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

Women Warriors in Indian History by Yugal Joshi My rating: 3 of 5 stars Historically sound, yet refuses to be a page-turner ( https://www.freepressjournal.in/book-reviews/women-warriors-in-indian-history-yugal-joshi ) Name of the book: Women Warriors in Indian History Name of the Author: Yugal Joshi Publisher: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd ISBN: 978-81-291-4522-2 Price: Rs 195 Pages: 177 As soon as I closed the book after reading Rani Lakshmi Bai’s story (also the last one in the book), I looked around. I was in a ladies’ compartment of a Mumbai Local, on my way back home at a little over 9.45 pm. All around, I could see women – some engrossed in their mobile phones, some having dinner, some looking out of the windows, some laughing with their friends and yet some others worried about being late than usual to get back home. I wondered how these women managed to get there and that too at an hour when women were expected to be at home with cooked mea...

Why Won't You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts   by Harriet Lerner My rating: 4 of 5 stars Art of apologizing done right Name of the book: Why won’t you apologize? Name of the author: Harriet Lerner Genre: Self help/ Psychology Publisher: Duckworth Overlook Pages: 195 Price: Rs.499 Also available as an e-book Apologising is an art. If done right, it can lead to a peaceful life. If otherwise, it can lead to a lifetime of uncomfortable silences with those who once were an important part of life. In a fast-paced life, when people are involved in a cutthroat rat race, seldom do they slow down or pause to apologize to those who may have been hurt by them, intentionally or otherwise. “Apologise? Why should I?” is a fairly common question. Why is apologizing so difficult? And, finally when one does manage to come up with an apology, what does the other party do? It dismisses the apology altogether without sparing a thought for...

The Peacock Feather by Sudhir Kapoor My rating: 3 of 5 stars http://www.freepressjournal.in/book-r... Name of the book: The Peacock Feather Authors: Sunil Kapoor and Sudhir Kapoor Publisher: Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017 ISBN 978-81-291-4459-1 Genre: Fiction Also available as an e-book Price: Rs. 395 Pages: 195 This review can also be read at https://www.freepressjournal.in/book-reviews/the-peacock-feather-by-sunil-kapoor-sudhir-kapoor “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” ― Gilda Radner Delicious ambiguity is what this book is about – a slice of life itself. With ten vivid short stories to grip the reader from the very first page, ‘The Peacock Feather’ h...

Perhaps Tomorrow by Pooranam Elayathamby and Richard Anderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Name of the book: Perhaps Tomorrow – The Memoir of a Sri Lankan Housemaid in the Middle East Name of Author: Pooranam Elayathamby with Richard Anderson Publisher: First published by Wheatmark,USA 2014; IN India in paperback by Speaking Tiger 2017 ISBN: 978-81-933141-6-6 Genre: Non-fiction/ Memoir Price: Rs 299 Pages: 244 Imagine carrying a thirty-kilo sack of rice on your back, even before puberty struck, and carrying it door-to-door to sell it. Add to it the scorching summer and a barefooted you; and adding further salt to the wound, your former classmates are off to school to do what you have always loved to do—study—while you slog knowing that there is no other option if you want your family of a widowed mother and five sisters to survive. This was just a part of Sandy’s (born Pooranam Elayathamby) routine in her early years in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. ...

Jump: Take the Leap of Faith to Achieve Your Life of Abundance by Steve Harvey My rating: 3 of 5 stars Name of the book: Jump Author: Steve Harvey with Leah Lakins Publisher: Amistad – An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers ISBN 978-0-06-222035-6; e-book available Price: USA $25.99/ Canada 431.99 Number of pages: 196 ‘Take the leap of faith to achieve your life of abundance’ is written on the book’s jacket. Steve stands in his signature suit with his bald head, flashing one of his widest smiles. ‘Jump’ – the text is not screaming at the reader but there is something that makes the reader want to flip the pages. As I was in the process of reading it, a family friend visited. On seeing the book, she asked me, “Isn’t he the same guy who goofed up on stage while announcing the name of the Miss Universe, sometime back?” It was then that it struck me too. I had totally forgotten that incident. I then started reading the book with renewed interest, won...

Gurus: Stories of India's Leading Babas by Bhavdeep Kang My rating: 4 of 5 stars Find the review here too : https://www.freepressjournal.in/book-reviews/gurus-stories-of-indias-leading-babas-by-bhavdeep-kang Name of the book: Gurus – Stories of India’s Leading Babas Name of the author: Bhavdeep Kang Publisher: Westland Limited Genre: Non-Fiction Price: Rs. 295 Number of pages: 240 Also available as an ebook In the author’s own words: “This book is not a piece of investigative journalism; definitely not an exercise in PR. This book neither debunks nor celebrates the subjects. Also, it isn’t a collection of thumbnail biographies. Nor is it a work of scholarship. It is not, even remotely, a philosophical study, a sociological commentary or a psychological analysis. It is a peek at the men (and woman) behind the guru personas.” She has based their profiles on subjective impressions, interviews and research (a lot of it), viewing them from as many angle...

Fatal Accidents of Birth by Harsh Mander My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fatal Accidents of Birth (Stories of Suffering, Oppression and Resistance) Author: Harsh Mander Publisher: Speaking Tiger Price: Rs. 499 Pages: 203  The review also appeared in The Free Press Journal on January 1, 2017. Find the review here. ‘Our task is to change some conditions that appear to me as obviously against the beauty of being human’, said Paulo Freire. The quote greets the reader first. Little did I know that as I would turn the pages, I would learn so much about the inhuman intricacies woven into human lives, at times by circumstances and at other times simply because of one’s ignorance about the bigger picture while nitpicking over the supposedly misplaced tiny details. The preface Other Lives, Other Worlds is hard-hitting and delivers the chills even before the human coldness starts storming in from the seventeen stories ahead. Far from the hustle and bustle of rural India, where p...