If only we weren’t ruled by such idiots
India and Pakistan may be two different countries now but have a lot in common…. And reading ‘City of Spies’ by Sorayya Khan made me sit back and smile. Yes, of course, like our friends in the neighbouring country, we too often think we are ruled by idiots, we too are constantly killing ourselves, we...
Like having a bisi-bele-baath in Paris
Off the beaten track. Not the way most murder mysteries travel in and out of violence. Well, as Arjun Iyer, the protagonist of this novel might have chosen to express, the book is like having a bisi-bele-baath in Paris. His deeply loyal but irascible, devil-may-care Inspector Munuswamy might pick up some other custom-made analogy or...
A birdwatcher reaching out to the soul of intrigue
A sense of great possibilities, a space to explore and discover, and a world that wins a place in a reader’s world can be transformative enough to not just give us a massive adrenaline rush but also add life to our life. This is how my mind perceives a thriller and this is way better...
My echo, my shadow, and me…
The unexpected is one super reservoir of joy but it is equally true that the unanticipated sound or a visual that is like a detour from the usual will inevitably trigger fear in us. Like our own shadows that sometimes scare us. Or an echo that seems linked to the unnatural. It is not just...
The war that made R&AW – book-review
Back in the late sixties and early seventies, the way massive destruction caused by Cyclone Bhola, the trauma of a genocide, and the politically suicidal inactivity of Yahya Khan came together, the creation of Bangladesh should not have surprised anyone. Yes, the outright rejection of his six-point movement for East Pakistani autonomy and the declaration...
Pride, Prejudice, and Punditry – a review
Seventy-five previously published articles, stories, poems, columns, and excerpts from his books (both fiction and non-fiction) with most having ‘been expanded or updated, or both’ are powerful enough to be more than just snippets of history of things that matter to Indians. Maybe even everyone else around the world. I call these pieces more than...
Conversations with self
To even try and explain what remains indefinable to many or, at least, has all possible definitions and explanations safely cocooned on a distant shelf that is beyond the reach of many, needs not just writing skills but also an intuitive understanding of things. Attempting to investigate relationships and the struggle ‘to sculpt them to...
Monsters on the screen
Monsters on the screen I was in school when I watched my first horror film and I remember being afraid of darkness even months later. That was also the time when the name Ramsay stuck to my mind as a synonym for horror. This may appear strange but after that experience windows nearly always creaked...
Where passion meets education
How many students in these past few decades in independent India use words line zest, excitement, energy, fervour, eagerness, enjoyment, delight, zeal, liveliness, vitality, vigour, and devotion for their teachers and their school days? I am one of those who will say yes, but when we look around and probe hard, the truth is that...
Baahubalis everywhere – left, right, and centre
Baahubalis create stories, act in them, power them all, and sometimes live the stories in their story. This breed, so firmly entrenched in Indian politics for decades now, has completely over-hauled the way democracy interacts with the way social activism behaves, the directions that justice for those in need must adopt, and even the art...
There is only now
Spiritual consciousness has no boundaries and there is no running away from past-life lessons. Outwitting the universe or manipulating our destiny do not have the answers that we need to be searching for because ‘instead of thinking of ways to escape the situation, it is better to face it gracefully, doing whatever we can’ and...
Go with the flow
Trends in book writing keep changing ever so often. The readership patterns shifts from one genre to another and so most of us discover that sales graphs shift strangely from romances to thrillers to spy craft to horror to science fiction to historical fiction or to biographies, self-improvement, and other genres. It is obviously the...
