The old coffee reader Kasha from Srinagar - 'Fight your destiny, build hope and Make it happen,' because you don't know which forces of the universe are conspiring against you. But which force is controlling us?
The confluence of Bible and Vedas and their tryst Quantum Physics is in Kashmir thanks to Cricket!
Sounded weird....
Read ahead to go crazy...
Espionage thrillers
and Indian authors are a weird combination, and this thought has been embedded
in my mind for years now. Being a voracious reader and a big time fan of spy
and suspense thrillers, I can confidently say Espionage thrillers by Indian
authors have strongly disappointed me over the years and thus my mind set. But
what if I tell you, I am ready to let go of this belief finally? Readers like
me would find this to be a joke, but brace yourself because Baramulla Bomber is
here to change our beliefs.
The book Baramulla
Bomber by Clark Prasad was sent to me by Readers Cosmos and I can’t thank them
enough for sending this amazing book to me(not to forget, all gift wrapped)! Anyways the book impressed me in the first
look itself. I have to say its cover design is awesome, but like it is said
never judge the book by its cover, I dived straight into the story. The story
begins with the ill fated meeting of an royal decendants’ group called Chos Skyong. There is a blast while the meeting is on and most of the group members
are killed. But in the survivers is a man named Abhimanyu Kashyap who cheats
death with his determination to preserve the secret. But what secret?
Soon this inciedent
gets tied up with Mansur Haider who is nothing but an aspiring cricketer from
Kashmir. But as the story moves we know Mansur is being tracked by intelligence
agencies around the world. Adolf Silfverskiold, a swedish intelligent officer
turn out to be tracking Mansur and a mysterious earthquake that happened in the
Shaksgam Valley. Also Shaksgam valley inciedent is being investigated by Mansur’s
girlfriend Aahana who lost her mountaineering team there. The readers realize
the small hole drilled by the bombing is nothing but a stepwell with steps
going from anywhere to everywhere, storylines joined to form a huge web of
danger.
Pros:
1.The book is fast paced and keeps on
the edge of your seat till the very end.
2. Character sketches are perfect to the ‘T’ and
every character is well used.
3.The story explores intelligence agencies
other than the much explored CIA, and yet does complete justice to it.
4.The integration of quantum physics,
history and modern world spies is the whole and sole of the book, and
personally I loved it.
5.The looming secret of Shaksgam
valley and the much talked about weapon, as I am not allowed to give spoilers(though I am dying to) is too
engrossing.
Cons:
1.Too much to digest and too much used
– movies, cricket ,physics, Kashmir, Sweden, India, politics and so much more. It
just felt a bit cramped.
2.Editing could have been crisp.
Dialogues didn’t seem powerful or memorable.
The author explores a
lot in a very short time, or so it seems as the book is super racey. He also
does full justice to all the characters of the story as they are given ample
time to evolve and the story is thoruoghly entertaining and engrossing. I would
give the book a 4 on 5 rating and am desperately waiting for the next books. I
hope the editing of the other two books is better but at the same time don’t want
them to turn out to be a disappointment like the 3rd book of Shiva
Trilogy. Best of luck to the Author, may you succeed in giving us awesome
stories always..:D
P.S. "This book review is a part of The ReadersCosmos Book Review Program. To get free books log on to thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com"
No, I am no Scheherazade
of the Arabian Nights, I tell Rani, when she agrees to listen to my stories.And I am no depraved
king, she says ...
Pittho's World is the
magical domain of storytelling, of Sheikhu and his lover Rani, of parents, Big
Brother, uncles, aunts and grandparents. And of course, Aunt Pittho, she of the
big hips, wielding magic and a stick. The stories originate in Iran, move
through Afghanistan to Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, before returning to rest
in Pakistan. Spanning two centuries and several generations, these are tales of
love and happiness, tragedy and malice, black magic and manslaughter, linked
together by two peoples love for storytelling, and for each other.
Published posthumously,
this delightful work of fiction by one of Pakistans best-known journalists
transports us to places and times long lost to humanity. They are stories of
life, but also of death which waits at the end, leaving in its wake a loneliness
that lingers.
Review:
It is said never judge a
book by its cover. I never really took this saying seriously until I came
across the book “Pittho’s World” by Murtaza Razvi. Everything that contributes
in the appearance of this book, from the cover to the blurb is kind of an
illusion as the actual content of the book is far from what the blurb promises
it to be. When I came across this book and read the blurb, the very mention of
Arabian Nights and Magic compelled me to pick it up. I expected a lot of short
stories with interesting Arabic background and some magical influence if not
really magic, but was disappointed. The book is a collection of stories from
the personal life of Sheikhu, the protagonist of the book. He narrates a series
of tales from his family’s origin in Iran to their present life in Pakistan, to
his girlfriend and reluctant listener Rani. The narration is dry and bland.
Moreover Pittho’s character just turns out to be a fragment of Sheikhu’s life and
doesn’t fit in as the centralized theme of the book making the very title an
illusion as well.
Pittho’s world suffers
right from the start with the character sketching of uninteresting orthodox
elders who tend to see the wrong in everything. As the story moves ahead it
gets even drier as the narration of every character follows the same tone and
lacks in imagination or innovation. Sheikhu makes an attempt to make Rani aware
of how she is related to him through a number of stories with strong themes of
life and death, but the dots really fail to paint a perfectly clear picture. Every
story runs in an intermittent manner and thus the book loses its points in the
department of ‘flow’. The lead characters Sheikhu and Rani also remain bound to their
roles of narrator and listener, respectively, till the very end with occasional
riposte from Rani; but unfortunately that is the maximum of character traits
Razvi managed to exploit.
Pros
Characters
from Sheikhu’s family – Even though I didn’t really like a lot of people of his dysfunctional
family I found the character names kind of funny and interesting. The best part
was none of the names were ever mentioned in the book. Their name was really their
relation to Sheikhu or one of their prominent character traits. Also, the
characters sketches were perfect to the T; you could understand each of them
from the description given. So a gold star there to the author.
Cons
Lack
of imagination or good plot.
Dry
narration and weak protagonists.
Slow
and episodic stories strained the flow of the novel.
Sheikhu
and Rani are supposed to be lovers of storytelling, but the storytelling is
flawed big time.
Too
many orthodox, kind of negative and non acceptable views in the very start of the book.
The
novel tries way too hard to find something magical in “Life” and fails.
Overall it was just a
onetime read for me and demanded a lot of patience to finish it. Maybe the
blurb built a lot of expectations for me and the book failed to click any of
them. I would rate it a 1 out of 5 star book. Apart from people who enjoyed
Razvi’s storytelling in Musharraf earlier or curious to explore new writers
this book will not have many takers. P.S. - This book was given to
me for review by Indiblogger and Harper Collins and this
is my personal unbiased review.
People say love makes
everything seem wonderful; if it had been a thought twelve hours earlier I
would just have laughed it off. But now so much has changed. Sitting on my
front porch now, at dawn, listening to chirping of the early birds waiting for
the sun to spread its sparkling wings on the world, nothing was unusual but it
was all surreal for me today. I couldn’t stop beaming while reminiscing about the
events of the last day, all the while twirling a precious ring in my fingers. In
the freckles of the light that shimmered on the shiny surface on the metal I
saw the glimpses of my platinum day of love.
“Nidhi let us go for
the reunion, someone definitely wants to meet you today, can’t you see?” Vrinda
chided me. Someone had just sent me flowers with a weird note on it and asked
me to come to the Reunion of our school. I had a fairly clear idea who this
someone might be because the note had a poem with no head or tail; a poem just
like the ones that made every day beautiful for me eight years back; a poem
just like the ones Rishi wrote for me.
Crimson petals with
freshness undefined
But nothing beats your
shy yet radiant smile
A heart beats fast in
some corner of the town
Waiting to see you
again now, after eight summers and falls.
The poem still made me
smile but now, after eight years of drifting apart form each other, it made tears
brim in my eyes and I was scared Vrinda would notice it soon. So I simply
agreed and rushed into my room with an uninterested “whatever.” I read the
lines on the note again and again and found it really amussing how his sense of
poetry and rhyming was still as bad as ever. Back then his poems were always
compared to Roshesh Sarabhai’s poems by all our friends. Roshesh was a
character of a very famous comedy show that aired on TV back then and so Rishi took pride
in the sarcasm also, but now even after so many years guess he is still in awe
of that show.
Rishi had a peculiar
habit of dropping clues to me in his poems and I was sure there was nothing
different in this one. I read the lines a couple times more just to realize the
‘crimson petals’ was actually a reference to the dress he wants me to wear. But
why should I? We had not talked in two years and had not seen each other since
four years after we decided to break up. Our break up was not messy but instead
was sad for both of us. He was going to UK for MBA and both of us being scared
of long distance relationship just decided to call it quits. But I never really
got over him and today gave me some hope that he too was sailing on the same
boat. And just for the hope I decided to wear a red saree with black lace
border, little did I know that would be the topic Vrinda would latch on to for
the next two hours.
In the party I kept
looking all around for Rishi with a perennial background story of the flowers
and the poem that Vrinda recited to every friend we met. People began admiring
the tinsel and blue decoration, the amazing food and discussed their life after
school while my eyes were lost in the search of Rishi, who was still nowhere to
be seen. I lost track of how many times I had to ask “What” to people to repeat
what they were saying as I kept phasing out and loosing hope slowly. Maybe
someone had just played a prank on me and I had fallen for it; fallen bad. And
so when Vrinda and my other friends asked me to pay a visit to our 12th
std. classroom I decided to tag along. Our class had changed so much. The
boring black board was replaced with a less boring green one, the windows had
cream curtains the walls were hidden behind bulletin boards screaming the
importance of 12th grade. Benches had changed too, but all had
scribbles and sketches on them. I totally forgot about the people who were with
me and went for the last bench of the row near the windows. That is where Rishi
and I sat in our final year and Rishi always scribbled some weird poem on the
bench. Our bench must have looked like Wordsworth’s rough note book back then
for sure. But now the bench had a lot of sketches and just one poem!
Ravishing red, and the
peachy blush
My wait could not be
satiated with anything more
The twinkle in your
eyes searching what is already yours
But let the library
first earn, its freedom from boredom.
He is waiting for me
in the library! I hear Vrinda scream my name as I run towards the library
without informing them anything. But he was there, and I had so much to tell
him ever more so much to be angry about and scream at him for. But right now I
just wanted to see him once. I went to the library but there was no one there.
I stood there in the dull yellow lighting, searching every corner of the room
I could see, but he was nowhere. But then my eyes fell on the thoughts board
and there were four more lines on it.
The freaky jitters of
the first kiss
And the hunt for a
place for solitary bliss
For you and I search
every turn and dome
Till we were found
that quiet and windy home.
I knew the place! How
could I ever forget that place where we shared our first kiss? The small green
room on the terrace that we usually used for annual day practices. I reached
there to find the whole room decorated with lanterns and a small table with a
white ring box on it. I was sure by now it was Rishi but I still couldn’t see
him anywhere. I went ahead and opened the box only to find a folded paper in
it. I unfolded the paper in a hurry and read what he had penned.
What you see is far
from an illusion
But your wait for some
hours is like my waits compensation
A glittery future
awaits you right now
If your anger is
quenched, meet me down
After all this he
wanted to meet me in the party hall, how irritating! Was my anger gone, I
really didn’t know but what I knew for sure was I could wait no longer to meet
him now. I rushed downstairs and saw the whole crowd facing the entrance. “Just
the way you are” was being played in the background and there near the DJ
station he was standing, smiling nervously as if afraid of me but still his
eyes clearly conveyed that he had been waiting for me. I literally ran towards
him as if Dil wale dulaniyan lejaenge’s spirit had entered me, and didn’t really
know why. But all I could see was him and him waiting for me. But I stopped
right in front of him and he chuckled.
“And I knew this would
happen”, he said. He didn’t even get me a chance to respond but kneeled and
pulled out a ring.
“Naïve in your love I
surrender myself
And ask you to accept
it if you agree yourself
The ring aint a bribe
for you to yes
But eight years of
unconditional love is the reason, I guess
I tried over and over
to forget and move on
But my heart stayed
with you even when I was gone
And something kept
saying you waited for me too
So here is my weird
poem with which I woo you
Tears welled up in my
eyes and I stared at him with a blank face. I was rendered speechless by his
words, not to mention his best poem so far. But what mattered was he had waited
for me and loved me all this while. He was still mine and I was his when we
were not together. But my thoughts were interrupted by his sudden words.
“Now would be the time
to say yes or no. Plus if you want to say no just look at the ring, it is
platinum”, Rishi said.
I couldn’t help but
smile, “So you are bribing me with the precious white metal chunk.”
“The precious white
metal cannot be a chunk or anything. It is a ring of platinum cause it is very
precious and nothing better could suit you as you are the most precious person
to me right now. It glitters just like your eyes and would not wither away so
will remind you of this day forever, well only if you say yes. Also…”
As amused as I was at
the fact that it was still so easy to distract him from a topic I decide to shut
him with a kiss, because I had waited too long for this moment. I didn’t care a
bit about the people who were staring at us. I just wanted to hold on to this moment
forever.
“So it is Yes?” He
asked nervously.
“If you put the ring
on my finger right away, it is a YES!” I giggled.
And without wasting a
second he slipped the ring on my finger and my reunion just turned out to be my
engagement day.
“What if I was still
angry and had said no?” I asked him.
“Even if you were
angry you would not say no I knew, cause somewhere I was sure you still loved
me and wouldn’t want me to be embarrassed infront of so many people” he joked
with a straight face and I could see the sincerity in his eyes.
“A bit over the top but,
right?” I asked Rishi.
“I told him about your
liking for movies like 27 dresses and When in Rome!” Vrinda screamed from
behind. And Rishi was sporting his cute dreamy “Guilty as charged" smile. I
realized Vrinda was a part of this whole plan and she was
the one who had told Rishi about me still waiting for him. Love! It is an
amazing thing for sure, just a bit impish sometimes. The ring would always
remind me of this day, of my Platinum day of Love.
However, one column in Reader's Digest continued to depress me for quite some time. Even with liberal self marking, I could never get more than five correct answers out of the fifteen posers in 'Word Power.' I persisted and my scores improved, slowly and steadily, as did my determination to get a perfect 15/15 sooner rather than later.
Learning a language is always difficult. I always found Hindi to be
the toughest language, during my school days. My notebooks were decorated with
red marks more than the blue ink scribbles but for vernacular students English is
a similar kind of nightmare. But when we proudly declare ourselves well versed
with English, do we really know everything in English? If so why we whack our
brains and drill holes in our grey cells during entrance exams to store a few
more words and their meanings in it? MBA, GMAT, GRE flash cards are like demons
for us during entrances. Oh! Foolish us to think we are great in English. These
were my thoughts after I read the Blurb of “English Bites” by Manish Gupta.
English Bites – My Fullproof English Learning Formula is indeed a foolproof
formula as it makes learning words total fun. I still remember when I was small
my dad used to ask me to learn 10 words from dictionary or newspapers and
report to him in the evening. In school we used to hate the English lecture
when we had a vocabulary lesson because it used to be the driest 45 minutes of
the day. If only we had a book like this back then. The book is the story of
the author who also was from vernacular medium and fought a long exhaustive war
with English to finally conquer it. The journey is scribed in the book with
pinch of humor, satire, a bit of emotions, all on a strong base of reality and
is adorned with apt comic sketches and a lot of amusing trivia.
The book successfully erases the trite methods of learning
languages and sets a new and a trend through this book, reason? The book not
only a compendium of lot of words, it gives you the meaning of all the words
then and there, at times with their origin as well. So you could let your
dictionary rest and just enjoy the book without any distraction. And if the reader
is like me nothing could be better as I am super lazy while reading a book. I
would rather re read the line two three times and figure out some meaning than
check the correct meaning by travelling some meters, picking up a dirtied by age
old dust Dictionary and hunting for the word in the yellowed pages. The book
sounds amazing now right?
Pro:
Humorous and prompt narration makes the book a very enjoyable read.
The way the words are interspersed throughout the book helps in
keeping the interest of the reader in the story and the words equally.
The trivia provided is an added advantage of the book and makes the
book very informative at the same time.
The story is straight out of the author’s life pages and hence is
easy to relate to.
The illustrations are apt and fun.
Cons:
Just one the start was a bit slow and not as gripping as the rest
of the book. Till page 50 I guess.
I thoroughly loved the book and I am not lying when I say this I am
going to remember a lot of words by relating them to instances from this book.
People who have read this book would know why the word
bedraggled would always make me smile and why arachibutyrophobia is also going
to make me check if my bread has peanut butter sandwich on it.
On the whole I
loved the book and if I clear my GMAT or CAT next year Manish Gupta you are going
to get a big chunk in my credit speech. It is an easy 4 on 5 book and a must
read! And higher education aspirants you know which book is a must in your
closet now! This is a book you don’t want to finish in one go but a chapter a
day and English will be your best friend. Every Bit worth its cost - a total
worth it book.
“Ignorance,
my son. A blessing in a woman, a fault in a man. And a fatal flaw in a King.”All of Tryst’s
carefully marshaled arguments faded. Like it or not, he was going on the
epourney.
I will read
it today!
Hell, I have
so much work; I will surely read it tomorrow!
It has been
a week!!! I am starting sure today.
And that
today didn’t come for four more weeks. But when it finally came I skipped my
lunch hour cause I didn’t want to leave the story unfinished. Not that I had to
finish it, but I was scared that if I leave the book now and for some reason I can’t
resume reading it soon it would drive me crazy. That was the power of “The Birr
Elixir” by Jo Sparkes. A fellow blogger had posted information about this book
and after I read it I just needed the book. Thank you so much Jo for letting me
review the book.
The Book
begins with the Skullan Prince Tryst and his meeting with his father. He sets
off on a journey to explore his lands and connect and understand his people. Around
the same time a young girl named Marra is made to work in a small herb shop by
the evil brother of her now deceased Mistress. She was the only apprentice her
Mistress ever accepted and before she died she gave Marra her book of portions –
A book she specifically asked Marra to keep away from her brother Stark.
Marra’s
world transforms totally when Drail the Leader of the Hand of Victory asks her
to brew a powerful portion to help them win a game called COMET and Marra brews
the Birr’s Elixir. When Drail and his team achieve the unfathomable feat of
defeating Skullans he decides to take Marra as his Brista. But when he comes to
take Marra with him to the faraway lands they find an unconscious man in the
shop and Drail decides to take the man along with them. The sleeping man is under
an unnatural sleep spell that Marra manages to break with her skills during the
journey. But who is this man? What is Marra going to do as she was just an
apprentice and not a portions Mistress but now is Drail’s Brista? What will the
journey change in Marra’s life, a girl who had never left her desert town. And who
is this unconscious man?
The book is
a total roller coaster ride of the world Jo has created. Also the mystery of
Tryst and the fox boot person looms over the entire story. The narrative pulls
you totally into the world of Marra and the description of the Comet game is
very vivid. The fast pace of the book keeps you hooked till the very end and as
this book is the first book of the series it leaves you yearning for more and
leaves a lot of questions unanswered for the readers to torment their grey
cells. The book covers everything from magic to adventure to drama. And the
story of the characters is strong and not just happy or sad.
Pros:
The book is
very fast paced and involving and Jo’s strong narrative keeps you totally
engrossed in the book.
The description
of the game Comet is just amazing and our imaginary horses can actually sketch the
whole scenario while reading.
The Characters
are strong and very well used. I particularly loved the character of Drail and
Stark.
The way the
plot thickens is very intriguing. Literally, loved every bit of it.
Cons:
The description
of the areas they were travelling to could have been more. That would have made
the land more authentic and readers could connect well.
The resemblances
– Comet with Quidditch, Continents and lands with Game of thrones – Westeros.
Though not the fault of the Author, avid fantasy readers would directly make
the connection and may find that to be a negative point about the book.
Overall it
is an amazing book, a four out of five. Light, fast paced, easy to
follow fantasy. An enjoyable read for both the young and the old fantasy
readers. And as far as I am concerned, the only thought I have right now is “When
is the next book coming?”
