Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: The Last Courtesan by Manish Gaekwad

This woman`s life It cannot be the easiest of things, to write your mother`s memoir. All the more when your mother happened to be India`s last tawaif or courtesan. Manish Gaekwad, though,  has turned a steady gaze on his mother`s colourful life and written up the account with unflinching honesty. Ultimately, what comes through is…

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Books: Best Indian Fiction of 2022

Best Indian Fiction  of 2022  Even as we were emerging from the pandemic, blinking in the bright light, my reading through the year continued to be both substantial and satisfying. This is a listicle of Indian fiction of 2022 that fulfilled my one-point criterion: it touched a chord with me. Valli.  Written by Sheela Tomy,…

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Book review: The Odd Book of Baby Names by Anees Salim

A bleak kind of hope Anees Salim`s new book is laced with equal amounts of melancholia and quirk, with the former gaining a slight edge over the latter, which will not surprise the writer`s fans one bit. The plot hinges on a slender story, that of an erstwhile ruler lying in a comatose state in…

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Book review: Girl in White Cotton by Avni Doshi

Of mothers and daughters A troubled and troubling look at this primary relationship gone awry.  There`s a whole pantheon of literature on the topic of troubled mother-daughter relationships which features works like Nancy Friday`s My Mother, Myself, Christina Crawford`s ` Mommie Dearest, Alice Sebold`s The Almost Moon, Sarah Haywood`s Cactus, Jodi Picoult`s Leaving Time, Maya…

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Humour: The Song That Reduces Anxiety

                                  Weightless worries during Covid times In which soothing music increased, not decreased, worry My sleepless nights are getting to be a matter of concern for my kith and kin. I`m a certified worrywart and the Virus-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named has worsened my…

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Book Review: Dara Shukoh, The Man Who Would Be King by Avik Chanda

A mystic’s misfortune Dara Shukoh’s vision for a just, tolerant, secular and humane India seems today as unrealised as his dream of becoming the king.  A contemplative ‘what if’ nebula hangs over Avik Chanda’s gripping book on Dara Shukoh. Dara was Emperor Shah Jahan’s eldest, most favoured son and heir apparent. He, however, does not…

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Book review: A Secret History of Compassion by Paul Zacharia

  Sending up everything and everyone A scathing look at life. The reader`s first reaction on reading A Secret History of Compassion is to muse over the probability that Paul Zacharia wrote up the story,  then dipped it into a vat of caustic soda. Everything is grist for his mill, or rather pen, here: writers,…

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Feature: Millennials and money

  Nothing more, nothing less As the earlier generation watches, the millennials streamline their spending pattern, readying to join the economical mainstream.  I’ve had a millennial in my life for some years now but it took me a while to mark the clear-cut differences in our spending pattern. I was chatting with our cook, my…

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Feature: Tribute to Delilah

 My, my, my Delilah…     It was an Ambassador car, a stodgy vehicle,  caramel in colour. It was of  1963 make and quite the pride and delight of my armyman father. I can`t quite remember when and why the Amby went in for a makeover. But makeover it was, because when she returned from…

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Feature: The north-south divide

It has taken a good many years spent criss-crossing the north and south of India, for me to come to this conclusion: Kipling got his latitudes mixed up with his longitudes. When he famously remarked that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, he ought to have laid that sentence…

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