Reviews & Musings

Behind the Book:  Source: Amazon.in A renowned architect and artist on how public architecture in our cities has lost contact with the lives of the common people. Behind the seemingly ordinary life of a practicing architect lies a whole host of non-professional impulses that give shape to buildings. Stories of Storeys: Art, Architecture and the City is about these impulses and conditions—social, literate, personal and political—which are expressed, but often ignored in architecture. Bhatia looks at the ordinary, physical, visible and tactile involvement of our urban environment and the way it affects, communicates with, or influences us. An all-inclusive sociology of architecture, the book draws on the social life of some of architecture’s role players, people whose peculiar demands on design have come to characterize the building environment of our times, and times that are characterized by this progressive isolation of architecture from the society of common people...

Having lost his father at an early age, Amit grows up in great hardship. Amit, his mother, and Supriya, his sister—who struggles with a disabling affliction that confines her to bed—still manage to live a happy life even as they nurture a collective dream: to see Amit become a doctor. Growing up in the comforting familiarity of Jabalpur, Amit fulfills this dream but life continues to place roadblocks to happiness. Amit’s wife, Nikita, suffers from schizophrenia and he is faced with the challenge of bringing up his children in an atmosphere of familial discord and distrust. Amit faces all these challenges, and yet, never turns away from any of the ties that bind him. Eternal Bonds brings to you the poignant story of a family that respects and nurtures the bonds of relationships in the face of severe emotional challenges. It is not everyday that you come across a book that moves you to tears and leaves you grappling with a plethora of emotions for days after having f...

About the Book: In December of 1961, twenty-year-old Krishna Bedi landed at a port in New York armed with only 300 dollar in his pocket and a resolve to study engineering in the United States. What transpired then is a story of one man's perseverance and determination to create the life he had always dreamed for himself as a little boy in India—a place where his options seemed anything but limitless.  Krishna K. Bedi’s memoirs reflect the hardships and the triumphs on his path to fulfilling his dream of becoming an engineer and returning home to India as a successful man. A lesson in attitude, survival, perseverance and grit, Bedi brilliantly narrates the story of the immigrant experience, his close-knit relationships and enmeshing cultures—a story that not only affirms the American dream, but also resonates with millions.

About the book: Source:  The Hindu Business Line Kalyani comes from a lineage of famous devadasis, though there is no place for her talent in the Madras of newly independent India.  The devadasis, once celebrated as artists, are shunned as 'prostitutes' in a modern country. In exchange for a comfortable life as the wife of a wealthy arts promoter, Kalyani has to keep her origins hidden and abandon her mother, Rajayi.  When a Bharatanatyam dancer from the city sets out to record Rajayi's dance repertoire on film, the carefully wrapped-up past threatens to unravel.

From the Blurb:  Source: Goodreads.com At lunchtime on 27 April 1959, the handsome naval commander Kawas Nanavati was told by his English wife Sylvia that she was having an affair with their flamboyant businessman-playboy friend, Prem Ahuja. Later that evening, armed with a revolver, Nanavati stormed Ahuja’s bedroom and shut the door behind him. Three gunshots were heard going off inside. Ahuja was dead. Ahuja’s murder set in motion an extraordinary public frenzy – thousands descended on the streets of Bombay chanting in favour of the hero Nanavati and the jury, swept off their feet by the dazzling naval officer in the dock, returned a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict. This trial was the death knell of the jury system in India.  It hurtled a judiciary keen on preserving justice into confrontation with an executive bending to the will of hysterical crowds and tabloids and Nanavati’s powerful friends in the establishment. In this laboriously researched book – part thriller...

Source: Amazon From the Blurb: From the pine tree forests of Switzerland, a thriller-romance which will take your sleep away… A sad twist of the destiny catapults Anna, young Brazilian woman, into a reality greater than her. Driven by desire to help and make the good, she’ll find herself slave of human trafficking gangs, in the hands of merciless torturers ready to sell her to the richest bidder. Only using her cunning she’ll be able to escape, helped by the Swiss officer Thomas Graff, a man with an icy heart and past he can’t leave behind. The crash between two different cultures that will make sparks fly! This is Anna’s story, undeservedly a victim like many other women. Among intrigues, betrayal, crimes and games of fate, the young lady will fight for freedom and love. Grab your copy I had been avoiding romance novels for a while now mainly because I was tired of the same old plot lines with nothing much to offer to a reader. But the moment...