Kalpana Swaminathan is a surgeon and the author of the novels Ambrosia for Afters and Bougainvillea House, and a collection of detective stories, Cryptic Death. She has also written six books for children. She shares the pseudonym Kalpish Ratna with Ishrat Syed, and their writings on science, the arts and literature have appeared in several publications. Kalpana Swaminathan’s Lalli is the first genuine Indian detective in the English language. Her latest book, The Monochrome Madonna is the third book in this very popular series.
Razor sharp, witty, independent and something of a loner, Lalli, a retired police inspector in her sixties, has earlier appeared in two previous books: The Page 3 Murders and The Gardener’s Song.
Here's a short Q&A with the author:
1] India has had a dearth of well written detective fiction. What would you attribute this to?
India has a dearth of Indian fiction. We have plenty of writers and so many write so well—but how many of their books do you notice in bookshops? They aren’t visible enough. Indian fiction makes up less than 5% of the display!
Detective fiction’s just one more wall flower.
2] Lalli is a lady detective, perhaps the one thing she shares with Miss Marple. What or who were your inspiration for creating this character?
Miss Marple was created 80 years ago—and there have been so many women detectives before and after her. It’s a vast sisterhood. Hey—you just gave me an idea for a new book!
Lalli isn’t inspired by anyone. She’s her own person
3] What is the most challenging part about crafting a detective-mystery novel?
Not to feel challenged! Ease is everything. Writing is pure pleasure, and it defeats the purpose when you have to work at it.
4] With each Lalli mystery, have you seen Lalli evolve as a character?
That’s a question for the reader, actually. For me—I keep pace with the narrator’s relationship with Lalli. How much does she see and understand of the woman she lives with? It’s a question of great interest to me in all relationships—the point when identity escapes the constraints of the relationship and becomes individual. And that’s when a relationship truly begins. I try to keep that pace in fiction too.
5] Who are your favourite mystery writers/characters?
Naturally, Mr Sherlock Holmes. The rest are just chaff.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Following Fish
remarkable debut, first travelogue of its kind, covering eight states along the coastline
Penguin Books India
is proud to publish
Following Fish
Travels along the Indian Coast
by Samanth Subramanian
‘This is a travel book like no other—inspired in its conception and marvelously skilful in its execution… A stunning debut by a hugely gifted writer’—Ramachandra Guha
In a coastline as long and diverse as India’s, fish inhabit the heart of many worlds — food of course, but also culture, commerce, sport, history and society. Journeying along the edge of the peninsula, Samanth Subramanian reports upon a kaleidoscope of extraordinary stories.
In nine essays, Following Fish conducts rich journalistic investigations: among others, of the famed fish treatment for asthmatics in Hyderabad; of the preparation and the process of eating West Bengal’s prized hilsa; of the ancient art of building fishing boats in Gujarat; of the fiery cuisine and the singular spirit of Kerala’s toddy shops; of the food and the lives of Mumbai’s first peoples; of the history of an old Catholic fishing community in Tamil Nadu; of the hunt for the world’s fastest fish near Goa.
Throughout his travels, Subramanian observes the cosmopolitanism and diverse influences absorbed by India’s coastal societies, the withdrawing of traditional fishermen from their craft, the corresponding growth of fishing as pure and voluminous commerce, and the degradation of waters and beaches from over-fishing.
Pulsating with pleasure, adventure and discovery, and tempered by nostalgia and loss, Following Fish speaks as eloquently to the armchair traveler as to lovers of the sea and its lore.
Penguin Rs. 250
About the author
First by circumstance and subsequently by choice, Samanth Subramanian is a journalist. He studied journalism at Pennsylvania State University and international relations at Columbia University. By preference, he has gravitated towards the long-form, narrative version of journalism—waning today, but still rewarding and revealing to both writers and readers. He has written, among other publications, for Mint, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, The National and The Hindu. This is his first book.
An excerpt from the book, on the author's hunt for the perfect Mangalorean fish curry:
To attempt to write with enthusiasm about food, I have discovered, requires two great qualities: the ability to eat with a Catholic, voluminous appetite, and the ability to eat out alone. The first is a purely physical constraint. A. J. Liebling, the emperor of gourmandizing writers, once pointed out that the average day presented, to the members of his tribe, only two opportunities for really extensive fieldwork: lunch and dinner.‘They are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol,’Liebling wrote. ‘They are indispensable, like a prize fighter’s hours on the road.’ (If his monumental waistline was not proof enough that Liebling practised what he preached, his accounts of his meals are; at one lunch, with a friend, he consumed a whole trout with butter, a Provencal meat stew, and a young, roasted guinea hen, with the appropriate wines and a bottle and a half of champagne. Then, presumably, there was dessert.) But even a weak appetite can be cultivated and expanded, if not to Lieblingian proportions then at least to a point of modest adventurousness. The ability to dine out alone, however, seems to be like the ability to curl your tongue—either you have it or you don’t. Those who don’t, tell me that it is just an insuperable mental block. I once heard of a software engineer, on deputation in the United States, who worked late hours and came back tohis hotel well after room service had ceased room servicing. The coffee shop downstairs was open all night, but so reluctant was our friend to sit in a restaurant by himself and eat a sandwich that he simply skipped dinner. For the entire month.Fortunately, I have always been made of tougher material; nothing would induce me to skip dinner. Often, in fact, when I’ve been travelling, I’ve actually preferred to eat alone, and not only because it enables a silent, more intimate communion withmy food. A restaurant, particularly during a weekday afternoon, is like a finger on the pulse of a town. People come in with distinct agendas, even if the agenda is not to have one. They make business deals, argue over sports and politics, court each other,ignore each other, spend time with family, suffer the company of colleagues, or, like me, sit in a corner by themselves and watch it all over the top of a newspaper. And in the manner of a primitive cultural anthropologist, I lap it up in fascination, convinced that I am seeing the life of the town unfold in front ofme. Maybe I am; or maybe I’m just seeing people eat lunch.The only major disadvantage to eating in solitude, especially in a town that one doesn’t know very well, is figuring out where to eat. Asking in your hotel will only earn you a warm recommendation for the hotel’s own restaurants. Asking the wrong people—and it’s impossible to know who the wrong people are until you’ve eaten in the places they suggest—will lead you to the sort of food they think you want to eat, rather than the food they would themselves eat, which is also the food you really want to eat. On a vacation, of course, the joys of wandering around and of serendipitous discovery are all very well. But it must be most disheartening, for food writers as well as serious gourmands,to come awayfrom a place only to discoverthat they had been sucked in by a succession of tourist-trap restaurants, all the while ignoring the authentic, wholly brilliant eatery just next door to their hotel.This was the position I found myself in on my first afternoon in Mangalore. I had taken an overnight train from Cochin,waking just in time to see the pastels of morning wash over the serene beginnings of the Konkan Coast. The half-light conferred a magic upon otherwise ordinary sights. Sitting next to the window, I gawked at everything that passed by me—deserted sports fields; immaculate little station platforms; ordered brickhouses painted in colours that would have looked garish in the city but that looked merely cheerful here; grove after grove of coconut trees; an occasional stream or backwater. And ever so suddenly, like a flash of benediction, a view of the open sea, separated from my train only by a thin ribbon of land. Mangalore seemed sleepy when I got off the train, and it seemed sleepy when I left my hotel in search of lunch. I was to learn, over the course of my days there, that it was a town that seemed sleepy right through the week, as if just walking itsrolling, undulating streets rocked its residents into drowsiness.Its restaurants displayed such a pleasing lack of business drivethat they seemed almost anachronistic. One restaurant that Is potted, called Hotel Kudla, had used the excuse of on going roadwork in the area to down shutters indefinitely—even though the restaurant’s front door remained perfectly accessible.I walked around for half an hour, looking for a place to eat,before the February sun began to feel more uncomfortable than warm. My usual markers weren’t working in Mangalore. I triedto peek into restaurants to see if I could spot groups of locals,but every dining hall was uniformly empty. I pondered the names of the restaurants, trying to figure out whether they sounded generically touristy or specifically Mangalorean, but I got nowhere with that either. Finally, out of a desperate desire for shade, I ducked into a building, descended a flight of fire-escape stairs, and in the basement of the Hotel Dakshin, I ordered my first fish curry in Mangalore. I had come to Mangalore expecting to fall completely in lovewith its fish curry, but I lusted instead, for much of my time there, after another dish, before I rediscovered my original love on the very morning of my departure. I had eaten the signature curry only once before, years ago, and I remember being entranced by its silky gravy, smooth and deep orange and full of flavour—very much the opposite, in fact, of Kerala’s toddy shopmeen curry, which was pungent and overwhelming, and which broke apart into its oil and non-oil layers upon standing for evena few seconds. To my palate, the Mangalore curry was the superior one, and I expected this to be a joyful, glorious reunion.But it didn’t begin well, or perhaps my hopes were set too high. That first curry—turmeric-yellow from a certain angle, red from chilli powder from another—was watery and bland. In the middle of the dish, like an algae-covered rock jutting out of the sea, was a hump of bangda, or mackerel, glinting a silvery green under the light. Mackerel has a famously insistent taste,but this fish was shy and reclusive, as if it would have rather been at home with a good book. I hacked at it from various angles, but it remained dull and uncooperative.A possible reason revealed itself when I was presented with the bill: Rs 10 for the curry, and another Rs 10 for the dosa I hadordered with it. What kind of fish curry—in this day and age, ina restaurant in a prosperous town—cost Rs 10? I feared the answer. I’d read too much about how quickly mackerel spoiled,and about the scombroid food poisoning that followed rapidly,with its retinue of symptoms: dizziness, rashes, nausea, blurred vision. For the first time in my life, I put down a 50 per cent tip, because I had no smaller notes or coins. My mind reeling, and already feeling faintly ill in my imagination, I left the HotelDakshin and walked a dejected kilometre or so. Then, deciding that perhaps another meal would work as some consolation, I entered an eatery called Nihals, sat down, and called weakly for the fish of the day.More bangda curry arrived, with a serving of coarse red rice and a side of curried potato. But now things were looking up.The mackerel tasted fresher, although still not as distinctive as I expected it to be; its bath of gravy was smoother, speckled with mustard seeds and a whisper of ginger, but it still wasn’t as fierce as I wanted it. Recalling Liebling’s thesis of fieldwork opportunities, I ordered a bangda masala fry (garlic and coconut;crisped; skin blistered and peeling off like that of a banana; very good) and ate my way through this second lunch. When the bill came—Rs 42, which included Rs 30 for the fry—I began to understand and feel better about Mangalore’s prices.
Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India from Following Fish: Travels around the Indian Coast
by Samanth Subramanian
Penguin Rs.250
Penguin Books India
is proud to publish
Following Fish
Travels along the Indian Coast
by Samanth Subramanian
‘This is a travel book like no other—inspired in its conception and marvelously skilful in its execution… A stunning debut by a hugely gifted writer’—Ramachandra Guha
In a coastline as long and diverse as India’s, fish inhabit the heart of many worlds — food of course, but also culture, commerce, sport, history and society. Journeying along the edge of the peninsula, Samanth Subramanian reports upon a kaleidoscope of extraordinary stories.
In nine essays, Following Fish conducts rich journalistic investigations: among others, of the famed fish treatment for asthmatics in Hyderabad; of the preparation and the process of eating West Bengal’s prized hilsa; of the ancient art of building fishing boats in Gujarat; of the fiery cuisine and the singular spirit of Kerala’s toddy shops; of the food and the lives of Mumbai’s first peoples; of the history of an old Catholic fishing community in Tamil Nadu; of the hunt for the world’s fastest fish near Goa.
Throughout his travels, Subramanian observes the cosmopolitanism and diverse influences absorbed by India’s coastal societies, the withdrawing of traditional fishermen from their craft, the corresponding growth of fishing as pure and voluminous commerce, and the degradation of waters and beaches from over-fishing.
Pulsating with pleasure, adventure and discovery, and tempered by nostalgia and loss, Following Fish speaks as eloquently to the armchair traveler as to lovers of the sea and its lore.
Penguin Rs. 250
About the author
First by circumstance and subsequently by choice, Samanth Subramanian is a journalist. He studied journalism at Pennsylvania State University and international relations at Columbia University. By preference, he has gravitated towards the long-form, narrative version of journalism—waning today, but still rewarding and revealing to both writers and readers. He has written, among other publications, for Mint, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, The National and The Hindu. This is his first book.
An excerpt from the book, on the author's hunt for the perfect Mangalorean fish curry:
To attempt to write with enthusiasm about food, I have discovered, requires two great qualities: the ability to eat with a Catholic, voluminous appetite, and the ability to eat out alone. The first is a purely physical constraint. A. J. Liebling, the emperor of gourmandizing writers, once pointed out that the average day presented, to the members of his tribe, only two opportunities for really extensive fieldwork: lunch and dinner.‘They are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol,’Liebling wrote. ‘They are indispensable, like a prize fighter’s hours on the road.’ (If his monumental waistline was not proof enough that Liebling practised what he preached, his accounts of his meals are; at one lunch, with a friend, he consumed a whole trout with butter, a Provencal meat stew, and a young, roasted guinea hen, with the appropriate wines and a bottle and a half of champagne. Then, presumably, there was dessert.) But even a weak appetite can be cultivated and expanded, if not to Lieblingian proportions then at least to a point of modest adventurousness. The ability to dine out alone, however, seems to be like the ability to curl your tongue—either you have it or you don’t. Those who don’t, tell me that it is just an insuperable mental block. I once heard of a software engineer, on deputation in the United States, who worked late hours and came back tohis hotel well after room service had ceased room servicing. The coffee shop downstairs was open all night, but so reluctant was our friend to sit in a restaurant by himself and eat a sandwich that he simply skipped dinner. For the entire month.Fortunately, I have always been made of tougher material; nothing would induce me to skip dinner. Often, in fact, when I’ve been travelling, I’ve actually preferred to eat alone, and not only because it enables a silent, more intimate communion withmy food. A restaurant, particularly during a weekday afternoon, is like a finger on the pulse of a town. People come in with distinct agendas, even if the agenda is not to have one. They make business deals, argue over sports and politics, court each other,ignore each other, spend time with family, suffer the company of colleagues, or, like me, sit in a corner by themselves and watch it all over the top of a newspaper. And in the manner of a primitive cultural anthropologist, I lap it up in fascination, convinced that I am seeing the life of the town unfold in front ofme. Maybe I am; or maybe I’m just seeing people eat lunch.The only major disadvantage to eating in solitude, especially in a town that one doesn’t know very well, is figuring out where to eat. Asking in your hotel will only earn you a warm recommendation for the hotel’s own restaurants. Asking the wrong people—and it’s impossible to know who the wrong people are until you’ve eaten in the places they suggest—will lead you to the sort of food they think you want to eat, rather than the food they would themselves eat, which is also the food you really want to eat. On a vacation, of course, the joys of wandering around and of serendipitous discovery are all very well. But it must be most disheartening, for food writers as well as serious gourmands,to come awayfrom a place only to discoverthat they had been sucked in by a succession of tourist-trap restaurants, all the while ignoring the authentic, wholly brilliant eatery just next door to their hotel.This was the position I found myself in on my first afternoon in Mangalore. I had taken an overnight train from Cochin,waking just in time to see the pastels of morning wash over the serene beginnings of the Konkan Coast. The half-light conferred a magic upon otherwise ordinary sights. Sitting next to the window, I gawked at everything that passed by me—deserted sports fields; immaculate little station platforms; ordered brickhouses painted in colours that would have looked garish in the city but that looked merely cheerful here; grove after grove of coconut trees; an occasional stream or backwater. And ever so suddenly, like a flash of benediction, a view of the open sea, separated from my train only by a thin ribbon of land. Mangalore seemed sleepy when I got off the train, and it seemed sleepy when I left my hotel in search of lunch. I was to learn, over the course of my days there, that it was a town that seemed sleepy right through the week, as if just walking itsrolling, undulating streets rocked its residents into drowsiness.Its restaurants displayed such a pleasing lack of business drivethat they seemed almost anachronistic. One restaurant that Is potted, called Hotel Kudla, had used the excuse of on going roadwork in the area to down shutters indefinitely—even though the restaurant’s front door remained perfectly accessible.I walked around for half an hour, looking for a place to eat,before the February sun began to feel more uncomfortable than warm. My usual markers weren’t working in Mangalore. I triedto peek into restaurants to see if I could spot groups of locals,but every dining hall was uniformly empty. I pondered the names of the restaurants, trying to figure out whether they sounded generically touristy or specifically Mangalorean, but I got nowhere with that either. Finally, out of a desperate desire for shade, I ducked into a building, descended a flight of fire-escape stairs, and in the basement of the Hotel Dakshin, I ordered my first fish curry in Mangalore. I had come to Mangalore expecting to fall completely in lovewith its fish curry, but I lusted instead, for much of my time there, after another dish, before I rediscovered my original love on the very morning of my departure. I had eaten the signature curry only once before, years ago, and I remember being entranced by its silky gravy, smooth and deep orange and full of flavour—very much the opposite, in fact, of Kerala’s toddy shopmeen curry, which was pungent and overwhelming, and which broke apart into its oil and non-oil layers upon standing for evena few seconds. To my palate, the Mangalore curry was the superior one, and I expected this to be a joyful, glorious reunion.But it didn’t begin well, or perhaps my hopes were set too high. That first curry—turmeric-yellow from a certain angle, red from chilli powder from another—was watery and bland. In the middle of the dish, like an algae-covered rock jutting out of the sea, was a hump of bangda, or mackerel, glinting a silvery green under the light. Mackerel has a famously insistent taste,but this fish was shy and reclusive, as if it would have rather been at home with a good book. I hacked at it from various angles, but it remained dull and uncooperative.A possible reason revealed itself when I was presented with the bill: Rs 10 for the curry, and another Rs 10 for the dosa I hadordered with it. What kind of fish curry—in this day and age, ina restaurant in a prosperous town—cost Rs 10? I feared the answer. I’d read too much about how quickly mackerel spoiled,and about the scombroid food poisoning that followed rapidly,with its retinue of symptoms: dizziness, rashes, nausea, blurred vision. For the first time in my life, I put down a 50 per cent tip, because I had no smaller notes or coins. My mind reeling, and already feeling faintly ill in my imagination, I left the HotelDakshin and walked a dejected kilometre or so. Then, deciding that perhaps another meal would work as some consolation, I entered an eatery called Nihals, sat down, and called weakly for the fish of the day.More bangda curry arrived, with a serving of coarse red rice and a side of curried potato. But now things were looking up.The mackerel tasted fresher, although still not as distinctive as I expected it to be; its bath of gravy was smoother, speckled with mustard seeds and a whisper of ginger, but it still wasn’t as fierce as I wanted it. Recalling Liebling’s thesis of fieldwork opportunities, I ordered a bangda masala fry (garlic and coconut;crisped; skin blistered and peeling off like that of a banana; very good) and ate my way through this second lunch. When the bill came—Rs 42, which included Rs 30 for the fry—I began to understand and feel better about Mangalore’s prices.
Excerpted with permission from Penguin Books India from Following Fish: Travels around the Indian Coast
by Samanth Subramanian
Penguin Rs.250
Monday, May 31, 2010
Of books,book alleys,bookshops& a bibliophile
Read this very interesting blog post by Soma Ghosh.
Of books,book alleys,bookshops& a bibliophile :
http://author.toiblogs.com/freeze-frame/entry/of-books-bookalleys-bookshops-an
Do read and comment.If you liked what you read please do let Soma know!
Enjoy.
Of books,book alleys,bookshops& a bibliophile :
http://author.toiblogs.com/freeze-frame/entry/of-books-bookalleys-bookshops-an
Do read and comment.If you liked what you read please do let Soma know!
Enjoy.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
My Review: Herogiri
So whats the story about?Its a story of an ordinary man who possesses extraordinary powers.The story revolves around Arnab Bannerjee; a shy 25 year old assistant librarian. He is the typical shy,geeky extremely self-conscious man living in Delhi.His only companions are books and he is happy to have a job which involves handling them! He leads a very unexciting life until one day he gets thrashed during a bank robbery and suddenly gets superhuman powers. At first he himself does not believe it and treats it as a one off but some incidents make him believe that indeed he possesses superpowers.
Arnab uses his powers for the good of mankind and foils criminal activities by eve teasers, highway robbers, corrupt policemen, and dirty politicians.the biggest challenge turns out to be to stop a deadly terrorist attack on Delhi but for him to achieve that he is forced to join hands with a corrupt politician. The dilemma on the extent to which a person can sacrifice on his ideals is highlighted in Arnab’s plight.What follows is anyone's guess!
What's interesting about the book is the Indian take on the superhero genre which is refreshingly different from the usual stories. The book has lots of action and lots of masala for it to be a good racy read but ...
What obviously doesn't work for the book are too many similarities with the original DC Comic heroes and the typical Good vs Evil tug of war!The book sadly ends up being a poor desi version of the original.
The author Mainak Dhar is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad.He has authored seven books and this is his eighth.Mainak currently works with P&G and lives in Bangkok with his wife &son.
Upcoming Events at Crossword
Introducing on our blog list of interesting book events/book launches/author meet.Here are some upcoming events planned at Crossword.Enjoy!
For all those who love cooking and are passionate about food this event is just for you!
Event:
Titles:
Author : Saroj Joshi
Guest:
Publisher:
Date & Time: Friday, 28th May 2010 at 7:00 pm
Venue:
Book Synopsis:
Since the invention of hearths & earthen ovens over 250000 years ago, humans have taken an earnest interest in cooking. Cooking has grown from the simple task of heating raw food to a science & an art form. As the world grows smaller thanks to fast transport and improvements in food storage technology, we can now enjoy the freshest produce from the farthest reaches of the planet in the comfort of our own homes.
Inside this book, you will find vegetarian recipes from all over the world. The recipes cover the ancient land of China, the lush green countryside of Tuscany, Italy, the spice of Mexico & the breadth of India’s rich & varied culinary culture. This book covers old classics & new favourites such as Tacos, Eggplant Parmesan, Manchurian, Undhiyu, Goan Curry and Healthy drinks.
The aim is to allow both the seasoned cooks and new students, whether in a fully stocked Indian kitchen or an American kitchen, to enjoy the rich flavours from all over via easy to follow, tried and tested recipes.
About the author:
Saroj Joshi is a multi-talented cookbook author & jeweler. She started experimenting in the kitchen at her home in Bombay in the early seventies. Over the years, her international travels afforded her the opportunity to sample diverse cuisines.
She first ventured into the professional arena by conducting cooking classes at her Warden Road home, which resulted in exceptional success. Stories of her skills & finesse spread, garnering invitations for cooking demonstrations at various clubs & organizations.
She published her first cookbook, ‘Palak Preparations’ in 1999. The book listed nearly 40 recipes made from Palak (Spinach). Her recipes ranged from Italian to Chinese & of course Indian. The summer of 2004 saw the launch of her second book ‘Amar Swad’ (everlasting taste).
In 2004, Saroj Joshi received the ‘Woman of the Year’ award from the Mulund Brahmin Mahila Samaj in Mumbai. She was honoured for setting an inspiring example for women all over by forging a successful career in two fields simultaneously. In the same year she received an ‘Outstanding Career Achievement Award’ from the Brahmin Society of New York, USA.
A Book Launch Event
Event:
Titles:
Author : Indira Chowdhury & Ananya Dasgupta
Publisher:
Date & Time: Wednesday, 2nd June 2010 at 7:00 pm
Venue:
Book Synopsis:
Scientist, citizen, artist—the Renaissance man of India
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, one of India’s outstanding scientists, shouldered the beginnings of India’s nuclear programme. He was the first chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, and the builder of two of India’s
most significant scientific institutions—the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Atomic Energy Establishment, renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 1966.
A Masterful Spirit presents the life and achievements of the man through previously unpublished letters, and photographs and paintings, and the recollections of his family, friends, colleagues and students. Designed to convey the flavour of Bhabha’s life and times, this book tells the inspiring story of a man whom Sir C.V. Raman described as ‘the modern equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci’. It acquaints us with the many facets of Bhabha’s personality: physicist, institution-builder, concerned citizen, artist, connoisseur of the arts, designer of gardens and, above all, a charismatic and compassionate human being.
About the authors:
Indira Chowdhury’s book The Frail Hero and Virile History was awarded the Tagore Prize in 2001. She is responsible for setting up the Archives of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
Ananya Dasgupta is Consultant Editor to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Archives, and is also responsible for the TIFR Oral History Project
This event is for all our Bangalore readers!
Event:
Titles:
Author :
Publisher:
Date & Time: Saturday, 29th May 2010 at 6:00 pm
Venue:
Dramatization by Children on an excerpt from the book.
About the Book:
What would you do if a bird with golden wings alighted on your terrace and offered you fabulous riches?
A poor little girl is rewarded with lovely gifts when she takes pity on a hungry bird and feeds it all the rice she has, but what happens when the girl’s greedy, nosy neighbour hears the story and tries to get bigger and better gifts for herself? Why did the once sweet sea water turn salty? How did it happen that the learned teacher forgot all his lessons and had to be helped out by the school cook? And what did the king do so that the people of his kingdom did not come to know that he has horrible donkey ears hidden under his turban?
Sudha Murty’s new, enchanting collection of stories bubbles over with fun. Delightful colour illustrations bring to life tales of magical creatures, princesses and kings, ordinary witty men and women in a book that will bring hours of joy to readers young and old.
About the Author:
Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon in north Karnataka. She did her MTech in computer science, and is now the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, she has written nine novels, four technical books, three travelogues, one collection of short stories, three collections of non-fiction pieces and two books for children.
Her books have been translated into all the major Indian languages and have sold over three lakh copies around the country. She was the recipient of the R.K. Narayan’s Award for Literature and the Padma Shri in 2006.
This event is a must for all Dork lovers!!
Event:
Titles:
Author :
Guest:
Publisher:
Date & Time: Saturday, 5th June 2010 at 7:00 pm
Venue:
About the Book:
In April 2006 Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese, a stupendously naïve but academically gifted young man (he was ranked 41st in his class), graduates from one of India's best business schools with a Day-Zero job at the Mumbai office of Dufresne Partners, a mediocre mid-market management consulting firm largely run by complete morons.
Varghese finds that he fits into the culture remarkably well.
Or does he?
Through a stunning series of blunders, mishaps and inadvertent errors, Robin begins to make his superiors rue the day they were driven by desperation into hiring him. To make matters worse, Robin realises that his mad, passionate, steamy one-sided relationship with B-school batchmate Gouri Kalbag might be over before it even started. With things going spectacularly wrong, will he manage to achieve his short-term goal of being promoted to Associate in under a year, and beat the record set by Boris Nguyen at Dufresne’s Vietnam office? Will love conquer all? Will Gouri walk with him through Dadar Department Stores with her hand in the rear pocket of his jeans?
Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese is the hilarious story of Robin Varghese, super-dork and unlikely corporate hero, for all of those who've ever sat depressed in cubicles…and wanted to kill themselves with office stationery. Especially that letter opener thing.
Join Robin as he navigates his first insane year at Dufresne Partners in this first volume of the Dork trilogy.
About the Author:
Sidin Vadukut is a journalist, columnist and blogger. He has an engineering degree from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. In a career spanning around a decade he has made automotive parts, developed online trading platforms, almost set up a retailing company and had a sizeable portion of a tree fall on his head. He is currently an editor with the business newspaper Mint.
Sidin lives in New Delhi with his wife, two PlayStations, four laptops and a desktop computer. He blogs at http://www.whatay.com.
Ten Truly Unique Bookstores in America
Anna Miller who is the author of this interesting blog link wanted to share it on our blog too for the readers.
Thanks Anna for sharing the link and dear readers enjoy reading about the unique bookstores in America.
Happy Reading!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
My Review:In Other Rooms,Other Wonders
In the last couple of years we have had many Pakistani authors who have made an impressive debut and have been lapped up by Indian readers with gusto!What makes them so interesting?I believe besides good writing its also a curiosity value with the Indians...We want to know the lives people live there,how different is it from ours. So as it comes from a Pakistani writer I had to read it!
A bit about the author :Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore,Pakistan and Elroy,Wisconsin.His stories have appeared in The New Yorker,Granta,Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2008 selected by Salman Rushdie.He has practiced law in New York for a number of years but now lives on a farm in Pakistan's southern Punjab.
In Other Rooms,Other Wonders is a collection of eight short stories. These stories are linked to the household of a wealthy landowner named K.K. Harouni. All the stories reveal the complexities of Pakistan's class and culture.The difference between the rich and the poor.A look at the haves and have not.Mueenuddin has managed through these short stories to portray this divide.It almost reminds you of the similarities of the rich thakurs and landowners in India.
The epigraph to In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a Punjabi proverb: "Three things for which we kill -- Land, women and gold." and every story goes on to prove just that! Its the survival of the fittest. Everyone in the book is more or less corrupt. It is the huge class difference that leads the servants,drivers and people working for Harouni to cheat on him and thus leading to disastrous and unhappy endings.The unhappy endings are a result of their increasing lust for more power and wealth. Whether it is the slimy accountant who while being efficient is also thieving from his boss or Husna who comes with a purpose and is left with nothing after Harouni's death.Happiness is very short-lived as every story has a desolate and harsh end.
While the book is a very well written debut effort and definitely marks another impressive innings by an author from Pakistan it may fail to click with the readers.What goes against the book is the unhappiness,the bitterness,the selfishness of the characters.The book shows the wretchedness of their existence!While it does hold the mirror to the actual realities that exist, but in life, truth is a bitter pill to swallow.
I enjoyed reading the book and looking forward to more titles in the future from Daniyal Mueenuddin.
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