Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Kidnapped by Hezbollah

A brush with danger The tagline of the book reads: A True Story of Travel, Turmoil and Triumph, and pretty much sums up what lies at the heart of the story. This is the true-life account of an Australia-based man of Indian origin. When Kaushik Sridhar decides he needs to visit the war-torn areas of…

Book review: Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya

Charu’s song This sweeping saga combines personal narrative, social history and a fascinating deep dive into how the Indian Railways works. The beating heart of the story, however, is its indomitable main character, Charulata Chitol. The story begins with Charu’s family moving to a railway township, Bhombalpur. Charu’s father works in the Light Machine Shop…

Book review: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

The Booker-25 shortlisted THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY by Kiran Desai, Penguin/Hamish Hamilton Books, is a veritable tome (almost 700 pages) dedicated almost single- mindedly to loneliness and its eviscerating effects, how to survive it, stay afloat, not go under… or get across if one does go under. Written in a melancholy manner, the…

Opinion: So You Think You Are An Empath?

In this epoch of information overload, we watch a thousand crises unfold every day, where the sacred mixes with the profane at top speed, where the latest war updates are followed in quick succession by clips on how to wear a mekhela chador the proper way, how to make naan on an overturned tawa, what…

Photo feature: The Azulejo tiles of Portugal

All photographs copyrighted to Sheila Kumar.

Photo feature: Statuary in Portugal

All photographs copyrighted to Sheila Kumar. Related links: Photo feature: Statuary in Austria Photo Feature: Portals in the Angkor temples of Cambodia Photo Feature: Jaipur`s jharokas and more! Photo Feature: Kiwiland Calling!

Book review: Into the Heart of the Himalayas by Jono Lineen

Jono Lineen`s complete travelogue, INTO THE HEART OF THE HIMALAYAS, Speaking Tiger Books, is a lovely read. The author, a curator at the National Museum of Australia, walks across the Himalayas in a bid to come to terms with the sudden unexpected death of a younger brother. This book which was released in 2012,…

Book review: The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles by Hemangini Dutt Majumder

A delicious twist of Bangla Goth This debut novel takes the old trope of Bengali Gothic literature, contemporizes it deftly, and serves up a whodunnit that is some parts funny, some parts macabre, all parts engaging. We are dropped without ceremony into the lives of the Chaterges (yes, you read that spelling right) a woman…

Book review: Nautch Boy by Manish Gaekwad

Bittersweet memories Nautch Boy is a companion piece to the author`s affecting 2023 memoir of his mother, The Last Courtesan. Here, while still training focus on the formidable Rekhabai and her life after retiring/giving up the career of a tawaif, he opens a door into his own life and growing up feeling unloved and unwanted…