Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Book review: The Book of Shiva by Ravi Shankar Etteth

The Book of Shiva by Ravi Shankar Etteth. A Harper Element publication. This then is a spiritual travelogue. You can, if you wish, make comparisons to Phaedrus` journey in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Or, at a long stretch, Alex Garland`s revelations in The Beach. Be that as it may, here we have…

Feature: Hallyu Bol! The Korean Wave

Food to language, India goes on a K-trip! Indians — especially the youth — are learning Korean, eating kimchi and travelling to Seoul to sample the life shown on their favourite TV dramas, and films. W-Two Worlds. BigBang. 2 PM. DOTS. EXO. BTS. I’m sorry to have to break this to you but if you…

Travel: Lake District, UK

PS: where are you? Blame it on the movies! Don’t blame me, blame Hollywood and the British film industry. In film after film ( The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Miss Potter, Snow White and the Huntsman, Star Wars: The Force Awakens ) they have shown me vistas of the Lake District (LD), with its impossibly green downs,…

Feature: Food and the Man

Food and the Man “Mealtimes,“ pronounces the man with the air of an oracle, “should be Sybaritic.“ I reflect that Arundhati Roy would love this gent, He Who Speaks in Capitals. I am in the august company of The Man Who Can Cook Anything, the Garden City’s Epicure Number One, henceforth to be delineated as…

Book review: Turtle Dove by Divya Dubey

Turtle Dove, A collection of Bizarre tales by Divya Dubey, Readomania Publications It is indeed a rare soul who does not pick up a book that promises to explore bizarre matters between its pages. Turtle Dove, Divya Dubey`s slim but interesting offering, takes us on a walk alongside the undertow of life, lets us…

Book review: The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota

This is more a brief take than review. The Year Of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota. Picador India I used to pass the British High Commission building in New Delhi on my way to work, twice every day for three years, and see the long and winding queues, little clumps of stragglers sometimes squatting on…

Book review: The Glass Bead Curtain by Lakshmi Kannan

Feminine Grace Under Fire October 15, 2016 Written by Sheila Kumar Lakshmi Kannan’s debut novel in English charts the life of two remarkable women, Kalyani, a child bride, and Vishalakshi, a young widow in pre-Independence Madras. Both the women display admirable grace under pressure and at some point, the story becomes a celebration of woman power. Kannan deftly…

Feature: Meeting Padmavathi Rao

Living the dream Bengaluru-based Padmavathi Rao is turning in a series of sensitive performances. Sheila Kumar | Padmavati Rao is on a roll right now. Even as her acclaimed Kitchen Poems show is readying for repeat renditions, she garnered a fair amount of both interest and attention as the luminously tragic Nancy Biswas, wife to…

Feature: Diamonds in the south

The diamond jubilation of South India I am at this high-end wedding (is there really any other kind?) in a temple town near Kochi. It’s a sea of silks, classic Kanjeevarams interspersed with heavily embellished saris. Everyone’s family heirlooms seem to be out on display and this being gold country, the glare of the…

Book review: Ms Draupadi Kuru After the Pandavas by Trisha Das

Back to the future It is many centuries, indeed many epochs, after the Kurukshetra war. The Pandavas are in heaven, along with their mother Kunti, their wife Draupadi and their aunt Gandhari, as well as the warrior princess Amba. Life is expectedly a halcyon bubble, filled with milk and honey, apsaras , music and dancing. For…