Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The First House by Avni Doshi

Falling apart Avni Doshi`s debut work, `Burnt Sugar,` was a reflective look at family relationships, specifically the relationship between a woman and her daughter. This book, her second novel, is another look through the slightly fogged-up window of a family home, to the persistent accompaniment of cicadas in the garden vegetation, and a slightly creepy…

Book review: The View from Here, edited by Githa Hariharan and K. Satchidanandan

Singing in dark times Each story and poem in this anthology works as both a snapshot and a time capsule of a particular part of India. The editors, Githa Hariharan and K. Satchidanandan, have selected the short stories as well as the poems from the respected literary journal Guftugu, and the accounts adroitly entwine the…

Opinion: On friendships of the Reel and Real kind

Would you opt for a Reel over a Real friendship? I`m just coming off a fortnight of real-life friendship, a reunion of our college girl gang from way back in Chennai nee Madras. Back then, we were a near inseparable trio. After the college years gave over, we kept in touch, sending congratulations and commiserations…

Book review: Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy

MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME by Arundhati Roy, Penguin Books. Roy`s memoir is an artful blend of a tribute to her mother, a slow deep nod to the turbulent relationship she had with `Mrs Roy,` and a walkthrough of her own life and times till date, giving us an understanding of just who Mrs Roy`s…

Opinion: Life`s too short to waste on bad books!

Even as the world is slowly but steadily disintegrating around us, we turn to our personal cope strategies just to survive each day. Me, I turn to books, try to lose myself in that world of make-believe. But of late, I seem to have lost all desire to plough through books that do not hold,…

Book review: Return to Sri Lanka by Razeen Sally

Razeen Sally`s RETURN TO SRI LANKA was first published in India by Juggernaut Books; this edition is published by Simon and Schuster Books in 2025. Packed with information delivered in the most dispassionate manner as befits an academic, the book is such a good read. The product of a Welsh mother and a Lankan Muslim…

Book review: Water Days by Sundar Sarukkai

Sundar Sarukkai`s WATER DAYS, Tranquebar Books. The story is set in the 1990s, just when the IT headwinds had begun to blow across Bangalore, turning the Garden City into a `compooter city,` bringing waves of people from across India looking to ride the boom, forever changing the climate, the traffic, the very vibes of a…

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Global Political Policy Head of Facebook now Meta, spills a whole stall of tea, and boy, how precisely and clearly she does the job. Loved the title and its genesis. It derives meaning from a splendid epigram from The Great Gatsby. “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things…

Book review: How to Forget by Meera Ganapathi

Just finished reading the most delightful book of ruminations made while taking short as well as long walks, HOW TO FORGET by Meera Ganapathi, HarperCollins Books. This book resonates, how it resonates! The reader matches step with the poet-author, accompanies her down her route, takes in the sights that float into her ken: a still-silver…

Book review: Lifequake by Tarini Mohan

The long way back She was young, all of twenty-three, standing on the threshold of a new life in Uganda, in a new job, having made new friends. Then, one evening, she gets onto a boda, a motorcycle taxi, along with a friend. The boda is violently rear-ended by a vehicle and the driver, the…