love story Archives - Comfortably Numb

Book review: The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Karuna Ezara Parikh

In her remarkable debut work THE HEART ASKS PLEASURE FIRST, (Picador India Books) Karuna Ezara Parikh takes the reader gently by the hand and leads them to a circular house in `Lalabad` where they meet the wonderful Gyan and Asha and their daughter Daya; then across the border to Pakistan where they meet Aaftab preparing…

Book review: Memory of Light by Ruth Vanita

A poignant passion A febrile strand of melancholia runs through the story, adding heft to a tale rich with detail, feeling and emotion In corona times, along comes a book that is best read slowly, leisurely, a meditative reflection on a found, lost, then recaptured love. Sumptuously descriptive, this love story has stately Lucknow, the…

Book review: House of Stars by Keya Ghosh

I read House of Stars by Keya Ghosh (Penguin Metro Reads) on the exuberant recommendation of my teenaged niece and guess what, it was an absorbing read. This is love in the times of religious fundamentalism and communal intolerance, the nascent passions of two eighteen- year- olds, Diya from Mumbai and Kabir from Kashmir, forming…

Book review: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This is more a brief take than review. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. HarperCollins. Anthony Doerr is a celebrated writer who has written other very moving stories but All The Light We Cannot See (2014) stands one level above all of them. This story, of a few lives tightly intertwined in the days of…

Book review: Alphabet Soup for Lovers by Anita Nair

As light as soufflé Anita Nair ventures back into feminine territory with a love story set in the hills. After venturing out to sea with the tale of a Somalian trader with a jewelled eye, as well as introducing us to the very interesting Inspector Gowda, Anita Nair goes back into what is essentially…

Book review: Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar, Translated by Jerry Pinto

Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar, translated from the Marathi by Jerry Pinto (Penguin Books). This book was published in Marathi in 2006 and translated into English in 2013. The reader falls deep into the story almost at the start and then there`s no coming out till the tale has been told. It is a story…

Book review: All That Could Have Been by Mahesh Bhatt with Suhrita Sengupta

The fact that this story is the base for the soon to be released film Hamaari Adhuri Kahaani casts its own shadow, as does the fact that this is supposed to be the love story of Mahesh Bhatt`s parents. Come to think of it, the fact that one part of the duo which has authored…

Book review: The Book of Gold Leaves by Mirza Waheed

The Painted Word The Book of Golden Leaves by Mirza Waheed. Penguin/Viking Books. In his first book, The Collaborator, Mirza Waheed spun a stunning story, thinly veiled as fiction, of the hapless Valley and its hapless residents. Here, he tells us a tender love story. The serious young man with fine features and a…

Travel: Verona, Italy

City of love We are in Verona, it is a sunny day and we are set to go gawp at Juliet’s house. Gulietta, daughter of the house of Capuleti, who happened to fall unsuitably in love with a certain Romeo, remember? Even as I try and call to mind lines from the play dealing with…