Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Heartbreak Unfiltered by Milan Vohra

The heartbreak manifesto It is ironical that the latest book by India’s first Mills & Boon author, Milan Vohra, is about love… followed by loss and heartbreak. A sign of the times perhaps, when sweeping right on one of the many dating apps does not necessarily lead to happily- ever- after; when we are more…

Book review: Called by the Hills by Anuradha Roy

Over hill and dale First, it`s a memoir that takes us on a leisurely wander through the forests and dirt tracks of Ranikhet, where the author has lived for a quarter of a century now. Second, it has the most luscious illustrations ever, all done by the author, giving us a clear picture of just…

Book review: The Third Pole by Mark Synnott

THE THIRD POLE is Mark Synnott`s engrossing account of going up Mount Everest in search of the remains of the second of the fabled explorers of 1924, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. For those who don`t know, the duo had attempted to summit Everest via the northern side in Tibet, had been last seen 800…

Opinion: A little superstition to make the medicine go down?

Just a little superstition? I have to start with a disclaimer: I am not superstitious. When a black cat crosses my path, I just call out, here kitty, kitty. When the salt shaker slips from my grasp spilling the white stuff everywhere, I just grin sheepishly. When I burned the sleeve of a blouse I…

Book review: The Little Book of Goodbyes by Ravi Shankar Etteth

A wistful look back at life This slim volume of short stories delivers on the promise of its title: it really is a little book of nostalgic look-backs. The author digs deep into his personal cache of memories, mines it for sentiment and poignancy, takes us to a little town in south Malabar, then moves…

Book review: U-turn and Other Stories by Gauri Shankar Raina, trs by Pankaj Bhan

Gentle tales from the vale U-turn and Other Stories is a curation of Kashmiri tales written by Hindi/English/Kashmiri writer and filmmaker Gauri Shankar Raina and translated by Pankaj Bhan. Quite a few of the stories are situated in Jammu, which one doesn’t find too often in books on and from Kashmir, the focus usually being on…

Travel: The gorgeous Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal

Books, enveloped in beauty The very first thing that strikes me as we arrive at the doorstep of the Livraria Lello in Portugal`s Porto, is the bouncer. He has a genial half-smile pasted on his lips, and is courteously listening to people whose tickets he is checking. But nothing can disguise the fact that he…

Book review: Bimbisar`s Curse by Tanushree Podder

Burden of a king When we first meet the great king of the Magadh Empire, Bimbisar, he is weak and infirm, imprisoned by his son in a cold dark dungeon. As he reflects on the circumstances that brought him to this sorry pass, history unfolds before us. Early on in the narrative, Bimbisar vows to…

Book review: Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai

Taking off the halo This autobiography reads like the coming -of- age memoir of just another girl filled with self-doubt, unsure of many things, trying to find her niche in a world far from her comfort zone. It just so happens that the subject and writer is Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by a gunman…

Book review: Once Upon a Summer by Manjul Bajaj

Once Upon a Raj time In her fourth book of fiction for adults, Manjul Bajaj has once again created a delicate spindrift of forbidden love, this time in the times of the British Raj. The wonderfully descriptive story moves between New York, Rannpur, Jaunpur, Saharanpur, Nainital, flows gently over every pebble, every path, every emotion…