Reviews & Musings

Source: Goodreads.com ~About the book~ RECLAIM / RESIST is a forthcoming two-part anthology series that aims to weaponize contemporary literature in reclaiming women's body from the oppression and victimization that we continuously endure in a capitalist-patriarchal society. RECLAIM: An Anthology of Women's Poetry will be the first installment of this series, set for release in Fall 2019. RESIST: An Anthology of Women's Prose will be out in 2020. You can know more about it HERE .

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...

Introduction Source: Amazon.in ISBN :    978-812-915-1506 Genre:  Fiction Publishers: Rupa Publishers Price:  Rs. 295/-  ( 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:  978-1545558089 Genre: Fiction Publishers: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform Price (Kindle Version): $3.99/-  ( I got the book for review from the b00k r3vi3ws ) One morning, Yael and Arik Katz are startled by a surprise inheritance: Noa, the ten-year-old daughter of Canadian friends with whom they had made a long-forgotten will-exchange agreement, is delivered to their doorstep with no warning. Why did her parents decide that she should grow up with acquaintances rather than family? How do you raise a girl you do not even know? Secrets and lies are revealed and everything starts to get complicated Noa does not find her place in Israel. Yael takes her back to Toronto to look for a more suitable adoptive home. The search reveals answers to questions that have not even been asked about parenthood, marital relations, love, one’s home, and the fragility of life. Can life ever be the same again? As Yael delves into Noa’s past to bett...

Introduction ISBN:  978-93-8150-6974 Genre:  Fiction Publishers:  Amaryllis Price:  Rs. 350/-  ( I got the book for review from the  publisher ) Nimisha is exhausted. Of endless weekdays, working weekends, making presentations, working with complicated Excel sheets, handling a boss with time-management issues and the general politics of the workplace. Sigh! After eight years of this life, her only personal insight is that she's terribly unambitious and constantly struggling to be an average performer in the competitive corporate world. When a colleague flashes the glint of a golden sabbatical she catapults into it headfirst. After all, one has to find one's calling at some point in one's life. So will the sabbatical miraculously change her life forever? Or will she go rushing back to her pocket money-generating job? Behind the Book Source: Goodreads.com

Introduction ISBN: 978-0670089420 Genre: Fiction/Drama Publishers: Penguin Random House Price: Rs. 499/-   Set in Lahore, This House of Clay and Water explores the lives of two women. Nida, intelligent and lonely, has married into an affluent political family and is desperately searching for some meaning in her existence; and impulsive, lovely Sasha, from the ordinary middle-class, whose longing for designer labels and upmarket places is so frantic that she willingly consorts with rich men who can provide them. Nida and Sasha meet at the famous Daata Sahib dargah and connect-their need to understand why their worlds feel so alien and empty, bringing them together. On her frequent visits to the dargah, Nida meets the gentle, flute-playing hijra Bhanggi, who sits under a bargadh tree and yearns for acceptance and affection, but is invariably shunned. A friendship-fragile, tentative and tender-develops between the two, both exiles within their own lives; but it flies...

Introduction ISBN: 978-93-83064-10-6 Genre: Non-Fiction/ Economics Publishers: Aleph Publishers Price: Rs. 399/-  ( I got the book for review from the publisher ) Nearly one in every twelve humans is a young Indian for whom meaningful education is of critical importance. A good education will not only help our youth get jobs and build fulfilling careers, it will also lead to the widening of our collective imagination and the shaping of the way we think; for all these reasons it ought to be an important concern of our time.Unfortunately, this is not the case. There is a lack of infrastructure, adequate funding and genuine autonomy within educational institutions, departments within those institutions and individuals who teach in those departments. And this is not all. There is also the question of the nature of knowledge that is relevant to our rapidly modernizing country that needs to be dealt with.If knowledge is the core of education and if education lays the very foun...

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...