Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Photo Feature: Jaipur`s jharokas and more!

All photographs by Sheila Kumar. Images are subject to copyright. Links to my other Photo Features: Photo Feature: Picture Postcards Photo Feature: Critters of Odisha Photo Feature: Eden and its serpent! Photo Feature: Eating Chinese food in China Photo Feature: Paths in the Kumaon foothills Photo Feature: China chronicles Photo Feature:…

Excerpts: Suspected Poems by Gulzar

Suspected Poems by Gulzar. Translated by Pavan K Varma.

Book review: Standing on an Apple Box by Aishwaryaa Rajnikanth Dhanush

This is more a brief take than review. STANDING ON AN APPLE BOX by AISHWARYAA RAJINIKANTH DHANUSH. HarperCollins India Publishers. Things we learn from these winning essays by one who just happens to be the daughter of a Living Legend (come on, this calls for capitals!) and the wife of a shining star in the Tamil firmament:…

Book review: Walking The Himalayas by Levison Wood

Walking the Himalayas by Levison Wood. Hodder Books/Hachette India. A couple of disclaimers need to be inserted at the start of this review. One, I`m a sucker for any book that has the word `Himalayas` in its title. Two, the rather edifying jacket pic played its part in my picking up this book. That aside,…

Book review: Songs of the Cauvery by Kalyanaraman Durgadas

The flow of life By the banks of the Cauvery in Tamil Nadu, a set of people try to make sense of their life and times. As the nineteenth century draws to a close and the twentieth appears on the horizon, India`s freedom struggle is fast gaining traction. This story is set in the…

Book review: Sepia Leaves and Interview with author Amandeep Sandhu

Sepia Leaves by Amandeep Sandhu. Rupa Publications. This book was written in 2008 but the topic, sadly, is one that never really goes out of date or loses its relevance. I say `sadly` because the subject matter here is one weighted with sorrow. Sandhu`s book is the account of an eight-year-old boy in Rourkela who…

Book review: Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks

An easy read Two by Two is the twentieth novel of bestselling author Sparks, and that`s no mean feat. As everyone on Planet Earth knows, Sparks made his name and fame with that romantic tear-jerker, The Notebook, and followed that up with many international bestsellers in the same genre, playing to strength, as it were….

Book review: Askew, a Short Biography of Bangalore by TJS George

Cry, the beloved city It is neither compulsory nor mandatory but I feel the need to make this admission: I am not an outsider. Though not of Kannada origin, I have been a resident of Bangalore/Bengaluru since the start of the 80s. That`s been over three decades, during which I have lived, worked, married, learned…

Feature: The Padma Lakshmi Interview

PHOTOGRAPHS: INEZ AND VINOODH Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best First Book, and her recently released memoir Love, Loss And What We Ate is garnering both critical acclaim and bestseller status across the world. Padma Lakshmi talks to Sheila Kumar about her new book There is a faint note…

Book review: Bridget Jones`s Baby by Helen Fielding

This is more a brief take than review. Bridget Jones`s Baby The Diaries by Helen Fielding More of stir-crazy Bridge and her pals Shazzer, Tom, Miranda, Magda. More of the craziness. More of the longing. More of the torn betwixt still-the- cad Daniel Cleaver and the rod-up-his-arse Mark Darcy. A chucklesome read. There is, but…