Book Review: The Krishna Key

'The Krishna Key' by Ashwin Sanghi is a fabulous read. One cannot escape the thought of seeing similarities in concept with 'Angels and Demons' or The 'Da Vinci Code' of Dan Brown, but the adaptation and creativity involved in setting it in Indian context is extremely appealing. The characters and the interweaving of them with Indian Mythology is something to appreciate. No wonder, a lot of study and data collection has been into it and the effort is visible. Anil Varshney,the youngest linguist and symbolist of India, who had spent significant portion of his work-life at archaeological sites had found four seals and a base-plate in Kalibangan site. The seals formed a prized possession and in order to safe-guard them, Prof Varshney keeps each seal with three trusted friends of his and saves the base-plate with himself.

Taarik Vakil, a serial killer and a firm believer of his being the kalki avatar (the 10th) of Lord Krishna, whose motive is to retrieve the seals starts plotting and killing the current owners of the seals to own them. He is richly influenced by Mataji, who as a teacher in his school-days had heavy impact on him. Prof.Ravi Mohan Saini,a Historian and one of the best friends of Prof.Varshney, who had possessed one of the seals, is suspected of killing him and others who possessed the other seals. With eminent police force led by Ms. Radhika, how Mr. Saini escapes from the police-clutches and decodes and uses the hints to unveil the mystery is the core of the story. In Mr.Saini's efforts, is a helping hand given by his doctoral student,Priya. 

At every stage, how the modern facts are linked and traced back to the mythological aspects,is very impressive and convincing. The story is well built and unfolds at a brilliant pace keeping the reader engrossed and amazed at the research gone into information gathering. How the author can convince the reader that nuclear weapons existed back in the ages of Krishna and how the astronomical data indicates the happenings of the past are convincing enough, aren't they? 

 The juxtaposition of the Krishna-avatar bits and the current story makes it a wonderful read. An awesome thriller with a surprising climax is worth a read. A different genre in Indian context. It would be criminal to prospective readers to reveal the juicy details of the story and turn a spoiler, although can't help but appreciate every bit of literature in there. If you were a strong believer earlier that Maharabharata didn't really happen, this book makes an attempt to think otherwise, with its own logic and narration. If that it can do, its a significant attempt for it is trying to question our belief of ages and gives an interpretation to the story we have heard of Krishna and Mahabharata for ages!

 This is my first read of Ashwin Sanghi's books and most certainly will not be the last one. It has opened the avenue for a new genre and a great writer for me and I will certainly read his 'Chanakya Chant' and 'The Rozabal Line'. All in all, a must-read thriller and my rating 4/5.
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Book Review: The Reluctant Detective

"The Reluctant Detective" is the story of Kanan Mehra aka Kay, a home-maker married to an MBA-husband and having a five year old son, who is driven into being a detective or someone close owing to the situation where there were back-to-back murders in the locality.

Just when the Mehra family was headed to a party, the police knock on the doors of the Mehra house to indicate that  Mrs.Sheetal Jaiswal, the person who Mrs. Mehra used to see everyday when out for the morning jog and had vaguely known, was murdered.

When the Mehra family was getting back from the Bollywood party they had attended in the evening, they encounter the dead body of a man close to their apartment complex.

The serial murders pushes the folks of the locality to panic and fear and a lot of curiosity on how Mrs. Sheetal Jaiwal was murdered.  While Mrs. Mehra is panic-stricken herself, she gets a calling from within her heart to help find justice to Sheetal, who she establishes a virtual bond with. Kay feels Sheetal was always trying to say something to her via the dreams the former saw. 

While the police made a thief confess for the murder of Sheetal, Kay refuses to believe that Sheetal was murdered for reasons of theft alone, because in the death spot, the ipod Sheetal had been using was left alone. Kay tries to find clues to nail down the actual reason/person being Sheetal's murder. She talks to the maids, her detective friend Runa and inspects the location where the murder took place to find clues which ultimately gives good reasons to suspect and identify the person responsible for Sheetal's murder. I will spare the thrill-factor here by not mentioning who the person was.

While the story line is a bit guessable, a little weak, there is a dash of humor to the whole story. Bound to enjoy the funny narrations in some pieces, but it seems an over doze in several other situations. When talking of murder and death, perhaps, humor is not always recommended or natural. Kay seems overly obsessed with the weight and looks she possessed and on ways to improve it, a reader gets about fifty percent of the book to read about the description of the weight/dress issues which gets a little redundant.

Some things that I couldn't stop taking notice of, how can a child "talk" with wrong spellings, "write" I agree. Although I understand the intent and perhaps the idea was to differentiate the kid's conversation and say that the child pronounces words differently, but he also happens to talk in sms language. How can a child say "u" instead of "you", as I said, for writing, I agree and its believable.

Another observation was, if only Mr.Mehra who followed Kay during her morning walk post the murders to ensure her safety had called out her name instead of seeming like stealthily following her, he would have been spared the pepper-spray treatment! Perhaps, I was getting a little too involved here!

Nevertheless, it brings out the thought that situations can turn a home-maker who had  very normal agendas in her daily routine into someone to help in different capacities. The concept is appealing. Good attempt for a first-time novelist. I wish the author many more successful ventures ahead.

Rating: 3/5

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Book Review: Harbart

Nabarun Bhattacharya's "Harbart"  translated to English by Arunava Sinha is a story revolving around Harbart Sarkar. Born to LalitKumar and Shobarani on 16th Sep, 1949, grew up to be a  fair and lean man having caucasian build. Although Lalitkumar had made handsome money from the war economy, he didnt need much time to lose it by gambling with films. When Harbart was less than two years old, he had lost both his parents, his father due to a jeep accident and his mother within a gap of eight months due to electrocution when putting the clothes to dry. 

Owing to twist of events in life, he went on to stay in his uncle, Girish Kumar's house. Growing up amidst indifference and neglect, so much that it had not come to anyone's notice that Harbart had discontinued going to school, his aunt was the only person who had some love and care to offer. Harbart had dropped out of school after class five and did self-study at home.

 When Harbart was fourteen, he discovers the presence of a skull and a few bones in a tin trunk in his room. This incident had a indelible impact on him and evoked his curiosity and imagination to link the personality to which the skull may have belonged. Although he held on to them for a while, a couple of years later, he disposed of them into the AdiGanga. This was the beginning of his irresistible attraction to the concept of death and after-life. He got engrossed in reading more and more about the topics closely. He spent most of his days reading 'All about the Afterworld" and such on the attic-roof of his house, which had become his abode, more or less.

Growing up amidst bullying by his nephews, he took instant liking to one nephew of a different kind, Binu who came to Calcutta to study and stay at his uncle's house. Binu's episode in Harbart's life was going to change the latter's life forever. Binu, a committed communist got severely injured by police firing during one of his movements of protest. When in death-bed, Binu revealed the secret of the location of his diary in the house before he departed to the other world.

Life moved on, faint memories of Binu and yet after about thirteen or fourteen years post Binu's death, Harbart had a dream in which he supposedly saw Binu and the latter seemed to give him out a secret of a diary. He followed the instructions he got in his dream to find the diary. Then began, the belief and trust in his super-natural powers as a god-man being able to have dialogues with the dead. He was inclined to start a business with his new-found potential as the investment. Harbart, in his delirium, had not realised that the location of diary was told by Binu himself before he breathed his last.

Harbart, with his "Dialogue with the Dead" office, was able to mesmerize a few people and make some pennies as well. It looked like there was no turning back until  a letter came from a Rationalists' Association which challenged his powers and condemned Harbart of fooling people. An encounter, well planned by the Rationalists' Association which had planned a sting operation by sending a Belgian lady to Harbart to talk of her mother who was told as being dead but was actually not. Harbart, with the given information, had made comments assuming the lady's mother was dead. So, this conflicting behavior was reason enough for the Rationalist group to fight morally.  This event shook Harbart from within and unable to handle the situation, he gave in. He breathed his last.

Thus ended the life of a person who was struck by delirium, brought up around sheer neglect and ignorance to believe in his fantasized thoughts. Perhaps, a little affection and attention early on in his life, would have saved him?

A story well-woven and vocabulary supreme, is a engrossing  and thought-provoking read.

Rating 3.5/5

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Brave show

How often do we take things for granted? Things that get so less focus from us as long as they function properly can seem insignificant too. Today, I want to make a conscious effort to applaud one such thing ( or a pair) for putting up a good show and saving grace. They stood the tests of time and ups and downs (stairs)of life for the day.

My footwear, my saving grace for the day. When I left home, they looked seemingly fit, but as the day progressed, one of the pair tried to hold itself together just to get me 'going' until I called it end of the day!

Thanks to you, for being on guard when fit and more even when you weren't. RIP.

Book Review: I'm not Twenty Four...

Sachin Garg's "I'm not Twenty Four..." is an easy-read. If one forms audience for the kind of books that don't lay much stress exhibiting literary richness, but attempt a casual and college-goer approach to narration, this is one such.

A story centered around Saumya, an MBA-graduate based out of Delhi, placed to work at Toranagallu, a small village in Karnataka.

 A city-bred girl with desires and wants like any other care-free girl happens to land in a setup demanding rigidity, strong-will and dare to face  real challenges in the form of deaths and accidents of employees at workplace. Certainly the job at hand was not for the soft-hearted. Partly, her name which could be mistaken for a boy's, lands her in a job so highly-demanding.

While Saumya introspected about handling the job or calling it quits, Amit, Mallappa and Shubro form her friend-circle during her stay at Toranagallu. Saumya didn't need to sweat to seek attention, she got more than she desired for, sometimes more than it could annoy, primarily for her looks and her being the lone lady employee in the department. However, her meet with  Shubro, a Bengali hippie, during her visit to Hampi stumps her. His Hugh-Grant-like looks was an instant attraction for her and his stories of 90-day stay in a place and move-on theory amazes her. Although a short meet, it was going to change her life forever, sooner or later. Before she departed from Hampi, she left him her address with a ray of hope he might consider his next 90-day stay at her place. 

Not all meets transform into love, so she thought and got involved with her work and work-place, developed a short-lived flair for Mallappa which ended in a tragedy. Hit by trauma, she was vulnerable and needed someone to support her emotionally. To her luck, Shubro does come over to Toranagallu for his next 90-day plan. 

A person who had travelled around the world but said less about himself was being a mystery to Saumya. She always felt the love for him but feared to admit that he might walk out of her life at the dawn of 91st morning. 

It happened, they fell in love and he walked out on the 91st dawn while he remained the mystery he was. She was unsure if he really loved her and made attempts to erase him from her memory, but as luck would have it, she chances upon his blog where he had posted about his love for her. The mystery surrounding the man unravels in his blog and she loves him more than ever for all the philanthropic causes he had worked around the world and made a difference to thousands of poor people. She discovers that he loves her truly too. She heads straight to find her love in Andaman and Nicobar, where Shubro had planned his next 3 months, and the story ends talking of a new beginning.

My Rating : 3/5

A book one would not drop mid-way if the expectation doesn't rise beyond easy-read.

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Interface with the world

The more we are out of our "Hello World" domain, the more we learn the lessons for life. The other day I happened to meet a cab driver who was as frustrated with his work as I probably was with mine, but the difference being he had an attitude to face life head-on, which I probably didn't have. When his boss called him up to impose  certain restrictions on him and the protocol he needs to follow, which the driver felt were unreasonable, the driver strictly refused to budge and said, he would park the car at his (boss') house in one hour after having dropped me and quit the job! For once, I felt he was being impractical and short-sighted to be quitting the current job, but I was amazed at his confidence to see what ensues but not deal with insanity being driven to him.

What I see is that being tolerant can be mis-read as being submissive. Talking what we believe in and being assertive about what we think and do is of utmost importance to safeguard our identity. Jobs can come and go, but identity needs to stay. Lesson learnt.

Two for life

X is a friend known to my husband as well as me. He is due to get married in a few months and as would any about-to-be-married guy be ragged and instilled fear, he is done the damage too. 

X seemed to have found my hubby online on fb and has had a conversation on random things.The topic of marriage has come up and X was pretty surprised at how my hubby has responded. Unlike others who seemed to have scared him  off marriage ( well, almost), my hubby has encouraged him to get married saying "It takes two to make lives meaningful" or something in that sense.

X was so happy to hear that from him that he pinged me to say what my hubby had told him. He said he had never heard such encouraging words from other friends who were married. They always made fun of marriage like many do (including me).

X was happy and went. But tell me, when my hubby says, "it takes two..." , don't I have the right to know when the second one is coming? Or if she already has?