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

Resemblance - The Journey of a Doppelganger by Arti Honrao My rating: 2 of 5 stars The story kept hinting of having some connection with Mumbai, India. Even though there isn't a mention of it, some part of me was adamant that this had to do something with Mumbai. When I turned to the last page and read about the author, Arti Honrao, I said- 'Bingo!!'. So she is a Mumbaikar afterall. Maybe it was just intuition or plain co-incidence that a Mumbaikar recognized another by her written work but then the story itself manages to create a framework through things like- a 'connect' between a mother and child, a future prediction specialist, a grand plan, destiny and the like. The book traces the journey of Sneha from falling in love (at first sight), becoming her love interest's wife's doppelganger and ultimately freeing herself from that in a way she would never have imagined as possible.One usually tends to fall in love with the one reflected in th...

Flight Of The Hilsa by Amit Shankar My rating: 3 of 5 stars First of all I would like to congratulate Sanya Shankar for such a bright and creative cover design with a bookmark that complements it well. It works wonders when giving the reader a fair idea about Avantika Sengupta, the artist whose story is traced in this book. It sets tone to the events that unfold step by step. The author has managed to aptly show both sides of success, fame, money and power. It also describes the bond of friendship in a seemingly spiritual, genuine way. The matured writing only reflects the fact that Amit has tapped well into the world of advertising when he dabbled in that field. It has given him a plethora of 'gyaan' that he manages to infuse in each of his books. Having been a student of advertising myself, I always manage to find the source of that 'gyaan' in the unlikeliest bit and smile thinking about what certain professions can do to us! The tale manages to sta...

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...

Trust: Pandora's Box by Cristiane Serruya My rating: 4 of 5 stars 'The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.' This line refuses to leave my mind. the last page has been turned and the tear drops have been shed. I sit thinking about the joy and sorrow of the very lives led by the characters of the book. Suddenly there was a void. Sophia, Alistair, Gabriela, Nathalie, Ethan... it felt as if I was going to leave them all in the confines of the book. That's when I remembered Cristiane Serruya's words-"It was as if when I finished their stories I had set them free. They are not mine anymore, they belong to the world and I can still be with them whenever I want." Read more about the interview here .  The demons from within each one of them were finally released, but at what cost? Love, as they say it, is all-sacrificing and all-consuming. Or is it? Love can be an obsession that can endanger one's life. Heat, passion a...

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards My rating: 4 of 5 stars Pictures are all that we have of fleeting seconds that are captured for a long, long time yet a photograph is not enough... It is life that is even more beautiful- life in motion ! An amazingly written story with precisely clear detailing, the author stunned me with her deftness with the use of words. The 'Memory Keeper's' Daughter is but an apt title because the entire story revels in the beauty of photographs- painstakingly captured and then developed in a dark room by a man who found peace in that very room alone. Or was it that in that room alone did he find the remnants of a moment that occurred in the past? He so wanted to capture a bigger moment, perhaps to make amends or maybe just to overwrite the tale his destiny seemed to have had written. The 'Memory Keeper' could unfortunately not click pictures of the most priced possession. The melancholy that refuses to leave...

Wow! The tickets were finally booked and this time it was not to Kerala (my native-place) first. Phew! This would be an adventure of sorts. So my blackmailing had worked. Or so I can say. Did you ask me the trick? Well, I just told that if we were going to board the same train to see the same coconut trees then I would rather bear the Mumbai heat (it's another story that I love to enjoy the sight of the coconut trees and the gold mannequins- the latter was a bit over-the-top but nevertheless almost true!).Take a look at the 'mangalsutras' of Keralite women and you would know what I mean when I say GOLD. So I was busy asking anyone and everyone who had been to Chennai about the weather, places to visit, specialties and the like. The one common thing that I got to hear was - "Are you crazy? Why would any sane person go to Chennai in May, out of all months?" I said, "The tickets have already been booked and we have no intention of cancelling it. Moreover I...