Love is the enterprise that starts with tremendous hopes and expectations and fails perennially. In our cultural mythology, we grew up knowing that there is one man who is only made for us, the perfect one. Love strikes us hard with the arrow-like manner right in the heart. Knowing to love someone with all our hearts is the human excellence only handful of us possesses. The entire idea of loving, however, is manifested through fairy tales and the romantic novels based against the backdrop of Victorian era where there were happily-ever-afters, no looking for transitory happiness or pursuit of hollow physical pleasure. Our minds still belong to the century because today’s love is intertwined with frustration.

‘I am half agony, half hope’ and there is no logical explanation of how love sweeps us off our feet once we find the true one. In this age, when we are constantly searching for love, a love-thirsty soul should always leaf through the pages of Jane Austen’s masterpieces which have incandescent examples that teach us much more clearly the nuances of love and how it affects the heart while a scientist will parade you with facts about blood pumping, clenching and contouring if you asked him how the heart works. Love changes the way it works and no one knows how.

The life-blood of our existence is waiting for the perfect man in our dreams but when reality strikes, we come to realise there is no such person and we have to make amends with whatever we got. Being faced with the hardcore reality, we turned to literature for refuge, literature such as Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.  Back then, in our teens looked like just another love story, but later we realized it taught us that ‘perfect’ only exists in our minds.

Unlike Shakespeare, who explained love in verse and meter, Jane Austen taught us love can be broken and mended and that it is not beyond harm, by putting us through the perfectly set dinner tables, all the guests knowing how to cut their meat correctly and everything ostensive. Love bloomed there too, the profound, pristine kind.

Take for instance, the protagonists of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr.Darcy. Elizabeth was an intelligent, witty, inexorable feminist who falls in love with the very stoic, arrogant, proud and handsome Mr. Darcy. They both were flawed in some way or the other but dealt with their fallacies anyway and agree to marry each other. But then Jane Austen never sketched the happily-ever-after picture and left room for guessing that their marriage may be rocky and they may have dealt with the atrocities together.

Jane Austen’s novels always inflict chaos in the minds of its characters in an orderly world. Her novels are always a revelation for us in the tender years. It is how to perpetuate our love by dealing with each other’s prides and prejudices that matter the most. Love is all about accepting and understanding each other and growing through those topsy-turvy experiences.

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World Poetry Day is here and all poetry lovers are ready to rejoice.

Well, there’s something very unusual about poetry, it takes you to a world where your imagination weaves a story that’s you and only you can visualize.

While the legends like Rabindranath Tagore and Shakespeare have already left us a lot in their poetries, we keep seeking the work of young poets who give us refreshed feelings.

On this World Poetry Day, talking about refreshed feelings, there are a lot of young Indian writers who have been writing some beautiful poetries that are truly magical in every sense.

So, on the occasion of World Poetry Day, let’s have a look at 5 such poems by Indian writers.

On World Poetry Day –

1 – Unusual Shiver in Winter Days by Sonnet Mondal

She was a creeping winter,-

coiling and settling into the wardrobe

of my lined collections

of cassettes and clothes

(Scattered in a bachelor’s room)

Suits arranged by brands

fragranced by sensuous nights

brought by you molded me

into a gentleman

below uncombed hairs

and unwashed hands.

I was into lessons to be clean

while

I was feeding on my love.

From a scrappy life

beside a pond

abound with weeping cranes

she was the only fish

in front of my hungry beaks.

Short-lived and destructive

as most pleasures are

I am wedged back

back into an untidy shiver

from an act worthy of no mercy.

2 – Loving Stranger by Nandini Sahu

After you left

only after you left

I could guess

that your shadow spreads

beneath my lonely heart,

and you are a stranger

the most loving stranger;

time came to a halt

pain sprinkled over my earth.

This contention crushed me to dust

clipped my wings

addicted to fly

pushed me off the branch

where I was resting, relaxed

in an endless sphere;

my heart broke.

The vibrations

spread across the sky.

Can I ever write a love poem

for you? Exclusively for you?

Time is ripe

sharpening its claw

to rupture the skeleton of pallid earth.

Why am I roaming in the sun

when the shady tree

has always waited

even though the shadows have only

troubled me

playing hide and seek.

Why didn’t you play that tune earlier

taking away all pain

giving joy of self-introspection?

There is no want to drink

when the cup overflows.

I had always wanted

to drink life to the lees,

but a poor mortal that I was

I saw an empty cup

and pierced my heart with thorns.

Safely sail through life.

Oh fateful one,

tears are dear to you.

Beneath the troubled waters

I too love to float.

Today

I am awarded

with a life time of turmoil

and a stranger, loved the most.

3 – Glasses at Midnight by Arsala Qureishi

Like a teardrop on a rainy day on my face you will shine.

The sun can cast its shadow the moon can stop to wonder.

This journey that we have begun has just begun.

Don’t be scared of losing my hand don’t be scared to catch another.

Where all glories are lost and hope is stored that’s where I will see you once again and before.

The night may have sullied the bloom but my heart is in the battle even if I fight alone.

There will come a day where we won’t have to fight, there will come a season of content so lets hush up the lull before the godforsaken storm.

I will look back onto this day and say this with gratitude, thank you for coming my way because love does last forever; I know I won’t be wrong.

Take a step ahead today even though a wall you face, they are known to breakdown with an embrace.

I will look at you with my eyes closed and nothing can stop my gaze.

At a bar you will find me sitting, gushing at the sun, why are you following me everywhere, go away midnight has come.

4 – Dirge by Vijay Nambisan

The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side,

Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide.

How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-Anglian tongue

Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the world was young.

I’ll live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis;

And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis.

Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed to care;

Then calls for cheques of last year’s owing did not fall on empty air.

Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them unchanged; and paid;

But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty trade.

In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes,

I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis.

They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead how to speak.

They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique.

But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen

My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years and ten.

And if it prove my prime is over, if I’ve no chance at wordly bliss

Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis.

This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a friend.

I’ve a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end.

So Arun and Dom and Nissim – I will shun their hard-earned grief

And much though I will always miss ’em, in softer shadows find relief.

And when I’m ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more than this

I will answer, “But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis.”

5 – Mom by Shamir Reuben

If you didn’t see what happened that night, when I stood all alone beside your bed,

I’m writing this now so you get to read, every little thing that went on inside in my head.

I drew the curtains and latched the door, I didn’t want anyone to hear what I had to say,

The only exception would have been you, but you couldn’t hear me now anyway.

So I just held your hand and it was so cold, just like this world which gave you pain,

I asked you questions which I asked you everyday, (I asked over and over again.)

I waited like an eternity for you to reply.. For you to just do anything at all for that matter,

I could hear my heart pounding in that empty room, and when you didn’t move I heard it shatter.

They say everything that happens is for the best, but how am I to think of this for the better?

How could you leave without saying good bye, or without any last words to hold this heart together?

I cried and prayed, experienced a world of pain, until your blanket was stained with my tears,

I opened every corner of my heart to you, every hidden emotion, every thought and ever fear.

On World Poetry Day, Here’s to all the poets and poetry lovers, a very happy world poetry day!

The post 5 Poetries By Indian Writers You Need To Read On This World Poetry Day appeared first on Youngisthan.in.

Quotes for writers – As they say, the power of pen is much more than that of a sword and being a writer, I truly agree to that statement.

Of course, the pen has slightly turned into a typewriter for most of us but the power of words bonded in one single story is something that will never change. Some of us choose to be a writer as an ambition and some just do it like a rejuvenation routine. But in the end, what matters is that single piece where you have poured your heart.

So, whether you write for yourself or for the world, you always need a little inspiration and what’s better than few quotes for writers written by some famous writers itself.

Here are some of those Quotes for writers that will inspire the writer in you:

Quotes for writers – 

1. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

2. “You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

3. “A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

4. “I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their own validity no matter what.”

5. “The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.”

6. “Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.

7. “Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

These are the Quotes for writers – So, it’s time for you to bring out your writing weapons and just pour your heart out with the help of words on paper. After all, once a writer, always a writer.

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It is better to travel well than to arrive. -Buddha 

When people say home is the best place to live in, they are true.

But then why not travel just for the sake of it. May be just to feel the awesomeness of being back home. Every person should travel. Travel to the places you have never been to. And also to the places you have already been to. Travel makes you all happy, lets you ease out the stress!

So here are some of the five best travelogues that will just inspire you to travel:

1).  The Motorcycle Diaries – Ernesto Che Guevara (1993)

One of the best travelogues so far, this book comprises of the memoirs of revolutionist Ernesto Che Guevara who along with Alberto Granado was off to explore South America on their motor-cycle in January 1952.

In this book Guevara tells about how the travel across the several countries actually changed his perspective towards the life he lived and thus in the end of the book he announces that he would like to fight for the cause of the poor.

2).  India in Slow Motion – By Mark Tully (2002)

This is an interesting account of journey that Mark Tully has written.

The author has covered diverse subjects from all across the country, right from child labour to the corruption and politics.

3).  Chasing the Monsoons – By Alexander Frater (1993)

This book broadly tells about the monsoons in India right from Trivandrum in the south to Cherapunji in North East.

The writer travels across India and finds how the monsoons affect the people’s life in the country, for some it is a boon and for some it turns out to be a curse.

4).  India A Million Mutinies Now – V.S. Naipaul (1990)

It is a travelogue written by V.S Naipaul during his visit to India.

He tells about how the country has undergone changes after independence. It throws light on the country’s progress with other problems like caste and religion.

5).  Maximum City: Lost and Found – Suketu Mehta (2004)

The writer brilliantly portrays the city of dreams.

He narrates the experience and the anecdotes in a lively manner and gives true insights of this city from a totally different angle.

These avid travellers and writers have given great insights about the places they have travelled and how it has changed their lives and views. Till then hope you enjoy reading them! 

Happy Reading!! Happy Travelling!!

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Game lovers are one different kind of species that exist on this earth.

They live in their own fantasy world and have different approach towards various things. Counter Strike, Temple run and many other such games that just bring a feeling of exhilaration to them.

They have the curiosity for every new game that is to be launched, the new play station, graphics and many other things that just excite them.

The hard game lovers are also eager to know more and more about the subject.

So, here we bring you with some of the best books that should be read if you are one of those game lovers.

1). Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

The author in this book has told about, how the games actually can make people fight stress and she tries to convince that games can be one of the mighty thing to bring a positive change in the world.

2). Game Over- How Nintendo conquered the world by David Sheff

The book is written by an American author and it informs about the Nintendo’s journey, the initial years of gaming  with the account of Nintendo’s corporate structure with an addition of some really good quotes from the executives.

3). Replay by Tristan Donovan This book tells the reader not only about the history and facts of video games but it goes way beyond its creativity, technical aspect and to fulfil the human’s trust in gaming and its desire for playing. 

4). Power-Up by Chris Kohler This book actually gives an extended insight about how the Japanese video games in a way gave an extra life to the gaming world. The author also lets you know the hidden stories behind innovation of the games like Dragon Quest.

5). Critical Path- How to review games for living by Dan Amrich

This book primarily focuses on the people who love playing games rather than the game developers. It works as a very good practical guide for many readers. These are few of the books which may enlighten the gamers and may help to know more about the games and its history.

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The month is onto a wondrous start.

The long weekend at the beginning of the month instills romance in us and the well-lit end to it gives us more reasons for spending some time alone in our dream world.

And what would be better than finding a quiet corner and reading books?

Here are five books which you can spend time with on the stairs, in the tree-house, or an attic or simply on a comfy chair with your favourite blanket thrown across this October:

Alina Bronsky, Just Call Me Superhero

This is Bronsky’s third novel. It is the story of a 17-year old boy, Marek, who rejects his girlfriend Lucy and the “world of the undamaged” after a Rottweiler attack leaves him with a mangled face and hand. His narration will captivate you. Marek thinks that people altered their course to avoid him wherever he went. He goes to a support group meeting and ends up feeling tricked by his mother when the guru running the group seems lacking in credentials. But a green-eyed girl in wheelchair catches his eyes and he stays in the group. The guru, who has his own secrets, takes the group of six on an adventure to a forest villa for a week. Just Call Me Superhero is a sharply observed coming-of-age story and a rare exploration of how family and friendship can mitigate loss.

Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

James new novel is set in Jamaica and moves from Montego Bay in 1959 to Kingston in the ‘70s to the crack houses of Bushwick in the ‘80s and ‘90s, on the trail of at least seven murders. The assassination attempt on Bob Marley, in December 1976 is central to this story. James invokes a stunning range of voices – journalists, politicians, CIA agents, hit men, members of two rival drug syndicates and a Medellin cartel drug lord. He opens with an invitation from the ghost of a former politician pushed off a balcony: “Listen. …Dead people never stop talking and sometimes the living hear.”

Diogo Mainardi, The Fall

This is a memoire by novelist Mainardi which with a heartrending account of his son Tito’s birth in a hospital in Venice, where medical missteps lead to cerebral palsy. He follows with taut scenes – some just a few paragraphs – detailing the ups and downs, measuring out the hours and days in the steps Tito takes before he inevitably falls. “Sixteen steps Tito took on 28 September 2005 became, some months later, twenty-seven steps. Some months later, the seven steps became forty-four steps…,” he explains his son’s progress in a poetic yet, interestingly, unsentimental manner. But the story displays what it should – a father’s love and a child’s indomitable spirit – in a perfect manner. He grasps you the moment he says: “I am Tito’s father. I exist only because Tito exists.”

Gina B Nahai, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S

The new novel of Nahai opens near dawn in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles and the mystery starts with the killing of a man known as Raphael’s Son. He was found dead in his car outside his $52m house with his throat slit. The mystery deepens when his body disappears before police reaches the crime scene. The suspects include not only his multitude of enemies, but his allies as well. Raphael’s Son ran a Ponzi scheme during the 2008 financial collapse, leading many to ruin. And he is the target of a family feud that goes back generations. The thrilling tale of this crime and the police investigation to unearth the killer and reasons behind this killing make it for an interesting read. The thorough and harrowing backstory of the political changes that led the Iranian Jewish community into exile in New York and Los Angeles makes a perfect addition to the dramatic and witty novel.

Jane Smiley, Some Luck

Some Luck is the first novel in Pulitzer Prize winning Smiley’s proposed Last 100 Years Trilogy, in which she sets out to follow the lives of one family from the 1920s through the 1950s. When we first meet Walter and Rosanna Langdon in 1920 they have five children and an inherited farmer’s perspective – “worry-shading-into-alarm” – that each year can bring disaster as easily as abundance. Their children disperse over time, to the suburbs, to academia, with only one remaining on the land. Smiley’s ability to build intimacy with her characters against a backdrop of decades of cultural ferment is superb. Some Luck immerses us in the technological flux of a not-too-distant past and makes us wonder what will happen in the next installment.

So, go out, buy these books, and read on!

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Tech geeks and books – doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Yet how much ever you feel like denying it, the knowledge from one of such books is somewhere responsible in turning the fellow into a moving technological library.

For those who talk codes, dream C, walk C++ and chat microchips, something that belongs to a non- technology background would be really difficult to read.

We suggest a few books you could gift someone who breathes technology and sleeps technology.

The Master Switch

Though it’s been a few years since the book was launched, there’s a lot of history (technological history) included in this book. With its focus only on AT&T, the Master Switch has established itself as one of the most important books written about the history of communications industry around the globe. The author Tim Wu believes that Internet may not be a certain tool for freedom of speech and makes some predictions on how is it going to affect the world if it becomes too powerful.

WorldChanging: A User’s guide for 21^st century

A book that proves the advancement of technology in today’s date. Worldchanging serves a purpose to evoke environmental friendliness through technology. Does not matter if the reader is a PHP developer or an android developer, the book offers a plethora of innovative solutions for the future, to make a better tomorrow.

Steve Jobs

The book may not be totally into technology, but is a non fictional insight into life of a person, known as the smartest and most ruthless leaders in the industry. Apple was not his only brainchild. The author Walter Isaacson emphasizes on the other findings of Steve Jobs, and narrates how failures in technology leads to yet another success.

The Zen of CSS Design

A perfect book for web designers, The Zen of CSS Design is a collection of cases that explain the procedure adopted by thirty six designers to make use the finest technology in web designing. If you’re worried about gifting someone who is totally into IT, this could be the perfect gift.

You are not a gadget

For a tech geek, it is not an easy task to view technology from a critical point. You are not a gadget though meant for techies, includes philosophical arguments for anyone who prefers blogs and e-books to reading. The author Jaron Lanier, believes that the internet has not lived upto its expectations. The critical examination of technology stands as the USP of the book.

Tech geeks spend most of their time delved in technology. Books play saviours during tests, but talking of those addicted to technology, they create knowledge that provides acceleration to their career.

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In his memoirs, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes how he was commissioned to write the story – The Sign of Four – over a dinner at the Langham hotel with Joseph M Stoddart, managing editor of Lippincott’s on 30 August 1889.

Stoddart’s first idea was to produce an English version of his magazine with local, British contributors. In the end, only Doyle, with typical professionalism and efficiency, delivered his copy on time for its British publication in February 1890.

On its first magazine appearance, the novel was titled The Sign of the Four, following the description of the fatal symbol of murder in the text of the story. Thereafter, during several second serialisations in a variety of regional journals, the novel became known as The Sign of Four.

The influence of The Moonstone is unmistakable from the moment Holmes’s client, Mary Morstan, presents herself in Baker Street. Her father, an Indian army captain, has gone missing. As a second puzzle, she reports that over the last several years, on 7 July, she has received six pearls in the mail from an unknown source. Mary Morstan can offer the great detective only one clue, a map of a fort found in her father’s desk, with the names of three Sikhs, and a certain Jonathan Small. It is, of course, enough.

The story that Holmes swiftly unravels will involve some potent aspects of India in all its mystery and romance: the “mutiny” of 1857; stolen jewels from Agra; and a Sikh plot. On only his second outing in a full-length novel, Holmes is on top form throughout, stimulated by injections of cocaine and his celebrated deductive method (“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”) Here, unmistakably, is the voice of the master.

Conan Doyle had stumbled on the idea of the brilliant detective and his stolid sidekick (a variation on a theme best known to literature in a double act like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza) in A Study in Scarlet (1888). In The Sign of Four he deepens the Holmes-Watson relationship and has the good doctor (also the narrator) fall in love with Mary Morstan (“A wondrous subtle thing is love,” declares Watson). They will eventually get married.

As a novel about a crime, The Sign of Four is inferior to The Moonstone, though superbly constructed and compelling, complete with poison darts, a disputed legacy, and an exciting chase down the Thames. It also marks the reappearance of the “Baker Street Irregulars” and an important step in the evolution of Holmes and Watson, the most successful and popular literary duo in Victorian magazine fiction.

Like its prequel, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1888, The Sign of the Four was not an overnight success. It was Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, published in the Strand magazine after 1890 that made Sherlock Holmes a literary immortal.

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Hindu mythology regards Indra as the king of Devas, who always is insecure regarding his throne.

The god of thunder and lightning however has been seen from quite a different perspective, in the book by Rajiv G Menon. Thundergod: The Ascendance of Indra has reinterpreted the man as not only the king who was insecure about the throne, but his journey from a normal being to the king of Devas.

Thundergod is the first part of the Vedic Trilogy that interprets the character of Indra combining history with mythology. The Deva tribe is one of many tribes that reside in different parts of Eurasia and shares its descent with Ikshvaaku, Yavana, Aditya and Asuara tribes. Indra, who is born from the union of, chief of Deava tribe, Daeyus and the earth goddess Gaia, is ripped off his parentage when he was a baby. Prophecy has it that a warrior born from the unusual union of a goddess and human is destined to unite the Devas and lead them in a battle against Asuras.

Mitra, a sage who was once a renowned warrior, having renounced the world, brings up Indra with four other orphans from the Aditya clan in his hermitage, keeping them safe from the dangers their life possesses. Five of them, Vayu, Agni, Varuna, Soma and Indra become close friends, more of brothers and develop supernatural abilities, when they kill a group of Pishachas, plundering humans and other beings since ages. The abilities, they develop however have to be strengthened periodically, with a potion prepared by Soma, which he masters in.

In the process of uniting all the clans and becoming the greatest warrior on Earth and the King of Devas, Indra ends up losing his lady love by killing her brother, which was demanded by the situation and her father, accidentally.

Agreed that as far as mythology is concerned, there has to be magic in the book. But the coming of Aryans to India, Vedic age and the developing of Harappan civilization are topics which the author has touched from the perspective of historical authenticity.

That apart, you’ll find the story gripping because though leadership was his birthright, the story revolves around a god who has to prove himself worthy of that leadership. And yet he loses nearly everything in his fight against the most endangered clan to others- the Asuras.

A tale of struggle, treachery, hostility and vengeance, you can’t really wait for the second book in the trilogy.   

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How well do you remember the old stories narrated to you by your elders?

If you’re fascinated by mythology, this book is bound to catch your attention. Even before the content of the book is narrated to you, you get all confused and mesmerized with the illustration of the introduction. Devdutt Patnaik, strikes you with yet another Indian epic story, viewed from the eyes of a commoner.

“High above the sky stands Swarga, paradise, abode of the gods. Still above is Vaikuntha. Jaya and Vijaya are two doorkeepers of Vaikuntha. Both whose names mean victory.”

The author leaves you wondering on the lessons you’ve learnt from the Mahabharata. With clarity and simplicity, this retelling of the greatest war known in the history of India, has tales that was never narrated on a bigger scale, and that has shaped the Indian thought for centuries now.

The most important lesson the author augments on the reader is about life having planned something or the other for you all the time. Think about how being human to others, in every minor situation- at work or your personal life could make a huge difference to you. The summary at the end of every lesson in the book, tells you how our way of living affects others and that the traditions we’ve been following since ages, were implemented by our ancestors for the greater good.

The illustrations of stories by line drawings, not only attract the attention of the reader, but also creates a vision in the mind, that no other drama, onscreen soap or drawing has ever created. Why is it called an “illustrated retelling of the Mahabharat”? Because with every chapter you finish in the book, you understand the interpretations the author has tried to tell you. They are not the usual, intended moral of the story, but the cultural, political, practical explanations, and at times simply to enlighten you on how stories got changed while passing it to the next generations to cover up or make it suit to the situation people found themselves in.

A must read for those who have a strong fascination for mythology.

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Now this one is for the boys. With a collection of memoirs and shorter fiction to his name, Tobias Wolff is an established name in American literary firmament. Old School is his first full-length novel. An ingeniously nuanced, compact work, it describes a boy’s literary coming of age, pondering the role of truth and honesty in fiction and touching on issues of privilege, ethnicity and family along the way.

It begins in 1960; JFK has just been elected President and our nameless narrator is one of several aspiring writers at a prestigious boys’ school. Once a term, students are invited to compete for a private audience with a starry author, and when the headmaster announces that Ernest Hemingway will be the next visitor, the ivied quads echo with the clatter of typewriters.

Old School captures perfectly the hushed and heady claustrophobia of this all-male institution, and scarcely the flutter of a skirt ruffles its pages. As a scholarship student, the narrator hides his past, his family and, most especially, his father’s newly discovered Jewishness by writing stories he hopes will be read by classmates as autobiographical. The competition deadline is looming and inspiration still nowhere to be found when he stumbles across a story that speaks directly to his experience. Unfortunately, it belongs to someone else.

The resulting drama has dire consequences for Wolff’s protagonist, but also proves the making of him as a writer. The second half of Old School takes place decades later, yet given the chance finally to make amends, he balks, admitting that: ‘The appetite for decisive endings, even the belief that they’re possible, makes me uneasy in life as in writing.’

The easy urbanity of Wolff’s own prose often cloaks phrases of gut-punching economy – the way a boy sits ‘pretzeled over’ in a chair, for instance, or the ‘blood-borne assurance’ of another. Elsewhere, it opens up, Tardis-like, as when he describes the narrator’s grandparents’ home, its floors covered with ‘thick white carpets that deadened the air and made whatever you said in that woollen silence sound like the sudden caw of a crow on a damp day’.

This is the kind of novel that endures – wise, clever and written with immense heart.

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Awaken The Leader In You by Mitesh and Indu Khatri takes you on a tour to know the essentials of being a successful leader.

Full of inspiring leadership stories, strategies and practice exercises, this book is meant for those, who wish to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and become a leader, not just in professional, but also in the personal life.

During our days of our under graduation, there is always that situation when you are expected for a decision that would last for a lifetime. For me, anything like that has always been difficult. And I’m sure it would have been the same with you, as these decisions could be with or against you for the whole of your life. That, is the time when you yearn for a mentor or someone who could explain to you the pros and cons of your decision.

Based on leadership workshops conducted by the author himself, the book is divided into eleven chapters, carefully and concisely to reach the minds of emerging leaders of tomorrow. Even before the book starts, you’d find a wheel depicting the eight skills to be a true leader. The book also describes the difference in the mindset of an entrepreneur and his employee (if not volunteered to work with the entrepreneur). Each chapter in the book is provided with a case study at the end of it that gives you a clear picture of leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The summary of the same, enables you to know, how close are you to be one.

Awaken The Leader In You is one of those self help books that has a clarity of thought and something that gives the budding entrepreneurs of tomorrow, a structured approach towards leading your venture successfully.

A must read for those who are new in the business.

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How is it for a nation to be run by a prime minister whose reigns were in someone else’s hands?

How does it feel to have a boss who holds the highest executive post of a country and yet his loyalty resides somewhere else?

Sanjaya Baru’s memoir, The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking Of Manmohan Singh, gives us a glimpse with illustrious details of the Singh’s time in the prime minister’s office. He alleges through his book that the leader of the world’s biggest democracy has not been in charge of his own country.

Baru, who was Singh’s media advisor from May 2004 until August 2008 (UPA I), in his crisp tales explains that the PM was “defanged” in his second term starting in 2004, deferring on cabinet appointments and major policy decisions to Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress party which leads Singh’s coalition government.

An excerpt from the book gives a damning assessment of Singh’s attitude towards corruption: “Dr Singh’s general attitude towards corruption in public life, which he adopted through his career in government, seemed to me to be that he would himself maintain the highest standards of probity in public life, but would not impose this on others … In practice, this meant that he turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of his ministers.”

Till now, the prime minister’s office (PMO) and the office of Sonia Gandhi has been denying the charges made in the book calling it a pure fiction. The statement released by the PMO said: “It is an attempt to misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and to apparently exploit it for commercial gain. The commentary smacks of fiction and coloured views of a former adviser.”

The statement added that when senior Indian editors met Singh in October and raised Baru’s allegations, Singh replied: “Do not believe all he is saying.”

If true, the allegations and insinuations made by Baru would shed fresh light on an administration that has been dubbed as the most corrupt in the history of Indian politics. If at all the Congress high command wielded a greater power than the PM and the latter consciously allowed her to do so, the whole gamut of corruption cases will be seen under a new light.

The closeness of Baru and his ouster from the PMO (he was replaced by Pankaj Pachauri) gives us all the more reason to believe him. Although he is telling us the readers what we already knew, but his voice becomes more authentic because of his involvement in the administration and his sketchy tales with enough logic.

Some are questioning the morality of Baru for releasing the book at a time when general the country is in the midst of voting in general election. According to The Guardian, “Such an intimate portrait of dysfunction will certainly have political ramifications. The allegations could further damage Sonia Gandhi, one of India’s most powerful politicians, as well as her son and political heir, Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the current Congress campaign.”

Political experts like Sudheedra Kulkarni has also asked the timing of the release. But what is more important here is a peek into the morality of Singh who let his image to be that of a person who was bossed upon by his party chief on important policy matters.

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They say, a picture is worth a thousand words. An exquisite painter, a colorful personality, a filmmaker with a social cause and a lover of the most beautiful and expensive cars on earth- Maqbaal  Fida Husain was a conundrum to those who admired him.

Author Pradeep Chandra, who is also a painter by profession, pays the master artist a tribute by summarizing his life, through various pictures he shot of him at various times in his life. An inspiring story of rags to riches, the book showcases that until the end, M F Husain lived like an artist. Be it his passion of painting, designing furniture or making films, his way of showing creativity is indecipherable.

The book also lets us know about the very few things Husain sa’ab never really spoke of. He was very interested in getting photographed, and very fond of looking at his own image. Though, he never acted, he used to perform brilliantly in front of the camera.

The book also showcases pictures of Husain’s candid moments like sleeping in a gallery, his last Eid celebrations with actors like Urmila Matondkar and Tabu, he in the company of his grandchildren at a birthday celebration wearing birthday caps and watching a belly dancer, and many more. In fact, what awed me was, there is an entire chapter dedicated to his bare feet.

The book is more of a pictorial tribute, the write-ups though small, do not lack substance. Husain’s narration of why he shunned his shoes after the death of Hindi poet Muktibodh, is worth reading. Author, Pradeep Chandra paints a picture of the man he attempts to understand via his work, installations, theater, family, friends and the women who inspired him.

The book celebrates the life of a true artist and a great man, whose absence has left a great crater in the world of art and in the lives of those who still admire him.

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What is it like to have a really weird name? Quite frustrating. But how is it like to live in a foreign land and see your children merge in the local culture than your tradition? Probably equally frustrating.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s gracious novel, The Namesake, is her first full length work. Lahiri made her debut with The Interpreter of Maladies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning short-story collection, peopled by Asians whose work or study took them to the US. In refined, empathetic prose, she chronicled the stresses and strains of integration and assimilation, and The Namesake covers similar ground.

The novel begins in Calcutta and then skips 8,000 miles across the water to suburban America. The story is about three decades in foreign land. The story runs along the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol in the beginning, through a chunk of its middle and in the end.

United in a Bengali arranged marriage, Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli fid themselves in wintry Boston where he studies for a PhD at MIT and she navigates her loneliness. When Ashima becomes pregnant, her grandmother writes letter with names – one for a boy and one for a girl. But the letter is lost in the post and American bureaucracy overtakes tradition.

Forced to pick a name for baby boy Ganguli’s birth certificate, Ashoke lights on Gogol, whose stories once saved his life, keeping him up reading as his night train hurtled towards disaster, and ensuring that he was one of the few to be pulled alive from its wreckage.

Gogol Ganguli finds his name ‘simple, impossible, absurd’. According to Bengali custom, he is given a ‘good name’ too – Nikhil – but he adopts it only with his first kiss, thereafter feeling as if ‘an errata slip were perpetually pinned to his chest’.

In time, these vague sentiments harden into a rueful sense of filial disloyalty. ‘Living with a pet name and a good name, in a place where such distinctions do not exist,’ he sighs. ‘Surely that was emblematic of the greatest confusion of all.’

And yet this is not a lament for lost cultural identity – Lahiri is too honest an observer for that, and Ashima and Ashoke’s feelings for the country and culture in which they’ve made their home are convincingly complex.

‘Being a foreigner,’ Ashima decides early on, ‘is a sort of lifelong pregnancy – a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts’, but as Gogol and his sister teach her the ‘rules’ of Christmas and throw hot dogs and cheese slices into the supermarket trolley, her sadness for her forsaken former life is intermingled with pride and gratitude for the new.

Cautiously, each of Lahiri’s characters patches together their own identity, making this resonant fable neither uniquely Asian nor uniquely American, but tenderly, wryly human.

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From the first line to the last words of the novel, Charlotte Brontë hypnotises you. The Jane Eyre’s voice created by her compels you to turn the next page, and the next…

The intense private dialogue with the reader was a very new thing for an English novel in the 1840s. The prose style of unvarnished simplicity in this Victorian novel cast a spell over generations. Even today, many readers are mesmerized with the consciousness of the protagonist in the book.

Jane Eyre is cast, from the title page, as “an autobiography”. Jane Eyre portrays the urgent quest of its narrator for an identity. Jane, who cannot remember her parents, and as an orphan has no secure place in the world, is in search of her “self” as a young, downtrodden woman.

She has a raw, occasionally erotic, immediacy. Not only does Jane reject Brocklehurst, St John Rivers and John Reed, she also craves submission to her “master”, the Byronic Mr Rochester. The violence of men against women is implicit in many of Jane’s transactions with both Rivers and Rochester. The thrill that she provides to the readers captivates the imagination at all levels.

Jane Eyre also displays the familiar tropes of the gothic novel. Thornfield is a gothic manor; Mr Rochester a gothic-romantic protagonist. The mad woman in the attic speaks for herself, as it were. In addition, Brontë herself knows the storytelling power of what she calls “the suspended revelation”, a phrase coined in chapter 20, and never hesitates to tantalise and seduce the reader.

Finally, Jane Eyre, addressed insistently to “the reader”, is so steeped in English literature that it becomes an echo chamber of earlier books. Within a very few pages of the opening, there are references to Paradise Lost, Walter Scott’s Marmion and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

If you wish to feel that seductive thrill of 1847’s Jane Eyre’s, this book is a must read.

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How many people remain active after 60? Or 70? Or 80? The number goes down as the old-ness of the person grows. People get retired. They spend their time in leisure. But Khushwant Singh was a rare example. He lived his dream till his last breath.

At the ripe age of 97, he authored a book The Freethinker’s Prayer Book And Some Words to Live By (Aleph, 2012). The book is a collection of pre­cepts, prayers and prac­ti­cal ad­vice by prophets, poets and philoso­phers that the man of letters lived by.

Right at the introduction, Singh speaks the truth – plain and simple.

“By the time this book is pub­lished, I will be nine­ty-sev­en. I am a very old man. And there is one eter­nal truth I can tell you right away: Old age is not pleas­ant; it bug­gers up your life. I am not yet se­nile, but my mem­o­ry, of which I was very proud, is fail­ing. Though I can still read, my hands shake so much that it is dif­fi­cult to write any­thing leg­i­ble. I have been spared the in­dig­ni­ty of shit­ting in bed pans and hav­ing nurs­es wipe my bot­tom, but I often need as­sis­tance to get to the toi­let. I am on more pills than I can count. In short, my body is giv­ing up.”

Then he speaks his mind, staring at death. He explicitly shows his desire to die and choose to discuss it at length. He does not shy away from saying that he was scared of the thought that he will die someday. But he wishes a swift and painless death.

It seems that he attempted to find answers to what will happen after his death. But being an agnostic, it was tough to find solace. It is pretty apparent that he submitted to mystery when he says:

“Peo­ple who have re­li­gion seem to de­rive com­fort from the be­lief that they will meet their Maker after they die, or that they will be re­born in some form. The more self-righ­teous among them are con­vinced that they will as­cend straight to heav­en. As an ag­nos­tic, I have no such com­fort. So be it. I have no regrets.”

For a person who did not believe in God, this book surprises us all. It contains his favourite pas­sages from the sem­i­nal texts of the world’s major faiths. The person, who claimed to be agnostic, knew his Bible, Granth Sahib, Quran and the Vedas very well. The songs of mys­tics and saints like Kabir, Rumi and Mother Tere­sa seamlessly mix with the verse of poets like Ghal­ib, Tagore and Keats.

The book looks like a quest to find oneself by remembering the fading life events and finding answers through reason, logic and philosophy. But Singh remains characteristically irreverent. He writes:

“Once you have decided not to bow to any gods, and if you have a good bullshit detector, it is possible to separate the sublime from the ridiculous and derive inspiration from the words of prophets and poets, gurus and rogues, grave men and clowns. There is a lot to be learned from both the sacred and the profane. I have done that nearly all my life and put down in my notebooks hundreds of lines from different sources that appealed to me… I offer them to you as life codes from an ancient and unrepentant agnostic. Read them with an open mind and an open heart.”

This book by ‘Sardar in the Bulb’ (immortalised by the cartoonist Mario Miranda) will light up our lives just like the countless anecdotes he has told us through his books. You can turn to his words on any page of this book at any time and any day to find the meaning of things which does not make sense.

*Khushwant Singh died on March 20, 2014 at the age of 99.

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Are you a fan of Hindu mythology? Did you enjoy listening to mythological tales by your granny when you were a kid? Well who doesn’t?

Mythological tales are colourful and complex. With 330 million perceived Gods and incarnations, it is like a maze or a complex equation. The three principal Gods of Hindus – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva – are together known as Trimurti. Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer. Together, they keep the cycle of life moving.

Brahma meditates and dreams, and in his dreams he creates everything – us, the universe, earth, plants, rivers, deserts, birds, animals and insects. Vishnu rests on a serpent and once in a while incarnates in human form to protect the world from evil. When evil reaches a tipping point, Shiva destroys the world with his third eye so that Brahma can create the world anew. Hindu mythology brims with tales of these three Gods; tales of creation, tales of preservation and tales of destruction.

John Jackson’s ‘Brahma Dreaming’ is a collections of tales based on these basic nature of these three Gods. The authors narration is unassuming, simple and straightforward. Unlike the temptation which may cloud other authors’ mind, he has made no attempt to give logical explanation behind the divine acts and interventions. It is just the way your grandfather would have told you.

The book, divided in three parts – tales of creation, tales of preservation and tales of destruction, starts with the birth of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva from the energy of Aum, and ends with the death of Krishna, in the hands of a hunter, Jara. The three parts of the book are again divided into short stories, each describing an interesting event. ‘The Milk Ocean’ tells the story of Devas and Asuras churning the ocean for amrit. ‘The Lie’ tells the story of Kadru, and how she invented lying. ‘The Fish’ narrates the Hindu version of ‘Noah’s Ark’. The tales of destruction has stories about Shiva and Parvati’s marriage, the birth of Kartikeya and Ganesha, Savitri and Satyavan, etc. The tales of preservation mostly covers Ramayana and Mahabharata. 

“The sound of Aum filled the whole of the space and the void, and Aum was in everywhere and through everywhere and was everywhere. The sound of Aum became power and the power had a form with three faces. They were the faces of the Lords of Creation – Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer.”

The book is enrich with wonderful illustrations by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. These are very intricate and quite unlike the images we hold in our minds. They depict characters with a very interesting mix of Indian features and western attires.

To someone who is new to Indian mythology and would like to know the basic premise behind the major events in it, John Jackson’s ‘Brahma Dreaming’ is the perfect answer, and a must read.

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Remember when your grandma or any elderly used to narrate to you, tales of gods and our ancestors? The other day, being in a situation where it was difficult to decide who the right team is, a thought occured to me- the stories our elders told us, have been passed down to generations since centuries.

Hindu mythology consists of stories told differently in different regions, only the character name being same. I remember watching the promo of a TV soap around five years back. It portrayed the story of Ravana from the epic Ramayana. A show that contradicted what we’ve learnt and conceived about the mythical character Ravana.

Let me ask you something. What do you do when someone challenges the conventional stories that we have believed in, since forever? What do you do when you feel that you are made to believe that part of history which is written by the winning team always? What if all the history and morale-boosting-tales we’ve learnt are all make-believe?

Every year on the eve of Dusshera we celebrate the death of the Rakshasa king Ravana and on the eve of Holi the death of Holika– sister of an evil king Hiranyakashyap. While there are different versions of story on Rama’s victory over Ravana, one of the version states that, Sita (Rama’s wife) was actually the daughter of Ravana and Mandodari, who because of some reason landed up being the daughter of Janaka. Ravana abducted Sita, to save her from the wicked caste system and other poorly faring systems in Bharat.

Similarly, a version of Holika’s story states that when she realised that injustice had been done to her nephew, she took off a blessed shawl and gave it to him, while they both sat on the pyre. Another contradictory tale, ain’t it?

The book Asura- Tale of the Vanquished by Anand Neelakantan could take you off your feet and make you question, what you’ve been told and believed since ages. The book is a narrative from the point of view of they, who always lost. Wonderfully written from an alternative perspective, the characters of the book add a charm to the novel. The author gives voice to the story of Ravanayana, that has never ever been narrated in history.

A must-read for those who love mythology! 

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Unlike reading a regular fiction novel, memoir could leave a lasting impact. Writing it is a different ball game together. Questions like ‘why would anyone want to read about my life’ or ‘how would my holiday in Paris impress anyone’ will keep running at the back of your mind. With such a dicey mix of ideas coming up with a brilliant food memoirs is rare.

In my opinion the best food memoir is one that has perfect balance between what the chef feels, his inventions, few tips/tricks and something that the reader could take back home. Most of all what matters the most is that the book must leave the reader inspired. If we had to hand pick 5 books from a book store for you these would be the ones…

The Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White

The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher

The Telling Room by Michael Paterniti

Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin

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