Observations || Stories || Ideas

                                              The book cover surely deceives you. For it patronizes you to surmise the book to be another entrant in the laundry list of love stories. Well, the prelude made me pensive and skepticism mitigated my excitement. Nonetheless, I was overwhelmed to see my thoughts to be fallacious and theme of the book was totally different. Babloo, the protagonist, is autistic, schizophrenic and psychotic. All these adjectives perfectly describe his character. Autistic because he has communication disorders and fails to concentrate. Schizophrenic because he is disturbed by unjust realities: happening against him, from his family and the outside world. I slightly disagree with Babloo’s characterization as psychotic, but it doesn't matter to those who keep calling him the same. The Story Here’s the perfect bac...

Yes, we are witnessing a new generation of writers, after many writers who have accentuated through their books of being apostles of Chetan Bhagat  and are now on their way to extinct. The USP of these new budding writers is never-imagined-before scenarios and Adi is party to that. His book ‘Tantra’ is a well-conceived story out of his imagination. The cover-page intrigues as it shows non-familiar site of a woman sitting on roof top with dagger drenched in blood. Her name is Anu Agarwal and she is out to search killers of her boyfriend in New Delhi following a trail from New York. Putting up vampires in Indian context gives you two perspectives: firstly, it kinda forces you to ponder over what if there were vampires in India against presumption that Vampires are only limited to USA and the other; Vampires may not fit into Indian picture. Throughout the book I was in dilemma whether I liked what was being offered. The book scores well when it comes to character bu...

Who are we? Why are we here? Are we serving any purpose- be it our own or someone else’s? Why aren’t we following our dream, if at all we have ever dreamt! If we have a job, why aren’t we happy then? When shall/should happiness come to us? Are animals freer than us? Or are we caged in our own little world of freedom? The answer: " F?@K KNOWS ” This is what Shailendra Singh asks you in his super cool-cum-hilariously-mocking book “ F?@K KNOWS ”. The dichotomy that prevails in my mind is: whether I have to review this book as a ‘typical’ book or do just as my heart asks me to do! I choose to do latter one- because once you read the book, that’s exactly what Shailendra Singh says! Is this F?@K’in self-help book? Depends on how deplorable is your condition. To, me it is grossly wrong to promote this book by tagging it under “Self-Help” category; for it is enough to drive away those voracious book readers who detest Deepak Chopra, Oprah, Shiv Khera ...

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 37 ; the 37th edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton . The theme for the month is " Truth is stranger than fiction " Truth says, " Life of many is under my siege, They live, love, loathe and beseech To my august character To let them have none But a hunky-dory life! What they do shamelessly, Is to monger, instead mollify problems, Until one fine day, when things go haywire And are vindicated by miserable doldrums. I remind them of their glitch, Hard, but, none manages to switch. Allege and accuse me for their lacking grit. But never, think to change me, For I am not reality, but a mirror to contradict. I wish they inspired themselves to fight, As opposed to, what they usually do, flight. Then seek solace in fiction, which ostensibly allevi...

I should probably get back home thought Bandu. I hope Geeta is back from her work. He smiled when he thought about Geeta. She was special to him. And why wouldn’t she be! After all they had dinner together; she would be part of tête-à-tête with him which would continue late night. Every Sunday Bandu would get her sweets which they ate at night with caveat that none would notice them. Today, it was Geeta’s favorite: gulab jamun . The other part of his mind was unhappy. Today was not his day as he was not able to fetch himself considerable amount of money. He strolled on the footpath of Marine drive with nothing in his hand except 10 rupee note. He elevated his hand bringing the palm parallel to his face only to feel bad that he missed his index finger, which was brutally ripped seven years ago by Killer Bhaiyya. The fact that many others like him in the wretched house were also subjected to some kind of physical torment resulting in loss of body parts pacified his pain. Bandu...

He came, with someone who looked like his friend-figure, with bag clung to his shoulder which appeared to have guitar in it. The road juxtaposed to him was Eastern Express highway. The footpath he was standing on was crowded by juvenile couples enjoying their private moments in public place. The Powai Lake has to be blamed for its beauty; had it not been there, don’t know where these love-birds would have spent time. The life of footpath lurks with cacophony hurled by vehicles on one end, thus debilitating the pleasing silence emanated by shying water on the other end. When one stands on the disputed border, footpath in this case, is compelled to choose: rest or restiveness. I chose the former after short-long infighting. He took out his guitar and after few tweaking with strings he started running his fingers over it blended with his voice. Singing few bollywood classics and rock music on footpath takes sheer grit. For most of us adhere to imaginary-bondage rules- whic...

“ For every man who succeeds, there are ten equally capable men who don’t” says Shauryananda to the great warrior of Magadha- Chandragupta Maurya- when the latter is yearning to stand against the invasion of Macedonion army led by Governor Seleucus. Such lines induce immense pride as to show how the culture of Indians has been followed throughout numerous generations. Let’s not digress from what this humble blogger wants to write about. The book we are talking about is written on a very ad hoc premise- if you can see the cover page and summary behind the book- it says historical fiction. Indian writers are not vividly known for capturing their imagination set in dark past unless it’s Amish Tripathi or Ashwin Sanghi. Rajat Pillai, an IMI Delhi alumni whose interest is history has portrayed and resurrected the glorious, treacherous, and bloodiest phase of Chandragupta Maurya by referring him to ‘demi-god’ who chose to relinquish everything he had: power, money and an empire com...