Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book Review: The Friend by Teresa Driscoll

A child is fighting for his life in hospital. The mother is far away, stuck on a train and desperately trying to reach that hospital. She may be responsible for her child having come to grievous harm. Then again, she may not be. Teresa Driscoll’s psychological thriller begins on this explosive note. Former…

Book review: Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pillai

Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pillai. Juggernaut Books. Manu Pillai, where were you when I was swotting for my History finals in high school, confusing the Bahmani rulers with the Qutb Shahi kings, the Bijapur rulers with the Gulbarga ones?! If I`d had your Rebel Sultans to hand, I`d have aced my paper! Plaintive question…

Travel: Milford and Marlborough, the Sounds of New Zealand

Speechless in the Sounds A strong ice-tipped wind is blowing through the Fiordland in New Zealand`s South Island when I board the launch that is to take me through the Milford Sound. This is big sky country and the gigantic, chubby clouds moving at a rapid clip overhead makes for a most dramatic sight….

Book review: The Baptism of Tony Calangute by Sudeep Chakravarti

The Baptism of Tony Calangute by Sudeep Chakravarti. Aleph Book Company. Chakravarti`s book was released in 2008 with the title Once Upon A Time In Aparanta but he felt it didn’t reach enough people. A decade later, it`s out again with a new title and a new publisher. I`ll confess I preferred the earlier title…

Travel: Zen Sites in Sri Lanka

Walking the path to Zen Where I take a trip to three well-preserved heritage sites in Sri Lanka and learns some lessons for life along the way Ritigala, deep inside very dense forests (`Strict Nature Reserve,` announces a signboard), ringedby the high and dense Ritigala mountain range, is not the most…

Humour: The South Indian Sari Blouse

The South Indian Sari Blouse Blouse. The very word is, oh I don’t know, blowsy. It carries within it the faintest suggestion of something racy, something naughty, and something bawdy. But the blouse is what we who live south of the Vindhyas call the sari accoutrement. These blouses, a strange mix of kitsch and colour,…

Book review: Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

The enduring flame Shobha Rao’s debut novel Girls Burn Brighter is poignant, powerful, a moving read. Reminiscent of the Elena Ferrante books, this book too delineates a deep, enduring bond between two women. As the protagonists move from village to city and finally across oceans, so does the story. The book’s two…

Book Review: The Night of Happiness by Tabish Khair

The Night of Happiness by Tabish Khair. A businessman works late on a rain-drenched evening with his faithful right-hand man. He thinks it`s only decent that he drops the man to his home. So he does. The man, for his part, thinks it only decent to invite his boss upstairs for a bowl of halwa….

Book Review: The Himalayan Arc Edited by Namita Gokhale

The Himalayan Arc, Journeys East of South-east. Edited by Namita Gokhale. HarperCollins. More geopolitical than travelogue, this is an interesting compilation where the snow-topped mountains feature less, and the lands that lie east of the massif, on its sides and its foothills, its plains and valleys feature more. Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, all of the…

Brief Review: All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

All the Lives We Never Lived By Anuradha Roy. Hachette India Books. Anuradha Roy is like Anees Salim. With each new book by these two authors, the reader knows they are in for a truly immersive experience; this is virtual reality of another kind. In this intriguing read, Roy picks up strands of history like…