'Criti....que not Criti....cize'

The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan My rating: 5 of 5 stars 'Arjumand did not know that Khurram would build the Taj Mahal in her memory. Or that the Taj would come to symbolize this land her grandfather had adopted as his own. Or that as much as she had envied that feast of roses Emperor Jahangir had laid out for her aunt, posterity would remember her , Empress for four short years, two, three, even five hundred years from now.' The above lines say so much about 'The Feast of Roses' that couldn't have been described better. It is the tale of the twentieth wife of Jehangir, the Moghul king of India. It traces her journey from her wedding, her turmoils, her various strengths to her minor faults that were only humane and unavoidable under the circumstances she was in. The Feast of Roses is the second installment of the Taj Mahal Trilogy , second to The Twentieth Wife and followed by The Shadow Princess. This was after long that I read a masterp...

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” ― Cormac McCarthy , No Country for Old Men Luck is a term that is often misconceived. Often as we venture out on this journey of life, we get to know that luck is indeed a very debatable term. Good luck, bad luck and ‘I-don’t-know-why- luck -doesn’t-favour-me’ luck, it’s all a part and parcel of life. Just like we all have our good and bad hair days, we encounter those moments when we start appreciating what is often called sheer luck. Maarten De Jonge, a cyclist, evaded death on both of the flights after booking tickets for MH370 and MH17. His last minute change in plan has kept him alive to tell the story today. How else can this man’s life story be interpreted as? Death was a silent spectator, trying to encompass him in its grip but here he was, thanking his stars for being in his favour. Call it God’s magic wand (if someone or something like that exists) or call it just a co-incidence, life can th...