Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Orienting, an Indian in japan by Pallavi Aiyar

Nippon under the lens Pallavi Aiyar, peripatetic traveller and charming chronicler of Things She Sees, delivers once again. Orienting is her Japan book, a montage she has collated for the edification of her readers, culled from her experiences in that country. It`s an easy read, filled with gently offered insights, where the things to be…

Book review: The House Next to the Factory by Sonal Kohli

The lives of others It`s a quiet gaze that is turned on the tales in The House Next To The Factory. This book of short stories is author Sonal Kohli’s debut and it`s an assured debut. Set in Delhi, spanning timelines between 1980 and 2010, the stories are inter-linked, with some characters in one story…

Opinion: Is suppression of memories the best way to move on?

Is suppression of memories the best way to move on? The other day, I read an article that made me sit up startled. It was written by a neuroscientist and the topic was how to cleanse one`s mind of all past-thought baggage. To cut to the chase, this neuroscientist felt that that best way to…

Guest column: A day in the life

A day in the life of a troll Morning: Woke up at 11 am, totally exhausted. Busy night, sending short, pithy missives to various offenders across the country. So okay, the tweets were all off a set format but let me tell you, it still calls for some effort to key the message out and…

Opinion: The sounds of silence

The sounds of silence Speaking for myself (and I`m certain, speaking for you) I oftentimes think I`m living in a vortex of noise. Surrounded by noise, assailed by noise, disturbed by noise, sometimes rendered distraught by noise. I`m old enough to remember when noise basically meant loud rock concerts, a mixer-grinder doing its work for…

Book review: The Good Girls by Sonia Faleiro

The Good Girls, An Ordinary Killing by Sonia Faleiro. Penguin Books. If there is only one book you want to read to close your account for 2021, let it be this book, please. Faleiro, whose writing style and credentials need no burnishing, goes to Katra village in western UP`s Badaun district, to investigate…

Book review: Fifth Avenue, 5 am by Sam Wasson

FIFTH AVENUE, 5 AM by Sam Wasson, (Harper Perennial Books) is a delightful peek at everything that went into the making of the iconic Breakfast at Tiffany`s, into the making of its director Blake Edwards as also its much acclaimed heroine Audrey Hepburn, Henry Mancini who provided the score, and last but certainly not the…

Opinion: The complexities of complicity

The complexities of complicity The most recent backstory in a woefully long line of back stories to this particular topic concerns the sometime Bollywood actress turned dance show jury member, married to a man of mysterious wealth. The man gets arrested for making porn videos, the actress immediately pleads ignorance. Then there is the Hollywood…

Book review: Lahore by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

When Loar went up in flames In this book, the first of Sodhi Someshwar`s ambitious Partition trilogy, intense focus is trained on the city that buzzed with commerce, industry, life and living. In the run-up to Partition, Lahore had a large presence of Sikhs, a sizeable population of Hindus, and a Muslim majority who went…

Book review: The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

`The most appalling quality of water is its strength. I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength…the mysteries in its movement…(the way) it slips out of holes in the earth like the ancient snake.` To read THE LIVING MOUNTAIN (Canongate…