I am quite confused by this book. The subject was very interesting, an almost unknown land of Guyana, a year long travelogue that promises to take you around the country and introduce you to its people and their ways. The writing, to me too slow, too random and quite disconnected. Though it seems like a non-fiction, but since it is being called a novel, you have to accept it that way. Story is a narrated by an unnamed Indian from Mumbai who travels to Guyana to spend a year, many years after he had first visited it for cricket reporting. All the three parts of the story are absolutely unrelated, there is no common thread, not even the country remains same and I could not see a plot except in the last part. It appears like random writings or the writing journal of a writer who lived a year in Guyana for sometime, his random encounters with people there, mostly whom he happened to meet.

Most memorable episode from Part I of the book is when the narrator goes diamond hunting or ‘Porkknocking’ Continue reading →

Third book in the series ‘The Story of Indian Business’ takes you through the journey of the probably the first organized multi national company, a company that we have been told changed the face of nation, a company we know only from its later days when it became more of a political entity than a business organization. Come to think of it, we do not know much about the biography of this company that played a significant role in Europe and Asia for almost four centuries. It gets the blame for colonizing India, for looting Indians of all their riches and for establishing the British Raj in India, but we never get to know how it got formed, how it established itself in India and how it dealt with kings – big and small scattered across the land mass.

Author tries to take a stand on the fact that this was a first joint stock or a limited liability company that we know of. But to me that is a matter of fact, that probably laid grounds for the structures of companies in the days to come. Continue reading →

Chennai, a city that has been the true South India for me and probably for most North Indians like me, both because of its geographical location and because whatever little we knew then about south was all Madrasi. Personally, the first ever south Indian city that I stepped foot on was also Chennai and I was as curious about the place as the author remains even after his decade long stay in the city. I still remember getting those Dosas with Coconut Chutney between the plastic sheets, the first sight of Coconut trees in every courtyard that I could see from my office window on Mount road, the drive to Mahabalipuram, eating raw mango and jackfruit on the streets and buying those Kanjivaram Saris for from T Nagar.

Ok, the book is an outsider’s inside view of Chennai, the city that was first to be built by the British and has always been one of the biggest cities since independence. Continue reading →

There is a calendar full of days to celebrate women or to bring focus back to issues related to women. Despite them, the dilemmas that a women goes through, the discriminations that she faces both at home and outside and the traumas she goes through for being a woman, the expectations that she has to deal with at her marital home and at work place remain a matter of concern. Till the time enough women are not enabled enough to help themselves or take charge of their lives, these issues need to be brought forward in public life regularly, so that we do not loose sight of them and always remember to do something about them in our own limited capacities. Author has made a very brave attempt to bring out the voices of women dealing with all these situations, voices that make you aware of what is going inside them, voices that share themselves with you and would remain with you long after you have finished reading the book.

What I appreciated the most about this book Continue reading →

‘Running is injurious to health’

‘The feet had to run. The heart had to fly!’

‘It’s not about the pace, it’s about the peace’

The only book in the world based on a pair of unused running shoes.

Unconventional writing style, unconventional format, a story that is as much a fiction as it is real and may be the only book that comes with an interval – telling you ‘Reading is not about pace, it’s all about peace’, as if the author always knew that once you start reading his story, you would not take a break on your own. Inspite of him declaring the interval, I did not take a break and finished the book in one go.

The feeling of running away is Continue reading →

Those of you who do not know Coomaraswamy, this is what a noted artist said about him ‘ Today, If India takes her due rank as a first class artistic power, it is in large measure owing to Coomaraswamy’. He was one of the first Asian student of Indian Art and one of the finest interpreters of the same. Besides studying art, as ASI was discovering it in various parts of the country, he was able to derive the essence of Indian art. He was able to connect with the mind of the artist and the patron, with the collective psyche of the people of that era.

On a time horizon the book moves from Indo-Sumerian times till the late medieval period, but that is what most history books do. What Coomarasway tells you is not a laundry list of items found from a certain place and tries and interprets them wrt to their radio carbon dating. Instead he studies the various connected elements, he studies the art across the regions at a given point in time Continue reading →

This is a collection of short stories by a master storyteller who I thought wrote only historical fiction. There are stories based in history, during the times of Buddha and Mahavir and then in the times of Mughals and Rajputs. There are contemporary social stories, love stories and stories based primarily on emotions.

The range of the writer impresses the reader and this is not restricted to the range of subjects he writes about or the range of issues that he addresses but also to the range of formats that he uses to tell you these stories. Somewhere it is a simple narrative of a storyteller, sometimes it is a simple exchange of letters between two characters that tell the story and sometimes it is a poetic narration that goes in a flow. Sometimes the characters do not even have names, sometimes it is the relationships that go without a name. Then there is range in language, when it is Mughal era there is ample Urdu and when it is Mahavir’s time, you can feel Continue reading →

Second book in the series ‘The story of Indian Business’ talks about the maritime trade in the southern coastal areas of ancient India. The sources for this information lie in the various scriptures of the famous Sangam period in Tamil region, primarily poems describing the times and the inscriptions found in the temples talking about donations made by various people and the recorded transactions.

The book tells about the trade as it existed from 1^st CE to about 1300 CE in the Talimakam – the name used for defining the land of the Tamils. It talks about the various dynasties that ruled the place during different times. It talks about the items that were traded within the country and with other countries both with the Arab world in the West and the South East Asian region in the east including Sri Lanka. It talks about the administrative structure that existed to manage and regulate the trade. It talks about port towns, mahanagarams or big cities, nagarams or towns, Continue reading →

After having read many contemporary writers, I was expecting some heavy stuff from the noble laureate, but I swam in the simple flow that he created with his words. Uganda, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria were all names of the African countries for me with straight-line borders and I had not even heard of Gabon as a country. South Africa of course we know courtesy the stories of Mahatma Gandhi. After reading this book that talks about the belief systems of the people of these countries, I think I know them well even without knowing about other mundane things like what kind of governance they have and what are the key industries there. All these countries had an original faith system, which was located somewhere in the natural elements and the spirits of those who have departed. Then came an era of colonization and brought along Islam and Christianity to the continent. Many converted and started following the new faiths most of the times motivated by the western education that came along with the conversion. But could they Continue reading →