Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinsborough

Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes keeps you guessing, and even if you think you know where the story is going, you still want to go down that path,to get there at closure point. Throughout, you relish the mystery and the deliberate holding back of information because you know it’s building up to something big,…

Book review: Adi Parva by Amruta Patil

This is more a brief take than review. Amruta Patil`s marvellous-marvellous-marvellous ADI PARVA is a book I go back to oftentimes. The thought-provoking text and astonishing artwork in this retelling of the Mahabharata meld so seamlessly, so mellifluously, the reader is richly rewarded over and over again. Here, Indra`s ruby-embellished Indrajaal; Ganga entering…

Book review: Bullets and Bylines by Shyam Bhatia

This is more a brief take than review. Bullets and Bylines (Speaking Tiger publications), veteran journalist`s Shyam Bhatia`s accounts from conflict zones, contains one particular story which, for this reader, was worth the price of the book. On a visit to Tehran after Khomeini has consolidated his grip inside the country, Bhatia keeps a low…

Book review: Things To Leave Behind by Namita Gokhale

This is more a brief take than review. Things to leave behind by Namita Gokhale. Penguin Viking This is the third and final volume of Gokhale`s Himalayan trilogy, A Himalayan Love Story and Book of Shadows being the first two. However, I write of this as a standalone story, which it is. After I turned…

Book review: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Tales from the North A master storyteller dons his storied cape again. I must confess that this would be my third reading of the Norse tales, stories that hold me in complete thrall each book, each reading. So my first reaction here was: Neil Gaiman doing a re-telling? Will it serve? However, Gaiman…

Feature: The north-south divide

It has taken a good many years spent criss-crossing the north and south of India, for me to come to this conclusion: Kipling got his latitudes mixed up with his longitudes. When he famously remarked that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, he ought to have laid that sentence…

Book excerpts: A Feast of Vultures by Josy Joseph

A sobering, significant parsing of our system, political, economic, social.

Photo Feature: A photo essay on friendship

A short note on the making of this post. April 1, 2017 Blog: whyaretheystillmyfriends Sheila Kumar writes about the making of a photo essay about friends Before you start Googling for a Bergman or Fellini film that bears the title of Falling, let me hasten to clarify: Falling is the name of a photo essay…

Book review: Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Memory chaser Price 12.99 Pounds Sterling. Michael Chabon’s Moonglow is a feel-good story with darkness at its heart. Chabon, a novelist who has frequently moved between themes and genres, presents this as a family memoir. Then again, given the many literary flourishes contained within, the reader could be forgiven for thinking this…

Book review: The Golden Legend by Nadeem Aslam

The master story-teller is back, weaving the usual magic with his words, writing a familiar yet brand-new tale of love in the times of bigotry and xenophobia.“ I wake up every day approaching life’s problems through fiction,“ says Nadeem Aslam. Which explains the prose that soars even as it touches upon, examines, parses all the conflict life…