Reviews & Musings

Source: Goodreads.com Kashmir, a place that has been called heaven on earth, has been bleeding since decades now and sadly there is not much respite to its plight. While my heart goes out to all the Kashmiris who have faced the brutalities time and again, my mind is throbbing with questions as I try to delve deeper and understand the what, how and why. Written by Ashok Dhar, who was born and brought up in Kashmir, this book promises to be give you a first hand insight into the Kashmir issue.   *-*-* Stories of the trauma and betrayal faced by Kashmiris have been told, the events retraced and analysis offered. And yet, one of the most long-standing disputes in India’s post-Independence history remains unsettled. If it were up to Lal Ded, a Sufi poet, she would offer the most difficult solution so far—to look within. Kashmir As I See It, a personal journey interspersed with geopolitical analysis, is not only about the state but also about the voice that yearns to be...

About the Book: I am one of you . . . that is why I, and only I, can be trusted to do what is good for you.  January 12, 2013. Sachin Lohia, billionaire businessman, has just woken up to a nightmare. A raging fire in his hospital. Over hundred people dead. Journalists demanding answers. And worst of all, the chief minister of West Bengal, the formidable Devi, calling him a murderer. Hot-headed and stubborn, Devi doesn't bother with formalities or facts.  Her people are baying for blood, and Sachin is the perfect scapegoat. But will her schemes bring about his downfall or will she be the one to get hurt in this battle of wits? Seamlessly melding the personal and the political, this is a darkly satirical story of clashing egos, fatal misunderstandings, and dangerous self-deception. Irreverent, incisive, occasionally scabrous, and always bold, The Antagonists shines a light on the murky world of politics Get your copy

Introduction Source: Goodreads.com ISBN:978-93-5304-154-0 Genre:  Non-Fiction/ Politics  Publishers: Rupa Publications Price: Rs. 299/- (I got the book for review from the publisher)

Introduction ISBN :   9789386538970 Genre:  Fiction Publishers: Fingerprint! Publishing Price:  Rs. 250/-  ( I got the book for review from the  publisher )

Introduction ISBN :  978-8129149671 Genre: Non-Fiction/Biography / Politics Publishers: Rupa Publications India Price:  Rs. 500/-  ( I got the book for review from the publisher )

Introduction ISBN :  978-9386702333 Genre:  Fiction/ Drama Publishers: Speaking Tiger Publishing Private Limited Price:  Rs. 299/-  ( I got the book for review from Writer's Melon )

Introduction Source: Goodreads.com ISBN:  978-8129147547 Genre:   Non-Fiction / India / Business / Economics Publishers:  Rupa Publications Price:  Rs. 294/-  ( I got the book for review from the   author )

Introduction Source: Goodreads.com ISBN:  978-8193432006 Genre:   Non-Fiction / India  Publishers:  Westland  Price:  Rs. 275/-  ( I got the book for review from the   publisher )

Introduction Source: Goodreads.com ISBN:  978-817-599-4744 Genre:   Non-Fiction / India / Economies Publishers: FingerPrint Publishing Price:  Rs. 250/-  ( I got the book for review from the   publisher )

Introduction ISBN:  978-812-914-8469 Genre: Non-Fiction Publishers: Rupa Publications Price:  Rs. 195/-  ( I got the book for review from the  publisher ) Khushwant Singh was convinced that India is a great country. He believed that we are the world’s largest democracy and our people, including women, enjoy a measure of political freedom unknown to any other developing country of the world. On India is a selection of Singh’s best writings on the country. The selection of articles in this book spans a wide range of topics: The four metropolises, including the seven reasons why Khushwant Singh loves Delhi, recollections of the Partition, the seasons, holy men, etiquette, rise of the far Right and corruption, among others. The book ends on a happy note with some of the author's favourite jokes. Khushwant Singh’s on India will help us understand India better. Behind the Book Source: Goodreads.com

Introduction ISBN: 978-812-914-5710 Genre: Non-Fiction/Politics Publishers: Rupa Publications Price:  Rs.195/-  ( I got the book for review from the publisher ) Set in the once-fabled land of Kashmir, Behold, I Shine moves beyond male voices and focuses, instead, on what the struggle means for the Valley’s women and children—those whose husbands remain untraceable; whose mothers are half-widows; those who have confronted the wrath of ‘Ikhwanis’, or the scrutiny of men in uniform, and what it means to stand up to it all. This book also brings to focus the resilience of the Valley’s women and children—of activists like Parveena Ahangar and Anjum Zamrud Habib, who, after debilitating losses, start human rights organizations; of ordinary homemakers like Munawara who have taken on the judiciary; and of a young generation of thinkers like Uzma Falak and Essar Batool who foreground the interaction of gender, politics and religion, and won’t let Kashmir forget. Stitchi...

Introduction ISBN:  978-81291453211 Genre: Non-Fiction /Politics Publishers: Rupa Price:  Rs.295/-  ( I got the book for review from the publisher ) In 1989, an adolescent schoolboy from downtown Srinagar watched as his elders extricated themselves from university campuses, high-school grounds, hand-loom machines and farms to bear arms and fight a war of attrition against the Indian state. Twenty-two years on, Jaffna Street was born from his explorations of the human dimension of the conflict appositely termed the Kashmir tragedy. Combining anecdotes, personal memories and extended interviews, the author takes us behind the scenes and headlines into Srinagar city’s ‘notorious’ perpetually politically charged downtown as well as its upper city-side belt to create a panoramic portrait of recent Kashmir history. He profiles ordinary people—hit-men, insurgents, artisans, failed Marxist intellectuals, mystics, exiles, gangsters and ordinary individuals—who would...

Introduction ISBN:  978-93-86224-22-4 Genre: Non- Fiction /Travelogue Publishers:  Westland Price:  Rs.350/-  ( I got the book for review from the  publisher ) Delhi, Pathankot, Jammu, Rajouri, Srinagar, Sonamarg, Drass, Kargil, Leh, Hunder...Turtuk After a long stint as a journalist, amongst others, with India’s foremost English news channel, Times Now, Sabir Hussain decided to chase his life’s most cherished dream... At forty-eight, going on fifty, he picked up his ‘ordinary’ motorcycle one day, and decided to ride alone from Delhi to Turtuk in Ladakh, India’s northernmost point on the LoC. Travelling on a shoestring budget through the historic Mughal Road, bereft of any fancy travel accouterments, living in nondescript hotels and homes of friends, this is a passionate saga of a man who takes you on the ride of your life, traversing 3,200 kms on breathtaking and often dangerous roads. This is the story of a journalist-traveler who not only succee...

Introduction ISBN: 9789352015474 Genre: F iction  Publishers: Frog Books Price:  Rs.375/-  ( I got the book for review from the author ) 'The Last Bloom' is a story of Priya, her dreams, aspirations and struggles to fit into her new college life and its politics. Priya was ecstatic, as she was admitted to her dream college. All her visions of adventurous rock climbing trips, long night jollification with bosom friends, class bunking in lieu of movie shows, tasting lip smacking street side delicacies with classmates-a new exciting world would now unfold before her! But college is different from Priya's idyllic dreams. In an environment as opposed to that of school, exposed to an educational system, which is controlled by political unions, will naive Priya be able to survive without any political protection? Caught between the college hero Suvo's charming words and her acrid tussles with conceited college dropout Vivek, will immature Priya be able to different...

Introduction ISBN: 978-8129142177 Genre: Non fiction / Biographies Publishers: Rupa Price:  Rs.395/- ( I got this book from the publisher for a review ) Did Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose die in an air crash in Taihoku (Taipei, Taiwan) on 18 August 1945? Was he sent off to Siberia by Joseph Stalin? Did he die there? Or did he escape? Or was he let off, eventually to make his way back to India? Was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba of Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh? If so, how did he find his way back? Why did Bose leave India when he did? Was it on account of his political approach, which was opposed by the then high command of the Congress party that wanted a quick transfer of power from the British? The past comes alive as journalist and author Kingshuk Nag seeks answers to these and related questions at a time when there is a considerable renewal of interest in Netaji's fate with old records tumbling out, the latest being the declassification of 64 files on the subject by the W...

Introduction ISIN: 978-1-4088- 3780-1 Genre : Non-fiction / Politics/ Women Publishers: Bloomsbury Price: Rs. 399/- ( I received the book for review from the publisher ) Women of the World tells this story of personal and professional struggle against the dramatic backdrop of war, super-power rivalry and global transformation over the last century and a half. From London to Washington, Geneva to Tehran and in the deserts of Arabia, the souks of Damascus and the hospitals of Sarajevo, resolute women undaunted by intransigent officials and hostile foreign governments proved their worth. A lustrous book which traces the often agonizing rise of women in the Foreign Office and mercilessly dissects the resistance they encountered Peter Hennessy A path-breaking account, from one of our leading and most original historians of modern Britain, of how the male-dominated world of British diplomacy gradually - and grudgingly - let professional women in. It should be read by e...

Introduction ISBN : 978-0-143-42399-7 Genre: Non fiction Publishers: Penguin Price: Rs. 399/- ( I got this book from the publisher for review ) From “one of his generation’s most inventive and gifted writers” (The New York Times) , intimate and sharply observed commentary on life, art, politics, and “the war on terror.” Mohsin Hamid’s brilliant, moving, and extraordinarily clever novels have not only made him an international bestseller, they have earned him a reputation as a “master critic of the modern global condition” (Foreign Policy). His stories are at once timeless and of-the-moment, and his themes are universal: love, language, ambition, power, corruption, religion, family, identity. Here he explores this terrain from a different angle in essays that deftly counterpoise the personal and the political, and are shot through with the same passion, imagination, and breathtaking shifts of perspective that gives his fiction its unmistakable electric charge. A ...