rest of the book is suppose to explore that, and it does but with a lackluster pace. Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced mother working in a box lunch shop is leading a peaceful life with ...

‘The cupid is still active in colleges, in offices and in today’s world, also on the internet’ is what the introduction of the book states. The author then goes to aptly point out that, love actually needs to sustain itself once the ‘first flush’ of passion passes by. This according to me is what renders the cupid’s role far more challenging. As his job now, isn’t just to commence ‘happily ever after’ but ensure that entire journey lasts that way. It’s this role of cupid that this Chicken Soup explores through stories of Indian couples both young and old by the use of 8 categories. Thankfully, the book isn’t focusing solely on the rosy aspects of love, where the boy meets the girl and they walk together into the sunset hand in hand. Nope. Only the first 60 odd pages are stories about how people found their soul-mates in their friends, or demure colleague, or in an online friend under the category of ‘Made in Heaven’ . Few stories in this category dangerously border on the flims...

Imagine this, you are a published writer, with a dozen odd books under your name. You frequently write articles on random things for various newspapers, magazines etc. After a while you realize that you have a repository of published & unpublished articles, and you are left wondering what can be done with them. Then zoop, pops out a brilliant thought. ‘Lets publish a book with those’ and in order to bind the randomness together, let’s use the threads of literature around it’. I guess thats how Anita Nair would possibly have incubated Good Night and God Bless. However for me, it was good thought and the outcome was blissful. I thrive on bed-time reading, and that’s exactly what made me pick up this book, as the book’s back cover describes ‘a bedtime ritual of drinking a warm cup of malted milk and along the books by her bedside’. The book talks about h er bedside table, which usually contains an assortment of books & the delight that they bring alongside. She has com...

A while ago I finished reading Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “The Palace Of Illusions” which I had stumbled upon when casually browsing a bookstore at the airport. The book presents a women’s perspective of the Mahabharata, by narrating the epic by none other than Draupadi, who was hugely held responsible for the war taking place. Personally for me, Mahabharata has always evoked a deep level of excitement. If I were to simply put it, it’s a lethal combination of drama, upscale levels of politics, games played in pursuit of power & love, with the oomph added by brawny men. However, predominantly Mahabharata is more about the men, their aspirations, lives & ambitions that sometimes scale beyond power. It has etched out some great heroes like Bheesma, Drona, Krishna, Arjun, Karna and the list goes on. So unless the author consciously chooses, the women in this epic will not be presented as central protagonist. So in that aspect, I liked the book and a refreshing narr...

I just finished reading the White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and here is what I felt about it. The book revolves around Balram, who hails from a typical rural set-up and is a classic story of one who rose from rags to riches. During one of his school inspections, he is labeled as a white tiger, a rarest creature in the jungle, only coming along once in every generation. He was labeled so, as he was one of the only students who could read and write. He enjoyed studying but his family borrows money from one of the landlords to pay for a cousin's dowry resulting which he has to leave school and start working in teahouses. However, he takes this also as an opportunity to learn which opens another avenue for him. He takes on the driving after convincing his grandmother to pay Rs 600 for his driving lessons. From then on begins new journey for his destiny with each chapter unfolding newer experiences that take him a step closer to a prosperous future. When Balram moves into Delhi with his ma...