Books I Read in 2015

2015 was another year where I was certain that I would not meet my target of 50 books and I lived up to my expectations. I was able to finish/discard 19 books in all, and a lot of them have been mediocre. I tried to make up in quantity what I lacked in quality last year by reading a lot of books by first timers and unknown authors and they have disappointed me, but the biggest one of them all were Byomkesh Bakshi stories and The Seeker by Karan Bajaj. I have expected a lot from both these books and they have been very disappointing to say the least.  

So here are the others I read this year, in no particular order.

1.     Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka: If you are among the Cricket Lovers who can also appreciate fine commentary, then this is the book for you. Karunatilaka’s biography of a fictitious and eccentric Off Spin bowler from Sri Lanka tells you more about the game, the country, 1996 World Cup and what the victory meant to them than even Kumar Sangakkara’s Bradman Oration. Though a bit lengthy and unorthodox in its narrative, Karunatilaka’s wit and various anecdotes sprouting liberally along its way the book makes for a delightful read. Watch out for the wonderful epilogue. Strongly Recommended.

2.     Confessions of a Private Tutor by Vikram Mathur: It’s a guilty pleasure that I indulged myself in when I had to work early morning at 6 AM to 3 PM for about a month. There was no one along with me and I was sitting by myself when a couple of user reviews about its raunchy content made me buy it off Flipkart for 47 INR. Going by my expectations and the genre of the book, I have to say that I was surprised that the author made a decent job of making me read till the end. Savita Bhabhi meets 50 Shades of Grey. Leave everything else I wrote about the book except the last sentence. If that interests you, this is for you.

3.     The Humming by Deepak Karamungikar: I’m a huge fan of short stories, and having written a few of them myself, I would like to think that I know a thing or two about them. I make it a point to read a few Self Published Authors that I know through online interactions and I picked this one by Deepak as I read a couple of short stories he wrote on his blog. I’m not particularly impressed with this collection partly because these stories were written some time ago, and I guess the author was still evolving into a better one while he was writing these. I don’t want to open the book again and go through its index to remember a story that I would like to mention here. I guess that says more than anything I can say about this anthology.

4.     Yes, My Accent is Real by Kunal Nayyar: This is what I wrote on GoodReads when I finished reading this book. Had Kunal Nayyar been a blogger, I don't think this book would have existed.

Anyways, when I first saw this book on the stands I thought a book by Raj of Big Bang Theory would be funny and irreverent, but probably I had too high expectations on this one. Kunal didn't write his lines for BBT, so I guess it was my mistake expecting the same level of wit and humour from this book. I can't say I hated it, but this is not a book I would fondly recommend to my friends.

 

Nothing to add.

5.     An Assassin’s Diary by Arthur Bremer: I was interested in this book ever since Paul Schrader mentioned it as one of his inspirations for writing Taxi Driver. This is the diary of an assassin and it was presented as it was written with no editing, no corrections typos or otherwise. It provides an account of Arthur’s daily life on the days prior to his plotting to shoot Nixon. Arthur includes mundane details like fares of the stuff he brought and how he was able to cheat the cops to immigrate to Canada. The most interesting thing about this book, however, was to see how Schrader created the most fascinating character of Hollywood in 70s, Travis Bickle, from this memoir. The dialogue and scenes do not appear verbatim, but one can see a lot of Travis Bickle in Arthur Bremer.

6.     Nari by Sharath Komarraju: If you can forgive Sharath’s strange fixation for being vulgar and raunchy, the first half of Nari is an entertaining pulp novel thinly disguised as a tale of rape and sexual abuse, probably inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s legendary film Rashomon. But once the narrator is changed halfway, it all goes downhill. The book is an easy read and what it lacks in intelligent plotting, makes up with its prose and the characterizations of its leads. Sharath also tries to ask some important questions about Rape and even offers a casual look and a simplistic explanation into the psyche of victims and perpetrators of the act. They didn’t resonate particularly well with me, but that’s not to say they won’t appeal to anyone. The best thing I can say about the author is that I will buy another book written by him.

7.     Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh: The Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh is the finest work of Historic Fiction written in our times, not just because it is well researched, or intimate and epic at the same time, but it also shows how Historic Fiction should be written. The last instalment of the trilogy on Opium Wars between East India Company and China, brings back all the protagonists of the earlier two parts and narrates their tales through Kesri Singh and Indian Hawaldar in charge of a battalion in the army. Ghosh does not let his work attributed pure academic importance by painting history in broad strokes, but gets his hands dirty by exploring the lives of each of his characters during the war and how it has effected them, and none of them seems alternate or revisionist history. An ambitious work from an acclaimed author at the heights of his prowess. Strongly Recommended.

8.     Byomkesh Bakshi Stories by Saradindu Bandhopadhyay:   The stories are severely dated, or probably much of the good stuff is lost in translation, or there are better Byomkesh Bakshi stories than the ones chosen in this collection. Whatever might be the reason, this book has been a major disappointment for me, especially after the expectations I had before picking this up.

9.     Drop Dead by Swathi Kaushal: Another one of those easy read whodunnits I read in office over the ample leisure time provided by the early working hours. The whodunit genre has really been done to death and there isn’t much any new writer can do with the all too familiar red herrings. There will be a twist at the end, and many of us would be proved wrong by the time the truth unfolds but everything is yawn inducing. If you replace the book title with any other murder mystery out there, the review turns out to be the same. As a side note, there are numerous references to Priayanka Chopra in the book, so I won’t be surprised if she picks up this book and decides to turn it into a franchise.

10.  Getting Even and Side Effects by Woody Allen: A collection of essays, memoirs, short stories and some more bizarreness dished out by Woody Allen in his characteristic prose and style. People familiar with his work would enjoy this to the core like I did. If you can imagine him narrating the stories in his voice, it would be even more delicious. Guess I should look out for an audio book if he ever did one for this.

11.  The Seeker by Karan Bajaj: Read review here.

12.  The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty: One of the books that I abandoned midway this year as the pace was too slow and the chapters felt repetitive. After the success of Gone Girl, there were a lot of books claiming themselves to be the next Gone Girl, or whose blurbs read “If you loved Gone Girl, you would love this”. I fell into that trap, but couldn’t read more than 100 pages till the secret was revealed. Not interested in what happens further.

13.  The Mammaries of the Welfare State by Upamanyu Chatterjee: Agastya Sen of English August returns in this sequel to Chatterjee’s debut masterpiece and the novel is typical of all Upamanyu Chatterjee’s work. Difficult to read, eccentric characters, laborious prose needing endless run to dictionaries. Agastya Sen is a man who I love a lot and Chatterjee makes him even more grumpy than it was possible for him in the first edition, but he is older and became more eccentric than ever. For fans of UC, there is no need to recommend his books, but for others I can’t really say.

14.  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: I read the book after I watched the movie, and I liked both of them far better after reading the book. I was able to appreciate David Fincher’s choices of what to retain and what not to in his adaptation owing to the constraints the film medium poses him, and I liked Gillian Flynn’s book to pieces. Definitely Recommended.

15.  The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: Another “Girl” book, only far better than Husband’s Secret. Though the curse of repetitiveness persists in this book as well, a problem even Gone Girl had, the plot was moving and made me interested in the proceedings. I was able to empathize with the protagonists and the ending was unexpected, rang true and satisfactory. Recommended if you like Gone Girl. No Kidding.

16.  Breach by Amrita Chowdhury: Read review here.

17.  Delhi Noir by Various Writers: I’m a huge noir fan and have watched a lot of films and read books on the genre so I was pretty excited when I knew of this book after watching B.A Pass which was based on the short story Railway Aunty from the Delhi Noir anthology. Delhi Noir boasts a collection of Noir Stories by famous authors and a couple of other stories are done well, but the anthology itself turned out pretty mild and unintelligent for Noir fans like me.  The writers seemed to be more intent on getting the atmosphere right and may be Delhites would love their attempts, but the plots aren’t much to write home about. The language was a delight though.

18.  Fairy Tales at Fifty by Upamanyu Chatterjee: Read review here

19.  Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh: Train to Pakistan was Khushwant Singh’s most popular novel and the author was in fine form writing this, but it’s a shame that I read it at a time when I was slightly jaded with all the novels I read on Partition. The event itself bores me now, not that I’m indifferent to what happened, but I read so much about it that I needed a break. That does not take anything away from this celebrated work which, I feel, should be made a part of academic curriculum for students.

So, that’s the reading list for the year and my thoughts on the books. Clearly, there is not much quality and I should have better recommendations this year, though the target of 50 books for the year remains, which I have never been able to achieve. I opted out of receiving books for reviews as one of my New Year Resolutions because they have stopped sending me, so I think the number would be even lesser next year, but hopefully I can make it up with quality what I lack in quantity.

Please post your lists too, so that I can pick up some recommendations

 

Books I Read in 2014

2014 has been a disappointing year for me as far as reading is concerned, among other things. I started with the usual target of 50 books, but could not quite reach it, which is a shame, but what disgusts me even more is that I could not even read as many as I did last year. Further, most of the books I read this year are mediocre ones, which left me with no joy whatsoever of reading them. In every way, this year has been unacceptable for me, I wrote about facing the reader’s block here, but that is no excuse for the laziness and indiscipline I exhibited for most part of the year.

The count ends at 13, and here’s the list of them, and what I thought of each of them in some words, if I haven’t reviewed them already.

1. Riot by Shashi Tharoor: If I read this book without knowing who wrote it, and if someone told me it was by Tharoor, I would have laughed at his face. But this book is a disappointing fact, a sore thumb in the envious oeuvre of Shashi Tharoor. A work of Propaganda masquerading as fiction, this is Tharoor at his most manipulative worst. 

2. And Then One Day by Naseeruddin Shah

3. The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph: Easily, the best book I read this year. I thought Manu Joseph’s debut book Serious Men, was kind of okay though I don’t recommend it to many, but his second novel about a failed journalist, attempting to re-imagine his dead son’s last days before his suicide through the clues left in his cartoons, and interviewing his friends, is a thoroughly witty, deliciously sarcastic, wonderfully powerful tale of philosophic overtures narrated with the irreverence of a writer assured of his method. A must read.

4. Mango Chutney, edited by Harsh Snehanshu : I bought this collection, coz most I’m familiar with many authors in the list, at least their names and their blogs. To be frank, I was totally disappointed with this book. For a book of more than 30 stories, there are not more than 3 that impressed me. 

5. God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian

6. Losing My Religion by Vishwas Mudugal: This book is the kind, that is found almost everywhere these days. The story is almost always about an entrepreneur or an investment banker, disillusioned with this life style, leaves everything he has got and embarks on a journey, throughout the world, or in our country. The locales change, but the narrative is the same. I won’t say it was a disappointing read, but this does not surprise you. Also, I’m a bit peeved with passages where the hero finds everything perfect about heroine, writes eulogies about her, so much that she is someone out of his dreams, and not a real person. It reminded me of Keep Off the Grass by Karan Bajaj, only Bajaj’s book came first and is a far better book.

7. Shikhandi and Other Tales They Won’t Tell Youby Devdutt Pattnaik

8. How to Become a Billionaire by Selling Nothing: Another listless debut work featuring inane one-liners. Pity, that the plot has something to offer, but a tedious read.

9. Best of Manto, A Collection of his Short Stories: I read Manto’s short stories for the first time this year, while he is a great short story writer, I could not find myself rooting for his characters, as they are mostly people who were impacted by the Partition of 1947. Still, for anyone who wants to write short stories, understand the form, Manto’s Stories are a must read.

10. Lessons in Forgetting by Anita Nair: This book follows the lives of a Professor seeking the truth about his daughter’s death, and a Page 3 Celebrity Cook Book Writer as her life comes apart after her divorce to her husband of 20 years, and how they come to rescue each other’s’ lives. The Professor’s part of the book is neatly done with consistent pace and intriguing narration, but the housewife character was devoted too much unnecessary time. 

11. The Tailor of Giripul by Bulbul Sharma: When a loveable village tailor gets involved in a murder mystery in the sleepy town of Giripul, things get quite, well lukewarm. The author seems to be content with setting up the place of action, and breathing in the atmospherics, rather than telling the story or creating twists in it. In Bulbul Sharma’s vivid imagination, Giripur is evocative of R K Narayan’s Malgudi. 

12. X Square by Srinu Pandranki

13. If I Could Tell You by Soumya Bhattacharya

Please do post your lists, so that I can pick some for my next year’s target of 50 books, again.

Book Bucket Challenge

So, The Book Bucket Challenge has hit IndiBlogger too through Indispire 29^th Edition. I have been tagged by couple of my friends on Facebook and I’m reproducing my response here. Though, here I would be writing a line or two about why they were in my list. Without further ado, here’s my list.

1.     English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee: English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee is the best book I have ever read, and it will continue to hold its place for eternity in my life, since Agastya is the literary character whom I can identify myself the most with. His indifference towards his job, life, relationships was something I encounter almost daily and I want to run away from it all, much like how he does at the end of the book, something, I call “The English, August Syndrome”. It is not easy to do it, but it seems the most sensible thing to do to a world growing increasingly boring by the day. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s language is a different beast. I don’t know how getting high on Hash feels like, but I think it must be similar to reading this book.

2.     The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: I’ll be forever indebted to Ayn Rand and Howard Roark for telling me how to live, how to love, why being selfish in itself is the greatest virtue if we understand the word and the concept of selfishness. I’m nowhere as talented as Roark, nor am I as principled and evolved as him but whenever I feel low, I refer to a few passages of this book. 

3.     Antarmukham by Yandamoori Veerendranadh: I read Antarmukham when I was in my second year of engineering and it was nothing like I have ever read till then. It is the story of a man on his deathbed contemplating on his death and how his relatives, friends and the society reacts to his death from his POV in his last moments of life. It has opened up the society I was living in to my eyes in a way nothing has ever had, and I was never the same man again. In fact this book is my first step towards becoming a man.

4.     Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: In Notes from the Underground, the unnamed narrator or The Underground Man has achieved ennui, out of his sheer laziness and is so paranoid that he would be unable to even have a look at his coworkers. This work from Dostoyevsky has ringed so true about the claustrophobia I felt at that point at my workplace, and it had a lasting impression on me several days after I read it. It is a short book narrated in two parts, full of quotable quotes on loneliness, suffering and individual interests. This one warrants a re-read and I think I will pick this one up only after I feel I’m wise enough for it.  

5.     Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat: It is surprising, that an author I had immense respect for at one point for re-introducing me to reading again, is an author whose books I hate with equal passion now. I would be lying, if I say I did not enjoy his debut work, or re-read it three times till date. It was a story that was simply too good and seemed real and I grinned ear to ear reading the book. It’s a different matter that I no longer am the man his stories are targeted at, but I would forever credit Bhagat and this book in particular, as the catalysts for whatever I have read, whatever I have understood and emulated from what I have read, and for all my reading in the years to come. 

6.     Keep off the Grass by Karan Bajaj: I have not read any book in a single sitting till the day I read this stunning page turner by Karan Bajaj. For that alone, it holds a special place in my heart, though the book is much more than just another story of a hippie. This is about an investment banker, facing an identity crisis who returns to India to know his roots and his self-discovery aided by psychedelic trips. It is consistently funny, introspective, and full of irreverent wit. An eminently readable and instantly likeable work. And it’s a debut. 

7.    Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: To be honest, I read Lolita after watching the movies and reading reviews that none of the two movies did justice to the book. It was a controversial book at that time, so it fuelled my interest. When I read the book, however I was completely blown away by the language and the persuasiveness of the protagonist. He is a pedophile, but he was not a monster. On the contrary, he was an artist, well almost, but the art in which he chose to excel in was the cause of much revulsion. 

8.    Jinnah – India, Partition and Independence by Jaswant Singh: This controversial biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, by Jaswant Singh made him lose a lot of respect from several of his party members and activists, and it might well be where his downfall has started. However, this biography extends far beyond than just following a chronological narrative arc of its lead. It casts a deeper look and the effects of the First War of Independence in 1857 on the psyche of the East India Company, and the role of Jinnah in our freedom struggle before the arrival of Gandhi in India and the eventual formation of the Muslim League and Pakistan. A must read for anyone interested in our political history. 

9.    The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor: One of the finest works I have ever read on the Mahabharat. Tharoor recreates the great epic with his rich imagination by juxtaposing the characters and events from the original on to the political players during and after independence. He created truly The Great Indian Novel in the process. Tharoor’s command over the language is envious and his wit as charismatic as the man himself. A must read for everyone in our country.

10.  Jaya by Devdutt Pattnaik: Almost every Indian knows The Mahabharat, or at least some stories of it. There is endless literature, movies, plays, poetry on the greatest epic and the most wonderful tale I have ever known. Pattnaik’s Jaya is a comprehensive work celebrating the many narratives and stories abounding the tale with many interesting backstories, establishing The Mahabharat as the ultimate “Cause and Effect” morality tale. This book is a must read, especially for the kids who would be doing well to be exposed to The Mahabharat as early as possible, now that we don’t have B R Chopra’s Mega Serial anymore.

Books I Read in 2013

It is a bit late to compile this list so late in the year, but this one has slipped my mind for some reason and since I want to do this every year, I chose to go ahead. It also helps my other resolution of posting at least thrice in a month.

I started 2013 with an intention to finish reading 50 books and with regret I say that I fell woefully short of achieving my target. Towards the end of the year, probably in October I took a decision not to read any more for the year. Looking back, I know it is a really silly decision and I was unable to get back on track with reading for long. Fortunately, I started reading again since yesterday and hopefully I will complete my target this year, which is again of 50 books. So without any further ado, let me present my year 2013 in books.

I wrote detailed reviews about some of the books I read in 2013 and for the others, I'm just going to give my views. 

1.      Pittho’s World by Murtaza Rizvi

2.      God Save The Dork by SidinVadukut

3.      Amreekan Desi by Atulya Mahajan

4.      And The Mountains Echoed byKhaled Hosseini

5.      Not Only The Things That HaveHappened by Mridula Koshy

6.      Smoke and Mirrors by Pallavi Aiyar: This book is a memoir of Pallavi Aiyar on her times spent in China. Any book which introduces us to our neighboring nations would involuntarily be rated with how well it relates the nation to ours without halting the narrative just for the sake of it. Pallavi Aiyar does a pretty decent job in it and her memoir is a delightful read on the nation that we know so little and have several misconceptions about. It is a must read for anyone who wants to have a start in understanding the Great Chinese Growth Story.

7.      Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection of short stories has left me rather with mixed feelings about it, as did her novel Lowland. I can’t say I liked all the stories and frankly was unable to relate myself to a couple of them. The stories carry themes ranging from dysfunctional families to effects of Globalization and Indian’s struggle to relate to their past and their future in a foreign land. If not for anything, these stories are to be read for the beauty in the language and Lahiri’s attention to minute detail in portraying daily life.

8.      Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyesvsky: I relocated to Hyderabad in February after quitting my job in Pune and had a lot of free time to while away without access to Facebook or Youtube and that was when I downloaded this book. The novel is narrated in two parts and though it was sometimes above my head, I enjoyed reading the book all the same. I could relate myself immensely to the protagonist in the first part and there are a lot of quotes hidden in each page of the book. This one warrants a re-read and I think I will pick this one up only after I feel I’m wise enough for it.

9.      The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi: I still remember the day when this book first came out in February 2010, I rushed to the nearby crossword, bought it and read the first chapter sitting in the CCD next to it. I was so excited by the idea of a mythological fiction on Shiva, but as the book progressed, I lost interest in it. The narration was rather vapid and the language never impressed me. I struggled to finish the book and left it midway. I started reading the book again from the start and finished successfully this time and still didn’t like it despite a good twist in the last chapter. This series is not for me, I suppose.

10.  The Last Burden by Upamanyu Chatterjee: Upamanyu Chatterjee has been one of my most favorite writers ever since I first read him in Way to Go, despite him being the writer who requires me to visit the dictionary at least once for every page. The Last Burden is a prequel to Way to Go and it presents the gloomiest satire on dysfunctional families that I have read. Chatterjee’s prose is impeccable and his wit almost makes the narrative a farcical comedy, yet it is relatable to anyone who is patient enough to go through the lengthy ruminations that the book is indulgently peppered with. This is not an easy read, like all other works of Chatterjee, but this is something that will be appreciated more as it is understood.

11.  Life of Pi by Yann Martel: This is one of the other books I read in office, I don’t quite recall much of the actual story in it and I didn’t enjoy reading it much either. It was a tale of survival and hope and since it has got the immense critical acclaim, including an endorsement by none other than Barack Obama, I guess I missed something here. I didn’t see the movie, so cannot comment on that one either.

12.  Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts: This is the second time I read this part memoir, part biography part fiction and a totally huge book by the escaped convict who spent much of his time in Bombay. I really enjoyed reading it, though it was unusually long for a book of this kind, which made it feel a bit repetitive now and then. This book is also noted for the number of quotable quotes it has and at times it feels as a eulogy to the spirit of humans in general and to the city of Bombay in particular, both of which I have not seen much of. Not a great one, but is certainly a page turner.

13.  Swami and his Friends by R.K Narayan: Yet another anecdotal tale I read in office about the innocent and ever likeable Swami and his friends. Nothing has to be said about R K Narayan, Malgudi or Swami. Go and indulge yourself.

14.  Weight Loss by Upamanyi Chatterjee: A farcically absurd tale of sexual encounters of Bhola, an unusual protagonist, written as it can only be, by Upamanyu. Some of the sequences in the book were probably written to make the readers cringe, but Upamanyu never lets his eye off his protagonist even for a single second and takes us on a ride into the darkest human desires. This one is a guilty pleasure, though overly long and as indulgent as any other UC book.

15.  The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy: Books set in hill stations are always a pleasure to read and I’m always fascinated by the languid life style the people over there have the liberty to enjoy. Anuradha Roy’s Folded Earth is one such book which takes us into the village Ranikhet, near the foothills of the Himalayas where her daily conversations with Diwan Sahib and her relationship with his enigmatic and charming nephew Veer, make for a relaxed reading on a weekend.

16.  Past Continuous by Neel Mukherjee: Neel Mukherjee’s debut novel, was about Ritwik Ghosh, who loses his parents at twenty two and goes to England for higher studies. His story is juxtaposed with that of Miss Gilby, an English Teacher in India at a Zamindar’s palace during the tumultuous times of the partition of Bengal. Neel’s portrayal of Ritwik was immaculately detailed right from his nightly gay encounters in the bathrooms of his hostel to his feelings of loneliness in a foreign land. His wit is great and takes us through its 400 odd pages rather comfortably, but the book probably tries to bite more than it can chew in trying to tell the two stories. In contrast to Ritwik, Gilby’s character was chalked out in rather broad strokes. Still this one is a great read, just for Neel’s language and the way it takes us through the grim realities of education abroad.

17.  Animal’s People by Indra Sinha: Indra Sinha’s fictional take on the circumstances prevailed after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy is seen through the eyes of the eponymous Animal, a man who has to walk like an animal on four legs due to the repercussions of the tragedy. An unflinching tale of greed, corruption interspersed with a doomed romance, Animal’s People makes for a compelling read.

18.  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger: Probably the most enjoyable book I read by a Non-Indian author. I enjoyed the conversations Holden Claufield has with his sister Phoebe. A must read for every young man.

19.  The Story of My Assassins by Tarun Tejpal: Tarun Tejpal is another one of my favorite writers along with Upamanyu Chatterjee and in this semi-autobiographical tale Tejpal is in top form as he narrates the story of each of the six assassins who were allegedly involved in plotting his murder. The book is crisper than his indulgent debut, and Tejpal’s command over the language is envious to say the least. His narrative is edgy, honest and most importantly relevant to the times we live in, as he exposes the dark underbellies and ridiculous rituals our country is steeped in. A must read.

20.  The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

21.  The Disappearance of Tejas Sharma by Manish Mahajan: A poorly written anthology of ghost stories which left me disappointed and angry.

22.  The Guardian Angels by RohitGore

23.  Paisachikam by Anand Veturi: This Telugu thriller is written by my brother with a modest bit of help by yours truly. This genre fiction ticks every box effectively and evocatively and is written with a genuine passion for pulp literature (Though my brother would vehemently deny my accusation, I still consider this a Pulp Fiction).

24.  Beyond Coffee by Mohammad Kadeer Babu: Another Telugu anthology in modern times and written with a curious eye for the darkness in modern men and women. The stories are set in no particular place and neither the characters are named anywhere making it difficult to place them in any milieu, but it also helps in creating an alternative dystopian reality.

25.  Nikasham by Kasibhatla Venugopal: A Telugu Novel written in a stream of consciousness form was unheard of and Venugopal’s searing book written in a brilliantly staccato prose is probably the best Telugu book I have read in a very long time. 

So there, I have read 25 books this year out of a determined target of 50. Apart from the above, there has also been another failed attempt at reading Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. I’m happy that I read a few books and short stories in Telugu also, and started to appreciate the writing in my mother tongue. Better late than never. 

PS: My target for this year again is to finish reading 50 books, and I hope I achieve it this time. I'm already a month behind schedule for starters.

Book Review: The Guardian Angels by Rohit Gore

There are not many adjectives that come to mind when I think of Rohit Gore’s “The Guardian Angels”, now that I have finished reading it. It follows two star struck lovers through various stages of their lives and Gore gets to stereotype them as often as he can in the 328 page length of this “epic and tumultuous love story”.

Aditya Mehta, the son of a billionaire, cricket enthusiast and the prince of Mehta Group and Radha Deodar, a Socialist with Huntington’s disease are each other’s Guardian Angels from the time they meet when they were 12. Divided into four books, this story is about their relationship in their pre-teens, teens, twenties and thirties. Throughout their journey, they struggle to name or define the exact nature of their relationship, but could always be counted upon in need. As an idea, this sounds mildly interesting but the writing is devoid of any style or imagination and the story resorts to conveniences at the first drop of hat making it difficult to invest our time with any of the protagonists, emotionally or otherwise.

In his teens, Aditya Mehta, apparently, was a great cricket player and was compared to the greatest batsman of our time, which is fine and dandy since there were 10,456 “Next Tendulkar”s ever since he started his career and probably there were a couple of them being born as I’m typing this. But Rohit goes a step ahead and claims that Aditya could have even been a better player than The Man himself. Even if we ignore the obvious blasphemy, this claim still is rather a tall one and one that potentially makes it impossible to take the character or the writer seriously. However, it does serve as a comment on how our generation’s fixation with success and how it views it through a rose tinted glass while ignoring the efforts that go into making a man successful.

 The only redeeming feature in this predictable novel is that it is a light and breezy read and does not demand too much time with a dictionary. It seems long, drawn out and a touch repetitive but it never bores you with unnecessary or poorly written descriptions of innocuous places or things. Each phase in the characters’ lives was introduced with a brilliant quote and the first one by Stephen King “If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you” was the one I liked a lot and it is easily the best thing about the book.

I’m a huge fan of printed word and always respect the time and the enthusiasm of an author in bringing us a work of art, no matter how the content is, since I admire the discipline and appreciate the efforts that go into it. Rohit Gore scores very high on all these counts in writing this rather ambitious novel, but, the quality of writing is several notches below what can be expected from a writer of 4 books.

Bottom-line: If you do not burden it with your expectations, you will be rewarded with 5-6 hours of nothingness.

This Review was written as a part of  Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.

Book Review: Pittho's World by Murtaza Razvi

If ever there is a book that screams “Don’t judge a book by its cover, title or blurb” from the top of its lungs, then it has to be Murtaza Razvi’s Pittho’s World. I picked this book up when I read its blurb which relates it to “Arabian Nights” though the similarities end with the roles of Scheherazade and the depraved king being reversed. I was expecting a collection of short stories along the lines but instead got a chronicle of oddball characters inhabiting the world of the protagonist Sheku, narrated to his non-conformist girlfriend Rani. The stories are neither as imaginative nor as entertaining as the former and deservedly more popular work. Equally confusing is the author’s thought of naming it Pittho’s World when her story, was only one of the several tedious stories, and does not unify them with a centralized theme through her life.

All the stories are about a family member of Sheku, follow the exact same pattern, narrated to a rather reluctant listener Rani. They start with Sheku mentioning their origin, how he/she is related to him, one random incident in their lives, and their death without really following any of them throughout their lives. At the end of each story, they seem to make love or Rani passes a wisecrack at Sheku or both sometimes. Sheku is not an unreliable narrator, so to speak, but Razvi’s prose, apart from the brilliant prologue, isn’t evocative or entertaining, making his stories episodic and tedious reads despite their short lengths. When there are no more stories left, we are treated with a couple of chapters on the prevalent political scenario in Pakistan, since the author is a political journalist in his time.

One of the interesting features about this book is how it avoids any real names of the characters and prefers them to be called by their relation to the author. So we get Dada, Dadi, Nani, Bia, Ammi, Abbu, Big Brother et al, probably in order to avoid confusion in remembering the names and associating their relation to the author. And the people who are not directly related to him are given nicknames like the eponymous Pittho (nicknamed for her enormous hips), Cattie Aunty (for her love of cats) and Pagal Kutta (A mad-cap uncle). Even the most interesting character in the book for me, called Apa, doesn’t have a name, despite being present in the maximum number of stories. Also, it felt strange to me to read the invective freely flowing among the family members, and I wonder if people really talk to each other like that.

Towards the end of the book, we cannot help wondering whether everything said in the stories was just an illusion or Sheku’s whimsical imagination to hold the interest of Rani, given that some of the beliefs held and actions taken by the people appear so unreal and fanciful.

If not for the general enthusiasm for a book coming from someone across the border, this one might not find many takers.

PS: In the paperback I ordered from Flipkart, the author’s lifetime was printed as (1964-2102). I hope the publishers make a note of this and correct it in further editions.