Ghachar Ghochar Vivek Shanbhag (translation by Srinath Perur) 2015 Harper Perennial pp. 124 Ghachar Ghochar is a psychological, family drama that traces the rags to riches story of a family. Narrated in the voice of a young man who gets embroiled in everything that is happening around him in setting up and success of the…
Unladylike: A Memoir Radhika Vaz 2015 Aleph pp. 217 Unladylike, like the name suggests, is a memoir of Radhika Vaz. The title couldn’t be more apt, given the way she is living her life. Unladylike breaks away from stereotypes. But on a deeper reading you would feel that almost every girl and woman in India…
Vikram Betal (The 24 Riddles and the Origin of Betal) Sooriyakumar Sivakumaran 2017 pp. 58 The legendary tale of Vikram and Betal captured my imagination as a child. Despite having seen the televised series, I have never got the answers right. I liked the moral fibre,wisdom being imparted through the stories. I also love the…
The Unceremonious Revenge Arpit Shrivastava 2018 Half Baked Beans The Unceremonious Revenge is a fictional account of the trials and tribulations of a college drop out. The female lead falls for the young, responsible gentleman who is a victim of circumstance, having had to shoulder family responsibilities at a young age, at the cost of…
The Magic of the Lost Temple Sudha Murty 2015 Penguin pp. 203 There are few Indian writers who I have come across who write stories for children that are so engaging that you can’t put them down even as an adult. I loved Sudha Murty’s writing and I can understand why the nine year old…
All That Could Have Been (Humari Adhuri Kahaani) Mahesh Bhatt with Suhrita Sengupta 2015 Speaking Tiger pp. 142 I picked up this book looking at Mahesh Bhatt’s name and for all the months that I have had it, I was quite sure it was his biography. It was ten pages into the book that I…
Kuch Ishq Kiya Kuch Kaam Kiya Piyush Mishra 2017 (6 ed) Rajkamal pp. 150 The book is a collection of poetry by Piyush Mishra. I picked it up because it was on an eighty percent discount and because I wanted to read Mishra. I thought it will be a collection of his experiences and not…
Navarasa Vinaya Patil 2018 Half Baked Beans pp. 98 Navarasa by Vinaya Patil is a collection of short stories. As the title suggests, the stories depict the nine moods. A brief anecdotal story precedes each short story, sort of serving as a prologue. Each prologue is a super short story in itself though. I found…
Ice Boys in Bell BottomsKrishna Shastri Devulapalli2011Harper Collins Indiapp. 263(Available here https://amzn.to/2Hs5uS9)Ice Boys in Bell Bottoms is a coming of age story. The chief protagonist is the grandson of a famous Telugu poet and a nearly equally famous illustrator. Set in Hyderabad and then Chennai, the story gives a vivid description of life in a household…
KRISHNA: The Sovereign of 2050: A Sci-fi Adventure of a GodA Nolan2018AmazonKindle edition The story revolves around what it would be if Lord Krishna was our future, instead of our past. The concept is great. There is science fiction mixed with environmental concerns and some futurism. It is The story has tremendous potential, sadly the…
