Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: A Step Away From Paradise by Thomas Shor

A Step Away From Paradise by Thomas Shor (Penguin Ananda Books) We have been taught from the earliest age to separate fact from fiction. We can read Alice in Wonderland, marvel at it yet know Wonderland doesn’t really exist. We suspend the line between fact and fiction, and we assume that is what Lewis Carroll…

Book review: The Swap by Shuma Raha

Love, sex and dhokha ‘Soon to be a major web series,’ a blurb announces on the cover of The Swap by Shuma Raha. Within a couple of chapters into the story, which deals with two couples whose lives get remarkably intertwined, the reader sees that the book would translate very well onto celluloid, offering an…

Book review: The Sixth Finger by Malayatoor Ramakrishnan

You would imagine that the origin story of a nascent godman would make for a compelling read. This, unfortunately, is not entirely the case here. Malayatoor Ramakrishnan`s protagonist Vedaraman is introduced to the reader as an urli thief, when the young man is caught stealing the bronze vessel from a temple of all places. We…

Travel: SwaSwara in Gokarna

Meanwhile at the SwaSwara Ayurvedic Resort in Gokarna…… This is Woman Central and I sense it the moment I arrive. The place has that vibe exclusive to spots where women congregate. A couple of women in white yoga gear are walking down a tree-laden path. There are women doing languid lengths in the…

Book review: Panjab by Amandeep Sandhu

I open my New Year account of book reviews with a book I read slowly, attentively, absorbing everything it had to give. Amandeep Sandhu`s PANJAB is many things to many readers. There are those like me, who was once familiar with the pinds and the jind of what Sandhu calls the outlier state (and you…

Book review: Perhaps Tomorrow by Pooranam Elayathamby with Richard Anderson

This stark tale, told absolutely without the slightest frill to embellish it, is basically a tale of triumph, of navigating one`s way through all the odds stacked in one`s path and coming through, banner held aloft. The `one` here is the co-narrator Pooranam Elayathamby alias Sandy. Born into a poor Sri Lankan Tamil household, any…

Feature: Kurtoskalacs, the chimney sweet of Europe

Kurtoskalacs is no longer prepared regularly in homes across Europe. It has become a touristy treat now. Is it doughy cotton candy? Is it a slimmer version of cinnamon bread? Is it heaven in a few bites? Well yes, it is the last, and it`s called kürtőskalács. I saw it all over Budapest but…

Books: Q & A with Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

`My novel explores how a society riven by a seemingly-unending spiral of violence, needs to open up to the stories of its survivors and fold them into its national and social history.` Manreet Sodhi Someshwar`s The Radiance of a Thousand Suns revisits the atrocities faced by the Sikh community, both at the time of…

Book review: The Radiance of a Thousand Suns by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Poignant memories A young Sikh woman in NYC tries to deal with the inheritance of particularly painful memories When the winds of independence blew in 1947, it carried within it a monster gale that wreaked damage on Punjab and its people. Thirty-seven years later, those marauding wind storms visited Punjabis yet again, this time in…

Book review: Is There Still Sex in the City by Candace Bushnell

Chick-lit for older chicks? Here, relationships and ageing are more engaging than either sex or the city. With its standout title, Candace Bushnell`s memoir Is There Still Sex In The City? sets up some major expectations, of beautifully made-up, expensively dressed young women dealing with the trials and tribulations of love, sex and everything in…