Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS by Pip Williams. This was my Book Club`s pick for the month, and it turned out to be a most interesting story, as well as yet another sweet father-daughter story, that of young Esme whose father worked at Oxford on the OED. From the time Esme was a young girl,…

Book review: The Bellboy by Anees Salim

THE BELLBOY by Anees Salim. Penguin Hamish Hamilton Books. Anees Salim sets such a measured pace in unspooling the life and times of Latif the teenager, who is the bellboy of the book`s title, that the reader may well wonder where the author is going with this. That would be the regular reader; those familiar…

Book review: The Blue Women by Anukrti Upadhyay

Compartmentalised lives Anukrti Upadhyay is back with a fresh cache of short stories that effectively proves her earlier acclaimed work Kintsugi was no flash in the pan. There are a dozen short stories in this volume, all of them imbued with the characteristic quietude we have come to associate with this writer. When things —…

Column: Love makes the world go round? Says who?

Love makes the world go round? Says who? So here`s the thing. Despite the edgy love stories Malayalam cinema regularly puts out (anyone seen Mammooty`s Peranbu, where he settles down with a transwoman at the end?), despite the love songs our singers soulfully sing, the truth is that many people in Kerala are stuck in…

Book review: Not Quite a Disaster After All

Belonging and unbelonging Buku Sarkar`s intriguingly titled book Not Quite a Disaster After All traces the life path of a Bengali girl named Anjali from her childhood spent in a Kolkata manor to the NYC neighbourhood which eventually becomes home to her, some years later. The trail switches from an upper crust lifestyle to a…

Book review: What the Rains Foretold by N. Mohanan

When the past finally catches up Mohanan`s story What the Rains Foretold (Innalathe Mazha) is a retelling of a popular Kerala folklore, which involves the growth trajectory of a young Brahmin man named Vararuchi who turns his back on the position of king`s Royal Pundit and all the comfort that entails, to head off into…

Hoi An, land of lanterns – travel

Hoi An: land of lanterns It`s the lanterns that catch the eye first. Bamboo and silk structures swaying in the gentle breeze of the daytime, lit by lamps to cast a luminous glow in the balmy nights. Lanterns of lacquer red, royal purple, azure blue, fuchsia pink, molten gold…and pristine white. They…

Book review: Table for One by Sumaa Tekur

TABLE FOR ONE by Sumaa Tekur. Hay House. The tagline for this book reads: a solo living manual for the curious Indian woman. As manuals go, it is direct, (very) helpful and packed with information a woman about to live solo could parse to her benefit. The one outstanding quality of Tekur`s writing is her…

Photo Feature: Portals in the Angkor temples of Cambodia

All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright.