BOOK REVIEW : SCION OF IKSHVAKU by AMISH

RAMAYANA: A tale by Valmiki which depicts the responsibilities, conduct, and duties of an ideal person, living an ideal life in an ideal society.
Uffff.....So many "ideals" in one sentence itself!!
Seems like an impossible task to me...And moreover who defines IDEAL?? Everyone has their own definition of Idealism and as for society, frankly, most people care two hoots about what the society is up to!!!!
Coming back to the Ramayana, we all know its story and have read books on it and seen it being adapted into movies and drama series and even animated ones for children...
My first brush with Ramayana was on Doordarshan, in the 1980s when Ram Gopal Sagar had made a drama series based on Valmiki's story...
And what a hit the series was. You would not find anyone on the streets on Sunday mornings as people would be glued to their television sets watching Arun Govil playing Ram and Deepika playing Sita!!!!
As a result, funnily, till date, the first image that comes to my mind when I think of Shri Ram is of Arun Govil, with his raised right arm, palms facing out, as in giving "aashirwaad", with a serene smile on his face!!!!!
Scion Of Ikshvaku is the latest book by Amish on the life and deeds of Shri Ram.
To be honest, I was not too enthused about this series as I, in all the arrogance of a so-called "seasoned reader", rationalized that there cannot be anything new to add to this well-known story and that it will fall short of expectations!!!
But I was in for a surprise!!
This is the first book in the trilogy and it starts with the birth of Shri Ram and ends with the famous "Sita Haran" scene or the kidnapping of Sita by Raavan.
It is a very interestingly written story which offers its readers a completely new take on many important incidents in the life of Shri Ram...
Starting with the birth of Ram, the reason behind the intense hatred between Ram and Raavan, Ram's formative years and his relation with his father, King Dashrath, the reason behind Ram's 14year exile, the story of Jatayu are all written from a completely new perspective, which is a delight and cliched though it sounds, makes one exclaim, " Its different!!"
I especially enjoyed the way Amish took care to explore Ram and Sita's relationship, right from their unconventional first meeting to their wedding and their conversations were Just Right!!
Amish has also made Sita be a lady with spunk, wits, intelligence, and a strong constitution. She is not just a sweet-faced docile wife... But then this was expected as Amish always makes the female protagonists be strong and a companion to their husbands, in every true sense...
King Dashrath is best known as the king of Ayodhya and the father of Shri Ram who dies alone without any of his sons around.. A very one-dimensional character who has never been given much importance in any of the Ramayana adaptations...
But the surprise element (at least for me) was the way Amish has sketched the character of king Dashrath. He is shown here as a man who attacks his enemy without any prior planning but only to satisfy his hurt ego and pride. A man who ignores his son during his formative years blaming him for all his failures but turns a full 180° when he realizes that his name will become immortal as the father of the next Vishnu throughout history... A truly selfish man, as Queen Kaykeyi once accused him to be!!!!
There are those who strongly criticize Amish and his storytelling and the subjects that he chooses...
Yes, I do agree that he does use a certain style in crafting his stories, which initially seems brilliant but after three books, it does have an " I know what is going to happen" feel but at no point does it make the book boring.
I for one enjoyed the story very much and thanks to Amish have started to respect and admire the principles which Ram stood for and sincerely hope for the other books in the trilogy to be equally entertaining.
I would definitely recommend this book to all the readers out there and instead of dilly-dallying you can buy it here:
https://amzn.to/2DX51ow

Jai Shri Ram!!!

BOOK REVIEW : THE GLASS PALACE by AMITAV GHOSH

" Mere piya gaye Rangoon
  Kiya hai wahan se teliphoon "

This was my introduction to Rangoon, present-day Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar. 
The name Rangoon has always fascinated me and this was the prime reason for choosing this book, not that I did not care about the author. On the contrary, I had been wanting to read a Ghosh book ever since a dear friend of mine had highly recommended his books. However, as is usually the case with me, I just was not interested then. This book though was different. After reading the synopsis, I was compelled to get hold of it!!!!!

Hmmmm.....I have to admit that this is not one of Ghosh's finest compositions and as per some reliable bookworms, not the best book of his, to begin with. But can't do much about it now and it will be sometime before I hold another Amitav Ghosh in my hand. That's for sure!!!
For starters, it's a very long story which starts in a very interesting manner but soon loses steam even before its halftime. He is a superb writer and he has done his homework really well and does a brilliant job in writing a masterpiece when it comes to mixing fiction with historical events. But funnily enough, he is like that studious student who will write a full-page answer for a 2 marks question, just because he has mugged up the whole chapter. Such is the case with Ghosh. He just does not know when to stop. 

He starts with the royal family of Burma and their forced exile to India. Then the story goes into a different track talking about the money minting timber trade of Burma that was the prime reason for the Britishers to show any interest in Burma. From the timber trade, Ghosh takes us back to India highlighting the plight of the royal family in Ratnagiri. He then tells us about the Indians employed by the Britishers as collectors and the privileges enjoyed by them, who look down upon their own countrymen, thinking themselves to be at par with the Gora Sahib. Then again Ghosh jumps to the mutiny days led by the Indians sepoys against the Englishmen and all that it stands for. Here he does an admirable job in bringing to light the inner conflict in the minds and hearts of the Indians who were an integral part of the British army and were forced to go to God-forsaken places to fight against armies much superior to them, in terms of arms and facilities, just in the name of the Queen during the world war. Not only this, the Indian sepoys had to stand against their own people, the freedom fighters, which was taking a bad toll on their psyche and was baffling for the loyal sepoys to understand what prompted others to stand against the British army. 

But as said earlier the story does not end here...Ghosh takes us through another heart-wrenching episode of history and that is the 1000+kms walk by the Indians who fled Burma during the second world war. I was at my lowest emotionally just reading about the hardships faced by those people who were forced to give up everything that mattered to them to go to a country which was their homeland in name only as it was Burma that their souls were attached to. Ghosh then takes us through India's fight for independence and then the abrupt jump to the early 1990s taking us to the present Ratnagiri and then finally to Myanmar where he even mentions Aung San Suu Kyi.

Phewww....If you are confused and tired after reading this, imagine poor me.....struggling through the story and its jumps and leaps and sudden twists and abrupt endings after every chapter(more or less).
There are parts which I really enjoyed reading and that was the highlight of this experience. The first 150 pages of the book which revolves around the life of the royal family in Mandalay and then in India and the initial years in the life of Rajkumar, an orphan living in Mandalay and how he becomes a successful timber merchant makes for an interesting read. Then the part where Ghosh talks about the inner turmoils of the Indian soldiers fighting against their own countrymen for the Queen is just too good and of course, the part that describes the hazardous walk taken by the fleeing Indians through the dense jungles for days at a stretch was simply superb!!

As for the rest, the lesser spoken the better....Too many characters in the story, too many incidents, too many places.....here I have to admit that I am bad in geography, even in the basic directions. Right/left/ north/south...don't ask how bad!!! So I was all the more confused and lost with it!!

In the end, have to say that it's a good story and would have been a truly excellent one with a few edits and cuts.

As the famous phrase goes, "If only....."

BOOK REVIEW : Sunlight On A Broken Column by Attia Hosain

"Pre-independent unified India and the struggle for independence", are topics on which innumerable stories have been written and that too from all possible perspectives. This book " Sunlight On A Broken Column" by Attia Hosain is also set during the Raj days, prior to our independence. So, now the inevitable," What's so special about this one?? What sets it apart from other innumerable fiction stories in the backdrop of India's struggle for independence??" The answer is clichéd but true and simple: it's DIFFERENT!!!
I urge you to buy this book and feel the difference on your own by clicking on the link here: https://amzn.to/2RGyU0F
Attia Hosain weaves a beautiful, intricate story about an influential Muslim family with characters having an uneven blend of black, white, and grey shades in their temperament, their personalities making them very real and easy to identify with. While reading this book I found myself on a roller coaster ride experiencing a myriad of emotions ranging from a claustrophobic feeling of restriction, indecisiveness, rebellion, the feeling of excitement and goose bumps-on-your-skin on meeting "the right one", of anger, of resentment, of helplessness. However, the predominant feeling that lasted even after I was done with the book was a deep deep sense of longing for the years gone by, for the hometown left behind, for the friends who were once my lifeline but are no more there with me because of varied reasons: change of place, change of interests, change in mindset, change in priorities, a melancholy loss for those dear ones who left halfway in this journey called life for heavenly abode. This book, especially the last few pages in the story made me ache for my roots, for my childhood, for the moments left behind, for the time so so lost from my hands forever that I had almost started crying. And not the ladylike soft sobs but those huge loud cries with hiccups and running nose, all combined together...
I actually told Niraj after finishing this book," How I wish I could go back in time, if, only for a day!!", and the look he gave me was a thousand answers in itself!!
Laila, the main protagonist is the orphaned daughter of a distinguished Muslim family of Talukdars. Keeping her father's last wishes in mind, Laila is given western education but she observes purdah like her aunts and cousins at home. She is being brought up in an ultra-conservative setup but all these changes when BabaJan, her grandfather passes away and she goes to live with her uncle Hamid who though claims to be liberal, is in fact very dominating and controlling. Laila gets exposed to the outer world through her new friends when she starts going to university.  Here she comes across young men and women who are anti-government (British government) and are actively involved in the Independence movement which is slowly gaining momentum. But Laila, herself is not able to commit herself either as pro-British or anti- British as she finds herself continually fighting ( within herself)  for her own independence against societal rules and dogmas. She is finally able to break the shackles of tradition and honor and duty when she goes against her family to marry Ameer, who though a Muslim is not a part of their social strata. Laila imagines a life of " happily ever after" with Ameer but life, as we know loves to shock us and put us in unusual situations when we least expect any change! And so it happens with Laila. Her life as she had always known takes a complete turn in the height of India's fight for freedom, the partition of India into Pakistan and India and the need to ascertain one's rightful place whether as a Muslim in India or uprooting oneself and going to Pakistan to build a new life and a new nation.
This is a story which is almost like a memoir based on Hosain's personal experiences, growing up in an influential albeit a conservative Muslim household prior to independence.
The story tends to be a bit depressing at times and it is also a tad bit slow in some portions but overall it's worth a read. Reading this book takes you back to a time which our grandparents talk fondly about, it talks about customs and traditions which are rarely seen today and talks of love which was, is and always will be the feeling which makes us strong emotionally and mentally and gives us wings to fly to our rightful abode!!!

Three Most Scandalous Books read by Me : The Alchemy Of Desire by Tarun J Tejpal

The Alchemy of Desire  [ http://writetothepoint.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-name-tarun-tejpal-is-associated.html#] is

 :

The third and last book in my list of the three scandalous books which I have read.
On the front of it this book seemed to me pretty ordinary with the story revolving around a young married couple who truly love each other and how a chance finding of a trunk load of personal diaries  belonging to an English lady living in India prior to our independence, changes their lives forever.
But when you start reading the book you are taken by surprise by the explicit sexual content of the story. This was exactly my reaction on reading  such graphic scenes by an Indian author and that too from someone like Mr.Tejpal ( I am sure I must be sounding like a prude, but this was my first and honest reaction to the book!). I have definitely read books worse than this but this book was a bit of a shock for me as the sexual content made me a tad bit uncomfortable and I was not able to sync it with the story.
I have written a post about this book earlier and in it I have praised the story and Mr.Tejpal's way of writing. I have been and am still pretty impressed by the topics chosen by him and the way he has moulded his stories be It the Alchemy of Desire or The Valley of Masks to keep the reader engrossed in the story. He is undoubtedly a master storyteller but I was not comfortable with the way sex was used in the story. It seemed kind of forcefully added to the story and not being a part of the story.
I was once discussing this book with a cousin of mine and I told  him that even though I have read many scandalous books of many genres since I was a teenager but this book had the ability to stun me even now, when I thought I was mature enough to read any sexual content without it affecting me.
Overall it is an interesting read if one can get over the sexual content and enjoy the story of a young couple who though are financially very weak but are very happy to be with each other.

BOOK REVIEW : EM and the big HOOM by Jerry Pinto

Nothing is more precious in this world than Mom. She is the most important person in our lives and is the center of our world. She is always an anchor for her children and is even willing to fight against the whole world to protect them. When we were small, isn't she the one whom we used to rush to with our problems and even today, I, seek my mother's counsel whenever life throws a spanner in my well-laid plans.
Now imagine a scenario where the roles get reversed and instead of mom being the protector/provider, she is the one who needs to be looked after in all physical, mental, and emotional aspects. How daunting it seems, right!
This is exactly what the main theme of Pinto's debut novel is. The story revolves around a simple middle-class family living in Mahim, Mumbai( Bombay, in those days) where Imelda Mendes, Em to her children suffers from mental illness. In the one bedroom-hall-kitchen, all 450 square feet of it, Augustine, Big Hoom to his children and his two children come face to face with Em's unpredictable mood swings on a daily basis. Her family adjusts their life in accordance with her flamboyance, her compelling imaginations, her unspoken love and at times even her candid cruelty. Augustine is the rock of the family and is the one and only constant stable factor in the lives of his children. He seamlessly takes over the dual roles of a breadwinner and that of a house maker when the symptoms of Em's illness became evident. He never complains or holds a grudge against Imelda, because he truly loved her. Their love is intriguing as it was pure, selfless and true. The children love Em very much as all children are programmed to do so but she is also a mystery to them. They try to understand the cause and the beginning of her illness by talking to her about her earlier life and going through her letters, but they never can come to any conclusion.

Reading a debut novel is like playing a gamble if one is lucky enough then it's ok but if luck is not your side then you end up hating the book. In this case, I turned out to be very lucky. Hopefully, if I have been successful in convincing you on reading this book then all you have to do is click on the link below to get your own copy:
https://amzn.to/2QuOjnq

Pinto is an excellent storyteller and the best part about him is that he does not waste his or the reader's time in writing long descriptive passages. He writes in a very simple language with a beautiful flow, which in itself is a mark of a truly good storyteller. The topic he has chosen for his debut novel is a very serious one - mental illness. He writes how this illness affects not only the patient but his/her family too and how they all learn to cope with it together. The characters go through myriad emotions of anger, helplessness, frustration, fear, laughter, joy, hope, sadness but Pinto never lets the characters take the self-pity route. It is a straightforward story about a family'earnest struggle to lead a normal life while dealing with Em's mood swings which like a pendulum shift from highest high to the lowest low. Though anger is the main emotion underlying this story, Pinto has very nicely added some light moments to keep the reader interested in the story. 

After reading this book I want to thank Jerry Pinto for reaffirming my faith that even though today every author is more keen to market his book than being concerned about the story of the book, there are authors like Pinto himself who believe that a good book will definitely find its readers with or without "any in your face" marketing tricks.