Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Books: Best Indian Fiction of 2022

Best Indian Fiction of 2022 Even as we were emerging from the pandemic, blinking in the bright light, my reading through the year continued to be both substantial and satisfying. This is a listicle of Indian fiction of 2022 that fulfilled my one-point criterion: it touched a chord with me. Valli. Written by Sheela Tomy,…

Book review: A Case of Indian Marvels edited by David Davidar

A Case of Indian Marvels, edited by David Davidar. Aleph Books. Forty short stories from writers aged forty and under, says the blurb on the back jacket of the book. The stories have been handpicked by David Davidar, arguably one of the best connoisseurs of stories short and long, and the result is an anthology…

Book review: Cubbon Park by Roopa Pai

Cubbon Park The Green Heart of Bengaluru by Roopa Pai, Speaking Tiger Books. A neat, potted history of the 152-year-old park that is both geographically central to Bangalore and emotionally central to Bangaloreans. Pai eschews frills and furbelows to take up certain sections of the park`s history and lived-in present, the people and situations that…

Book review: Hyderabad by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

When push came to shove In the second book of her Partition trilogy, author Manreet Sodhi Someshwar trains focus on the state that lay in India`s belly and was giving then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel a severe stomach-ache. The facts as they were, are known to all history buffs. Hyderabad was ruled (nominally, as…

Book review: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

And what did I make of the 2022 Booker-prizewinner The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Penguin Books) by Shehan Karunatilaka, you ask. Well, I came to it with heightened anticipation because I had really liked his debut novel of a decade ago, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, which went on to win the 2012…

Book review: The Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle

BURMA CHRONICLES by Guy Delisle. Jonathan Cape Books. Sometimes – most times – I think I live for moments when I stumble across books that are absolute treasures. This graphic novel which I spied on my daughter`s bookshelf, and because it was about Myanmar nee Burma, I took home to read just blew me away….

Book review: More Spooky Stories by Tanushree and Ajoy Podder

The ghosts are back in this follow up to Tanushree Podder`s YA fiction, ‘Spooky Stories.’ In this sequel of sorts, which is also a crossover work into adult readership, the mise-en-scene is a classic one. Uday Sengupta travels from the US to India to visit his uncle, Keshav Roy, after many years. The taxi driver…

Book review: Breaking Barriers by Nafees Fazal with Sandhya Mendonca

Breaking Barriers by Nafees Fazal with Sandhya Mendonca, Konark Books. Breaking Barriers is the memoir of Nafees Fazal, the first Muslim woman minister in south India, and one feisty, irrepressible politician. Kudos to co-author Sandhya Mendonca for letting that frank and no- holds- barred voice comes through loud and clear, all through the book. For…

Guest column: Why are we so loud?

Why are we so loud? I recently watched a video, purportedly a spoof, where an Indian aunty adopts a hectoring tone and shows us how ginger tea is brewed back home in India. I say `back home` because the woman is standing in an American kitchen, heaping much unbridled derision on Americans. Personally, I found…

Guest column: Selective offerings in the time of cancel culture

The art vs the artiste: that old divide The other day, I revisited that classic, Gerald Durrell`s My Family and Other Animals, an old-gold favourite. After the read I fell into a rabbit hole of info on the Durrell family, and was dumbfounded to find that much of what I had devoured as the —…