Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Humour: The South Indian Sari Blouse

The South Indian Sari Blouse Blouse. The very word is, oh I don’t know, blowsy. It carries within it the faintest suggestion of something racy, something naughty, and something bawdy. But the blouse is what we who live south of the Vindhyas call the sari accoutrement. These blouses, a strange mix of kitsch and colour,…

Book review: Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

The enduring flame Shobha Rao’s debut novel Girls Burn Brighter is poignant, powerful, a moving read. Reminiscent of the Elena Ferrante books, this book too delineates a deep, enduring bond between two women. As the protagonists move from village to city and finally across oceans, so does the story. The book’s two…

Book Review: The Night of Happiness by Tabish Khair

The Night of Happiness by Tabish Khair. A businessman works late on a rain-drenched evening with his faithful right-hand man. He thinks it`s only decent that he drops the man to his home. So he does. The man, for his part, thinks it only decent to invite his boss upstairs for a bowl of halwa….

Book Review: The Himalayan Arc Edited by Namita Gokhale

The Himalayan Arc, Journeys East of South-east. Edited by Namita Gokhale. HarperCollins. More geopolitical than travelogue, this is an interesting compilation where the snow-topped mountains feature less, and the lands that lie east of the massif, on its sides and its foothills, its plains and valleys feature more. Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, all of the…

Brief Review: All The Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy

All the Lives We Never Lived By Anuradha Roy. Hachette India Books. Anuradha Roy is like Anees Salim. With each new book by these two authors, the reader knows they are in for a truly immersive experience; this is virtual reality of another kind. In this intriguing read, Roy picks up strands of history like…

Book review: Rafina by Shandana Minhas

And they all fall flat A dramaybaaz protagonist, but where’s the drama? Shandana Minhas wrote this story in 2004; it saw the light of day 14 years later. Luckily, the story, that of a determined if rather naïve girl’s attempt to carve her niche in the world, is such that it can’t really…

Travel: Chikmagalur, Karnataka

Theres a lot more in coffee country than just coffee. We discovered it on a trip to Chikmagalur, Karnatakas coffee county. It really is a lovely drive down to Chikamagalur from Bangalore, all 251 kms of it. The two main reasons for that is the national highway being a good road for the most…

Humour: Me, my Husband and Mari Kondo

Me, My Husband And Marie Kondo Now that Marie Kondo’s been and gone, I will tell you a story. At the time when she was a veritable whirlwind swooshing her way through the entire world, leaving neat piles of TK (to keep) and TC (to chuck) items in her wake, there were some people who…

Book review: Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan

I was blown clean away by Deepak Unnikrishnan`s Temporary People (Penguin Books). It is a set of short stories, a poem or two, some pages of artwork about the `guest workers` the migrant labour of the Gulf, mostly Malayalis, who toil without any recognition, without much dignity, without adequate creature comforts and worst of all,…

Book review: A House for Mr Misra by Jaishree Misra

Trivandrum Diary A House for Mr Misra (Westland) This slim volume is the ideal read when you are between books that tackle matters of a more serious, even grim nature. Or in my case, a break from editing a turgid manuscript. Written rather like a Trivandrum diary fleshed out in engaging detail, it keeps the…