It’s Never Too Late

She holds her purse string very close. Of the 32 years that I have known her, I have never seen her indulge in a big buy. She says, “I don’t earn you see. It is my husband’s money that I spend. I must therefore spend it wisely.”

And with that one thought, she has lived her life as a ‘housewife’. As a mother, she has allowed her children a few guilty extravagances. Guilt, mind you is hers. “No, it’s too expensive. We need to ask Baba before buying it,” she would say. The children would pull long faces and she would submit. Her husband, the father, would never bother about spending on his family. Money was never an issue. At least as long as it was for the sake of a good time and the happiness of the children. As long as I have known him, I have never seen him clip her wings. I have never seen him tell her, “Why do you spend so much?” There’s never been a useless buy in their household. The one time their daughter fretted for a particular dress, an expensive one, only to never wear it again has not gone down well with the mother. She still tells her, “Remember that dress you made me buy? You never wore it more than once! What a useless spend…and all because of you! And didn’t you do the same with that cycle you made Baba buy? How many times did you go cycling? We had to give it away to the driver.”

She lived all her life under the shadow of her husband. The lesser parent, that’s what she thought of herself. Always putting the interests of her children above her, she was the idea home maker. The fact that she never earned, however, was always on her mind. Her daughter’s friends had all mothers who were school teachers. For her, these mothers were empowered, not just because they were financially independent but also because they added supplemented the family income. Not that her family needed a supplementary income, but she felt deeply inadequate and inept for not doing her bit.

What deepened this sense of low-esteem is that she was never allowed to study beyond a point. She barely completed college. Married off early, she aspired for higher education and a life spent in academics. But life had other plans. she does not seek temples and abodes of God…but even today, she bows her head inobesience every time she crosses Jawaharlal Nehru University. The sense of having lived a life dependent on someone, unable to live her dreams has left her unfulfilled.

And with this, she, my mother has lived 35 years of her married life.

She belonged to the generation that poured their existence in housekeeping and raising children. And as a mother today, I cannot thank her enough for being there with me every day of my life. From being a constant companion, to being a critic and my staunchest supporter till date, my mother is my pillar. So for all those moments that she spent judging herself, I have decided to change it.

Motherhood is a testing phase. Everyday looks like examination day. From wanting to do the right thing, to making the right decisions, to wanting to be the best mother. As I live through this roller coaster today, I understand my mother’s sense of self-doubt. I understand why she considered herself incapable. I understand her need to respect herself. Rendered home bound for more than a year, without a job and an income, I understand the need to have the pennies roll in. As a child, and even as an adult, until I became a mother, I didn’t understand this. Today I do!

And so, I sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship in her head.

The one thing that most women of my mother’s generation excelled in was a form of handiwork. From fine art, to needlework and cookery, anything to do with their hands and they were good at it. My mother has an inborn taken of needlework. For years she has spent hours bent over a piece of cloth laboriously needling it with intricate designs. From taking over my customary needlework assignment in school and deliberately making a few small errors to make it look like student work, to making my first apron and saree with her appliqué and embroidery, a lot of my mother’s work has been for me. Over the years, I have outgrown the various kameez that she embroidered for me. But when her grandson arrived on the scene, she dived headlong into creating pieces only for him. From the dhuti-panjabi for his mukhebhaat to his woollen quilt. Maa has woven, knitted and embroidered her love for my son.

As a generation that has little patience for many things, I know I lack the talent to do anything for my son. This, the act of handcrafting a piece of clothing, knitting sweaters, mittens and caps, or wearing self-embroidered clothing is dying. I know I will have to preserve all that mother makes for my son for my grandchildren. Her embroidered sarees, I hope to give my daughter-in-law. Now whether she’ll wear sarees or no, is another case! But I am sure, I am not the only one who shares these thoughts.

And so was born MOTHER’S BASKET. My mother’s maiden adventure into the role of entrepreneurship with handcrafted pieces of sarees, table runners, quilts, purses, cushion covers…and anything that your heart desires. Especially designed with a unique design in every piece, she will make you a piece that will make heads turn.

My mother has learnt computers at the age of 54. Today, like an enthusiastic child she discovers something new on the World Wide Web everyday. She does not have the tools for running a business today. And that’s where we come in. With plans to go e-commerce for a niche clientele, to adopting a village as her workstation, we hope to my Mother’s Basket a success for her sake.

Today however, she has a renewed energy. Her mind is abuzz with ideas. She calls me less often and when I do call her, she says she’s working on a product! At 55, she asks me with a nervous energy, her sense of low esteem and confidence still dominant, “Will anyone buy my work?” I say, “yes…I will sell your work Ma!”

She doesn’t know the art of guerrilla marketing. Or the trends in social media marketing. What she knows is her craft. As for me, I know she will not fail. I will not let her. Mothers are stronger than anyone in the family. A mother has it in her to succeed despite the odds. It’s never too late…

I wish to get my story published in Chicken Soup for the Indian Entrepreneurs Soul in association with BlogAdda.com

Book Review: Revenge of the Naked Princess

I loved Oswald Pereira’s debut novel, “The Newsroom Mafia”. So when the writer asked me review his next book, I jumped to the occasion! Revenge of the Naked Princess caught my attention by its power in the title and knowing little about the plot of the book I expected the unexpected.

The book blurb says:

“On a hot, humid morning in May 1545, a joint conversion brigade of the Portuguese King and the Pope set out to spread Christ’s message of love and compassion, but they leave behind a deathly trail of murder and mayhem. Armed with a monstrous cannon and scores of firearms, the brigade raids Princess Darshana Kamya Kathodi’s palace in Tana, carrying for her and her people the King’s inviolable conversion order … sealed by the Pope’s promise of a new heaven. The beautiful, 18-year-old tribal princess fights back with her ace archers’ poison arrows.

Revenge of the Naked Princess shows how brutal, forced conversions can blur the line between religion and carnage. This historical page-turner by veteran journalist-turned-novelist Oswald Pereira comes after the success of his widely-acclaimed, best-selling thriller The Newsroom Mafia.”

History lessons in India have largely been about imperial dynasties, British rule and freedom struggle. The Portugese lineage in India today stands as a much venerated holiday destination, but seldom has its history come out from the folds of antiquity to haunt us! Yes, I use the word ‘haunt’ for a good purpose because Mr Pereira’s book warrants that.

The title of the book is,well, revealing. It is the story of Princess Darshana Kamya Kathodi who dies a brutal death at the hands of Portugese soldiers led by the nefarious Brigadier Braganca. Raped, humiliated and forced to submission, the brave young princess puts up a brave fight for her people. Her’s is a death that is mourned by the lions in the jungle. Her’s is a death that enrages her people. Her’s a death that the Portugese wear as a badge on their shoulder and her’s is a death that they would not forget forever.

Revenge of the Naked Princess for the first time ever, tells the sordid tales of forced conversions by the Portugese. To me the sordid descriptions of bestiality, cruelty and torture was repetitive. But then, perhaps, such was the pattern. The descriptions are brutal, graphic and enough to give you goosebumps. If not anything else, Pereira makes one have a natural hatred for all those crimes that people indulge in in the name of God! At least to me, this is the effect that the book had.

The use of supernatural elements give and unusual twist to the story. But the twist is not unexpected, because the heroine of the book, Princess Darshana Kamya Kathodi dies in the first line of the first chapter! The appearance of a ghost is pretty obvious. What is unusual is the way the spirit of the ‘naked princess’ takes her revenge. The Gods send the princess down from ‘cloud 1777333999′ to avenge her death. They lay her conditions, set her deadlines and watch her from above. The spirit of the princess joins hands with her siblings (who have grown since she died) and unleashes a joint effort.

The characters are surreal. And because I have no reference point for the actions in the book I take Pereira’s word for it. I empathise with the princess and feel the pricks that her people are subjected to. Brigadier Brangaca comes across the shrewd, bestial character that he is and I only feel hatred for him. Bishop Fransisco seems like the man caught in the wrong job, who loses his own heart in the quest for forced conversions. The one character who adds colour is Govind Laxman Prabhu converted to Joseph Lawrence Pereira. The high caste Brahmin turned Catholic is both funny, in the way the Portugese, especially Braganca treat him, and tragic with his own shortfalls as a character.

Pereira in his acknowledgment a tells us that the book is derived from a fable that his grandmother used to tell him as a child. And there lies the crux of the story. Pereira tells us that his grandmother spoke a ‘beautiful, naked princess who would come riding by on a golden, wheel-less chariot steered by a lion and lioness, at the stroke of midnight each day, in our village in Thane.’ Pereira, all of 6 lapped up the story with rapt attention. He tells us that his grandmother told him that the naked princess would come down to take revenge for the bad things that bad people did to her and her people. At this juncture, the story stops being just another fable. It makes me wonder if the story then is part of oral tradition. While the forced conversions may have been as brutal and barbaric a described in Pereira’s book…I wonder if the spirit of the naked princess did return to avenge her death and dishonour.

Did I enjoy it? To be honest, not as much as I enjoyed the author’s first book. Go for Revenge of The Naked Princessif you like a supernatural thriller. The bloodbath is repetitive and predictable. And after a point I wanted to skip it and head towards the revenge. Pereira has however, broken the mould. As a reader I expected and hoped for more stories to be dug out of his career as a journalist, but a slice of history and supernaturalism will not disappoint you all together.

Thank you Oswald, for asking me to review your book. A special thanks to Leadstart Publishing for sending me a review copy.

Book Review: Around India in 80 Trains

Let’s begin by saying that I will never be able to travel through India on its trains and write a travelogue now. Why? Because Monisha Rajesh has stolen my thunder by doing just that! For the longest time I have known, one of my desires or let’s put it better, one of the things on my bucket list was to travel on Indian trains and chronicle the journey in a book and a documentary film! Well, being a television producer has its own effects and yes, despite the hard work, unpalatable train ka khaana and constant rocking, I am willing to undergo all of it to put together a documentary. Thankfully, Monisha left the film for me to complete! To me, the Indian railways is the best way to see the country and understand its people. Having lived in urban set ups for most of my life, I crave to see the unseen India and meet people from all walks of life. More than anything, I wish to live through a real experience of understanding India.

So much for my personal desires being poured out at the behest of a book review! Time for the real thing now.

For the sake of this book review and to make it refreshing and new (which I hope it turns out to be) I did my first ever #twitterview with an author. An interview on Twitter, #twitterview is a list of 20 questions that Monisha answered. Through the rest of the review below, you will find my questions and Monisha’s answers to them.

To understand India you have to see it, hear it, breathe it and feel it. Living through the good, the bad and the ugly is the only way to know where you fit in and where India fits into you.

Monisha’s book blurb says:

“In 1991, Monishas family uprooted from Sheffield to Madras in the hope of making India their home. Two years later, fed up with soap-eating rats, stolen human hearts and the creepy colonel across the road, they returned to England with a bitter taste in their mouths.

Twenty years later, Monisha came back. Taking a page out of Jules Vernes classic tale, Around the World in 80 Days, she embarked on a 40,000km adventure around India in 80 trains. Travelling a distance equivalent to the circumference of the Earth, she lifted the veil on a country that had become a stranger to her.

As one of the largest civilian employers in the world, featuring luxury trains, toy trains, Mumbai’s infamous commuter trains and even a hospital on wheels, Indian Railways had more than a few stories to tell. On the way, Monisha met a colourful cast of characters with epic stories of their own. But with a self-confessed militant atheist as her photographer, Monisha’s personal journey around a country built on religion was not quite what she bargained for…

Around India in 80 Trains is a story of adventure and drama infused with sparkling wit and humour.”

And yes, it lives up to the promise of drama and adventure suffused with Monisha’s refreshing wit and humour. The premise of a Brit-Indian traveling to India as a ‘tourist’ is more about understanding India. I wouldn’t tag it as ‘understanding her roots’, because Monisha doesn’t say so in as many words.

Q1> Rather early in your book you say that you had never seen India as a tourist.A Brit-Indian as a tourist in India, what thoughts did you have in mind?

@Monisha_Rajesh: I had read so much about Khajuraho, Darjeeling, Assam, Jaisalmer etc and had friends who had seen them, that it made me realise that I wanted to see them for myself and learn more about India. I ended up seeing places most Indians hadn’t. I was v excited by the prospect of covering the whole country in one go.

She travels through the length and breadth of the country, stretching the railway tracks to the geographical extremes of Udhampur, Kanyakumari and Ledo. In her prologue, Monisha lays out the predicament of a single woman traveling pretty early. India’s disrepute of being hostile to women in all forms, raises its ugly head right at the start. Monisha writes, “India was the not the safest place for a single girl to travel alone and while I was prepared to go by myself, some company was preferable.”

Q2> The potential threat to a single woman travelling alone came right on top of your mind. Having gone through the 80 trains, how real is that threat?

@Monisha_Rajesh: I can only speak from my own experience but I felt quite safe – I travelled during the day, kept everyone aware of where I was and travelled in compartments wit families. When men stared or leered, I shouted & drew attention to them.

Luckily for her, she finds her Passepartout (nicknamed after Phileas Fogg’s travel companion and man servant Passepartout). A photographer by profession Passepartout soon becomes the travel buddy that Monisha loved to hate. Their journey begins with a fleeting kiss, sails through great adventures, hits a rock bottom with a serious altercation that leads the two to separate only to come back together again. An interesting sub-plot in the book that made me wonder if Monisha really needed a travel buddy at all?

Q3> Tell me about Passepartout. From a fleeting kiss, to a traveling buddy, to conflicts and the big real fight – the 2 of you had quite a journey!

@Monisha_Rajesh: We did! He was awkward as hell but I felt safe travelling with a male companion rather than alonee. We didn’t always a lot of the time we had fun trying new food, discovering mad people, chatting about books and debating all sorts.

Q4> What do you think triggered the conflict?

@Monisha_Rajesh: His hardline atheism. I didn’t know he was so militant about it and it erupted like a volcano almost as soon as we arrived

Q5> In hindsight, would you have liked another traveling partner?

@Monisha_Rajesh: No! at the time I wanted to flee, but as I wrote the book I realized it was wonderful 2 have an underlying story 2 weave in. He forced me to challenge my worldview & look at things from a completely new perspective, albeit not in a pleasant manner!

Monisha’s journey through India is as much about the books she reads. From exchanging books with strangers and picking up second hand books, books remain her constant buddies. While traveling through Ratnagiri on the Konkan Railways, she happens to read Amitava Ghosh’s The Glass Palace. Monisha writes, “A sheet of water stretched to the horizon and I thought of King Thebaw, one of the characters in The Glass Palace based on a real person…The palace still remains in Ratnagiri and I imagined the king standing in his bedroom window every morning, looking out through the binoculars across this expanse of grey-blue water, watching for boats and signs of visitors.” I realised Monisha is my kind of reader.

Q6> You read through an impressive list of books. Sometime later in your chronicles you point out how your books were your travel companions. Which was your favourite?

@Monisha_Rajesh: Hard to choose, I enjoyed certain books depending on where I was or how I was feeling at the time. I love Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss which I read right before going to Darjeeling, and The God of Small Things. Funnily enough I never read any of @DalrympleWill ‘s books until I came back home, but probably a good thing as it’s easy to start questioning your own views & become swayed by what other travel writers think of areas you’re writing on.

Around India in 80 trains is as much about India as it is a colourful collage of the varied trains that Monisha takes. From the claustrophobic locals of Mumbai, to the chook-chook trains on the hills, a hospital on a train and the ultra-luxurious palaces on wheels. For long I have wanted to travel on a luxury train, but the fares continue to scorch me! The journeys are also about the colourful people who she meets. From being probed about the reason for traveling alone, to being asked questions about her barren womb, to the friendly advice and unsolicited help, to a crash course in deciphering the numbers printed on a train…Monisha makes friends all along.

Q7> Toy trains, to passenger trains, locals, to first class to luxury trains – the range of your travels were truly varied. What did it tell you about your co-passengers?

@Monisha_Rajesh: hat the soul of Indian Railways lies in its passengers and workers. My journeys would have been nothing without them.

Q8> Talking of co-passengers you met quite an eclectic lot. From free advice, to friends found on-board, who were the ones that left a lasting impression?

@Monisha_Rajesh: One of the best was @arun4 who taught me all about train numbers, carriage numbers and even came to join me a year later when I was doing some more journeys in the south. Another was Ben from the Lifeline Express who I saw again last week! He got me interested in Vipassana and reminded me last week how helpful it is when times are rough and to get started again.

Q9> Tell me more about your Osho experience? The ashram is meant for foreign nationals. But your experience and narrative is more journalistic than one as would be narrated by a foreign tourist?

@Monisha_Rajesh: It’s actually not. they’re emphatic it’s for everyone, though I saw few Indian nationals and the staff were so insular. I’m a trained journalist and I wanted the story to be reportage rather than opinion. Especially as the ashram has bad press.

The lines between the journalist and the tourist blur at several places. However the one thing that hangs on her like a heavy cloak is her tag as a Non-Resident Indian! While Monisha comes across as a woman confident about her identity as a British-Indian, it is people’s perception of her that takes her by complete surprise. And it is the same identity perhaps that colours some of her descriptions. While in most of her writing she takes on the journalistic mode of reporting and description, some of her thoughts when written on paper is cliched. Cliched, but 100% true! Take for instance, “As a general rule, morning appointments in India take place at one fixed time. Whether it is to meet a friend for coffee, to pick up blouses from the tailor, or to discuss business with a colleague, the time arranged is the same” ‘leven-’ leven thirty.”

Q10> “What is Britain like? Do you feel like an outsider in England?” – You got this asked more than once in your book. What did it tell you about fellow Indians and their notion of your country?

@Monisha_Rajesh: I was – Indian nationals have an obsession with “NRIs” and are so concerned by perception and acceptance of Indians abroad when it’s not something I ever considered in my life until I came to India.

Q11> A lot of your description is clichéd. Your descriptions of slums, people and their mannerisms, though accurate is what we have read before. How did your ‘Indian’ roots relate to the journalist in you? In some places you blurred the lines between the journalist and traveler in you.

@Monisha_Rajesh:Not to Western audiences and I was aware that many readers would never have been to India before. I had to write for both. I had barely seen much of India – in the same way an Indian national describing London might seem cliched to me. In all honesty I just wrote how I speak and think. I didn’t edit myself for either a Western or Indian audience. Yes, I did blur the lines at the moments when the story centered on me and when I had to develop a personal relationship with my readers.

Traveling through the Indian railways cannot be disconnected from the possibility of dealing with nosy babus. In this case, Monisha has a love-hate friendship with Anusha. Responsible for several journeys that she tailors for Monisha and Passpepartout, she ends up being a friend.

Q12> Tell me about Anusha. She obviously didn’t like you enough in the beginning. But she warmed up to you, and so did you.

@Monisha_Rajesh: She was a cantankerous so and so at the beginning but became so much fun as we kept coming back to her and so helpful. but 2 years later I went back to find her and she came to my book launch in Delhi with her son!

Monisha’s journey is not all about trains and people. On one occasion where she attempts to break into Kapil Dev’s house under a drunken stupor, makes for a hilarious anecdote!

Q13> The Kapil Dev incident! I doubled up laughing reading it! Your private school etiquette was perhaps long lost by now.

@Monisha_Rajesh: Oh yes! Dan was fabulous, he came along @ just the right time with just the right amount of gin to spark life back into me. He too came back to Delhi for my book launch and we would have re-enacted the event were it not for it being a dry day!

Until Monisha went Around India in 80 trains, I did not know that there is a Lifeline Express! A hospital on wheels the train, running on Indian tracks for more than 20 years now has helped more than 4,00,000 Indians who cannot travel for medical help. As daughter to two doctors, Monisha’s acutely aware of the need for adequate medical aid.

Q14> I read an interview somewhere you said that the Lifeline Express left a lasting impression. Is it because of the work they do on the train or the potential of what the Indian railways can achieve.

@Monisha_Rajesh: Many reasons: it was such a clever use of the railways and it made me see how much they’re taken for granted. But I was also horrified that a country considering itself a global power could have such a huge failure as a health system. Most of those afflictions are dealt with as free routine in-and-out ops in the UK.-cleft lips, cataracts, polio corrections.

Equally dramatic is Monisha’s brush with spirituality, religion and Godmen! One the one hand she enters Osho’s Ashram, she carries a picture of Sathya Sai as given by her parents, she travels to Sri Rangam Temple in Trichy that tells her on her face that only Hindus are allowed. Her brush with Sikhism at The Golden Temple leave her both emotional and rejuvenated. But by the end of her journey, she gets into a fight with a panda at Jagannath Temple in Puri. No doubt, Monisha’s tryst with India and its religious fabric leads her exhausted. She takes off for 10 days and takes up a Vipassana course to detox!

Q15> Your brush with religions and its followers were also diverse. If the goodness of people at the Golden Temple warmed you, the fight at Puri took you to the other extreme. Your thoughts on how Indians handle religion?

@Monisha_Rajesh: this was always going to upset some sensitivities but by and large I found it hypocritical and realised it wasn’t for me. But it shouldn’t be, and that’s what I found impossible to accept.

Q16> And that triggered the need for you to lose your religion?

@Monisha_Rajesh: I was never really very religious, I called myself Hindu because that’s what you do before you give it thought. I don’t now. I didn’t so much lose my religion so much as find a much more enjoyable and simpler way of living.

Q17> Was it the experience in Puri or the outcome of your entire journey that made you take up the Vipassana course? How important was it at the close of your journey?

@Monisha_Rajesh: A culmination of 4 months madness to be honest! I just knew I needed somewhere quiet for me to unwind. Most worthwhile experience of my life. As humans it isn’t normal for us to be silent, and away from outer distraction. It taught me more about myself and my body than I ever imagined possible. But I understand that it’s not for everyone.

One of my favourite moments in her book arrive near the end where Monisha sums up her epic journey. As a reader I went through the journey just as she did and for me the end is perfect. Monisha says, “…I realised that India is not shining – at least not yet. The notion is an image, a facade built up by the powerful elite who hope that if they shout about it loudly and long enough it will drown everything else, grab enough headlines and start to be true.”

Q18> At the end of your book you say that India is not shining – not yet. Where do you think are the fault lines?

@Monisha_Rajesh: You want me to answer this in 140 characters!!! haha!! I think u only have to look at the news from the last 4 months to know there is something inherently wrong with the system. The wrong people in govt, the wrong people with too much money and old and out-dated mindset that needs to be eradicated.

Q19> Did the journey in any way help you connect with your roots?

@Monisha_Rajesh: Only in the sense that I felt I understood India much better than before. On a personal level I’ve never been confused. I’ve always been a very content British-born Indian: I adore and am loyal to the country that has always been loyal to me. but feel very comfortable in India and less of a foreigner there than I used to, though I still don’t feel accepted. Yup, it’s pinned on me like a badge. I find it so strange and unnecessary, though I see it more as their problem than mine.

Q20> You are today no less than an expert on the Indian Railways! How do you fancy that?

@Monisha_Rajesh: It’s hilarious. Every 16-year-old girl’s dream is to one day wake up & find they’re universally acknowledged as a train geek. Hang on, I meant it’s nice NOT to be a white middle-class 50-yr-old male writing about trains – and to be taken seriously.

Monisha’s book is like traveling through India from your living room. Read it because it is fun. Read it because it will show you an India that you know exists, but never would have experienced its diversity. I give the book 4/5. One of the most definitive travelogues that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed.

Please Note: This is an unpaid review. The book is a personal copy that I picked up at the Delhi Book Fair from the Roli Books Stall. However, I am keen to do more such reviews. Authors and publishers, I would love to do a #twitterview with you, should you want it for your new releases. Please feel free to contact me through the Contact Page

Book Review: My Lawfully Wedded Husband & Other Stories

Let’s begin by saying that I’m not a great follower of short stories. I’ve read very few anthologies in my life. The last one I read was a collection by Khushwant Singh. I’ve never reviewed short stories before, so its a difficult proposition. Unlike a novel I can’t reveal the plot, because that is what holds a short story together! Something tells me that writing this review will be trickier than reading it!!

I picked up Madhulika Liddle’s book for two reasons:

A) The title of the book The Lawfully Wedded Husband really caught my fancy.

B) I’ve been reading a lot of fiction & non-fiction lately and I thought a collection of stories would be a good breather

So what did I think of it?

Short stories by nature are tricky. They need to be wholesome in the sense that a story must do everything that a novel or novella does but it has to do it very quickly. It needs to be concise and must tell you enough about its charecters that you know them in and out. Also, short stories often tend to revolve around a central theme and event, the passage of time is just incidental. If we look at Liddle’s collection under these parameters it fares fairly well.

Westland and the author have labelled this collection under the genre Crime Fiction. While most of the stories do fall under this category, there are just a few that don’t and in that case I feel this categorisation falls short. Crusader, St George and the Dragon and On the Train are hardly crime thrillers!

The play of humor and particularly black humour is reasonably apt. The stories hook you right at the start and like a good suspence plot it keeps you engrossed. Some of twists are predictable for instance, Feet of Clay, On the Train and Hourie. Long before the end of these stories I knew what could be the possible end.

The characters are real and believable. Some of the characters stay with you. I particularly liked Ruby from A Tale of a Summer Vacation and the narrator Madhu (is this story autobiographical?) from A brief Lesson in Trust and even Hourie! They are troublesome in ways that you don’t expect them to be!

The opening story Sum Total would make for an excellent film if developed. Mental illness and a little bit of macabre works. Also Silent Fear has all the elements of being a supernatural thriller. And Number 63 will make for a classic whodunnit! And for My Lawfully Wedded Husband I somehow imagined the characters as Vidya Balan and Shaswata (Bob Biswas)! Now if you read the book you’ll know!

The stories are a quick read. A perfect book as your bed time read unless the characters haunt you! Crime fiction often tends to do that. Madhulika’s characters won’t haunt you. The mysteries are all solved and some of them really stun you -A Brief Lesson in Trust and Number 63 in particular were pleasant surprises.

Lastly, the title caught my husband’s attention too when he caught me reading it one night! “Oh! This book is about me then!” he said. I had long finished the title story and I sighed, “Oh! You wish!!”

I am definitely hiding the book deep inside the bookshelf…lest he reads it out of curiosity!

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

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Good Girls Behave!

A long time ago when I studied in a Convent there was a teacher who frowned everytime the helm of our skirts went above the knee. Not the uniform, mind you…but skirts that we wore when we were allowed ‘party dress’ in school. In the then small town & conservative Jamshedpur the ‘short skirt’ barely revealed the hump on my knee. “Short skirts will get you into trouble!” she’d warn us.

A year later, when we crossed the road to join the boy’s school in its co-educational plus two, a rather seemingly attractive class teacher (who perhaps miraculously believed that her students wooed her) stopped us in the corridor saying, “Hey you! Stop looking at the boys in my class. You are distracting them!”

I’m extremely proud of my upbringing. Even more for the schooling that I received. But a little more than a decade later when I’m reminded of these two incidents I suddenly realise how our teachers put the onus of so called ‘good’ behaviour on us…girls! And suddenly I doubt everything about I remember about my schooling.

My parents raised me as an equal. My father taught me never to think that I’m weak in anyway. And really I’ve never considered myself weak. As I grew up and came to Delhi, people warned me, ‘Delhi is unsafe’. In my early days, I too boarded wrong buses that took me to parts of Delhi that I thought only existed on the bus’ painted body. I was groped too. ‘Man’handled in a way that left me angry. I put to use the unusual and totally wasteful sex education class that we had way back in 8th grade where we were taught the many uses of the female knee. I also learnt to use my elbow. My heel. My toe. Yes, my head too and at the railway station when I slapped the tall, burly and demeaning taxi driver I realised that the force with which I hit someone is directly proportional to how angry I am. In college I had a friend who was masturbated upon in a crowded bus. She stayed cooped in her hostel room for a week! Afraid of what happened to her, I fought my attackers on the infamous Delhi blueline buses everyday.

Years earlier, when an acquaintance (an man we knew at the club)kissed me forcibly I was left with a burning sensation. My face burned. My heart burnt. I cried in isolation, not knowing what to make of it. It was my first kiss. And it took me more than 20 years to tell my parents that a close relative tried to force himself upon me when I was barely 10.

I’ve fought my own demons too. So when I grew up to be a no-nonsense girl I found to my pleasant surprise that no one dared to mess with me. So no uncomfortable passes were made to me in college and I escaped sexist comments at work too. I was appalled to see a colleague accept it that some other male colleagues called her country liquor in Hindi! One another was called Vodka! Neither of them liked it but they never retaliated. I tried telling them that didn’t have to take those names, but they were too polite for words.

I picked up journalism as a career. I worked 7 years relentlessly at a news organisation in Delhi. Once again, late hours were a part of the arrangement. In the beginning I’d tell my parents. But after I realised that they were mortified. I started hiding my return time from them. They didn’t trust my office drop either since just a few months after joining I broke my leg in a car accident…I was in an office cab returning home. When I got my own car and started driving trouble doubled for them. A single girl driving in Delhi traffic were there’s road rage every other day…coupled with the possibility of driving home late at 2-3-4 am and sometimes at the crack of dawn. I started lying more often. The only person who knew the truth of my adventures was my husband.

Incidentally it was my husband who taught me the world’s choicest expletives in Hindi. I picked them up in when we were dating and I was in college. Hearing a woman using slang is one thing that startles every man. And so every time someone tried to grope me I’d let loose a barrage of gaalis.

When I got married I again had questions. My mother explained to me the symbology behind the shaakha-pola (the white and red bangles that Bengali married women wear) sindoor and loha (the iron bangle that married Bengali women must wear in their left hand). Red is a symbol of love and belongingness. So wearing red by the virtue of this definition is an insignia that you belong to a certain man. Reminded me of a painting that’s been bought at an exhibition and is marked with a red dot!! White is the colour of purity and it means that woman is meant for only one man – her husband. So together the shaakha-pola-sindoor are meant to tell the world that the woman is ‘marked’ and belongs to her husband. The loha serves a unique purpose. Known to be a heavy metal that is attracted to a magnet, a young girl is made to wear an iron bangle when she is young. As she gets married, her husband / mother-in-law remove the iron bangle that she’s worn all her life and replaces it with another. This iron bangle she must NEVER remove. If the symbology has escaped you, then here it is…the iron bangle is meant to keep the woman rooted to her home. It’s a sort of a shackle that’s supposed to hold the woman back from transgressing herself. What does the man wear to show the world that he ‘belongs’ to a woman? What does he wear to stop him from transgressing? NOTHING!!

The onus is always on the woman to stay ahead. To be wary of her surroundings. To protect herself from the world. It is always the woman’s fault. I’ll cry hoarse but I know there’s point shouting from a roof top. Let’s change our society first. Stop discrimination. Stop treating women as doormats. And all you women out there, stop treating yourselves like that! I have a son who I will ensure grows up respecting women. Someday I want to raise a daughter too. But I don’t want to feel sorry for bringing her into this world.

For now, my parents have strictly asked me to not stay out ‘alone’ or with my son late into the night. I shouldn’t drive late in the evening. “And don’t go about slapping anyone now!” they say with an alarm. My husband has asked me to not pick fights with anyone. “Staying quiet is not a sign of weakness”, he says. And I’ve set a reminder to buy myself a pepper spray.

I’ve been asked to change. I find myself willing to change. And I don’t like that about myself.

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Book Review: The Krishna Key

I haven’t read Ashwin Sanghi’s first book ‘Rozabal Line’. But when I picked up Chanakya’s Chant I was delighted by the author’s imagination and presentation. And that’s what led me to pick up The Krishna Key for review this time.

 

 

Five thousand years ago, there came to earth a magical being called Krishna, who brought about innumerable miracles for the good of mankind. Humanity despaired of its fate if the Blue God were to die but was reassured that he would return in a fresh avatar when needed in the eventual Dark Age—the Kaliyug.

In modern times, a poor little rich boy grows up believing that he is that final avatar.

Only, he is a serial killer.

In this heart-stopping tale, the arrival of a murderer who executes his gruesome and brilliantly thought-out schemes in the name of God is the first clue to a sinister conspiracy to expose an ancient secret—Krishna’s priceless legacy to mankind.

Historian Ravi Mohan Saini must breathlessly dash from the submerged remains of Dwarka and the mysterious lingam of Somnath to the icy heights of Mount Kailash, in a quest to discover the cryptic location of Krishna’s most prized possession. From the sand-washed ruins of Kalibangan to a Vrindavan temple destroyed by Aurangzeb, Saini must also delve into antiquity to prevent a gross miscarriage of justice.

- Book Synopsis

With a synopsis that is compelling enough to make anyone pick up the book for a quick read, The Krishna Key is crafted for conspiracy theorists…those with a nose for history…and a reader who loves to go into the writer’s world and stay there.

As I read up about Ashwin and his debut novel which he first published under a pseudonym, I came across an quote where the writer said that he is deeply inspired by Dan Brown. For anyone who hasn’t read Brown, Ashwin Sanghi will come across the most imaginative writer ever read. For me the Brown-hangover was too apparent, but then that doesn’t take away too much from the book.

What makes for a great thriller?

A taunt story-line. Characters that are clearly defined. Cliff hanger situations. A narrative that teases and tests the reader in each page. And twists that are unpredictable.

Sanghi has all this in The Krishna Key…at least in parts.  

Unlike Dan Brown where you lap up the pages in awe of Robert Langdon, I found the anti-hero, Taarak Vakil more compelling in Sanghi’s book. His backstory, motivations and actions were far more interesting than the historian Ravi Mohan Saini’s.

However, the Dan Brown baggage in terms of over reading of mythology, history and theology in this book has taken a giant leap. At several points in the novel, I found myself lost in  historical details. I got too entangled in theories, studies, observations that I could barely chaff fact from fiction. Or perhaps that’s what the writer had set out to do. Throw too many fantastical theories at the reader that he is bewildered beyond wits and takes Saini / Mataji’s versions for truth!  But really, if the reader needs to take historical notes to follow Saini’s logic, then the book literally turns every reader into a history student!

I love the Mahabharata. Between the two great epics I find Mahabharata far more real and believable. So if someone were to tell me that Krishna really existed, I wouldn’t mind taking it face value. So in that case, the reader in me wanted to read a book around a conspiracy theory.

It’s is apparent that Sanghi has spent a large amount of time in researching the book. His sense of factual history is incredible. The ability to link concepts and derive imaginative theories is commendable. For instance, his description of how David’s Star originated in India and his logic behind it is noteworthy. But then the average Joe who takes a book at its face value may not be able to judge the extent of Sanghi’s imagination.

So for every reader, here is a word of caution: Sanghi has used the author’s imaginative license very liberally. So therefore, historical facts, characters and personalities are sometimes tweaked. One must not take the book literally, but indulge in it as a work of fiction that is based on Indian mythology and history.

A word to the publisher: Just because a book has the ability to become a best seller (and I really see no reason why The Krishna Key will not become one) you must not slip at your editing. Several errors run through the book, names are switched, sometimes the pace is allowed to slacken. The little introductions into Krishna’s story could have been done away with. They distracted me.

If your answer to any of the following statements is a ‘yes’ then pick up the book:

1) Love Dan Brown style of thrillers seeped in history, religion and mythology

2) Love conspiracy theories

3) Have never read Dan Brown

4) Want a book that challenges your sense  of history

5) Looking for a fast paced book that keeps you turning the pages in quick succession

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This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

Kinare ka Kirana

I was strolling around Indira Market in Noida today when I realised I need some bread and butter. I spotted a general store and walked in and is a habit with kirana I asked the shopkeeper to get me my items. The man looked up from his cellphone to point at something behind my back. “Wahan hai, le lijiye.”

That’s when I noticed that he’d arrange his floor like a mini departmental store…you know one in which you could walk around and pick up your stuff? Except that he didn’t have trollies and his aisles weren’t wide enough for them anyway.

I spotted more items. The new Quaker Oats, Tea leaves…and I was still looking around…when an old lady came in. What followed next is interesting, and very topical for those doubting what the FDI in retail would mean for these cornershops…

Looking around the shop the old lady asked, “Arrey, dukan kab khuli?”

The shopkeeper who looked up from his cellphone and greeted her with a namaste replied, teen hafte ho gaye!”

OL- Three weeks! How come I didn’t notice!

SK- *with a smile the shopkeeper replied* You must be getting things from the Mall!

OL – Yes, yes, my daughter-in-law insisted. She said Wednesdays are cheaper!

SK – Really? *clearly faking ignorance*

OL – I don’t know! There was such a huge line that I got really tired!

SK – *hitting the nail on the head* What’s the use of having such a big store when people have to wait?

OL – Absolutely! I went with her twice and gave up after that!

SK – No problem Mataji…we are up and running again. You can call me and ask for the items. I’ll have Chotu run to you with your things. ‘Theek hai na Mataji’?

OL – *visibly relieved* ‘Ekdum’! Now even you have shelves, clean and organised. I must get my daughter-in-law here.

So who’s worried about the your friendly neighbourhood general store? Not the shopkeeper for sure!

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