Life as I know It

I recently finished reading The Shadow Runner by Vishal Bahukhandi. It is the story of two men - Govind and Veer- who join the Indian Military Academy, one motivated by revenge and the other by a paltry heartbreak, and their transition from ordinary to extraordinary. It is a story of camaraderie, brotherhood, determination, sacrifice, love and heartbreak.  A highly recommended novel for those interested in the Indian Army and the Indian Military Academy in particular.  For me, the highlight of the novel was the bold humour. I found myself chuckling and even laughing out loud over the course of the first half of the novel when Veer is an absolutely hopeless case.  The action scene at the beginning of the novel is well-written and does its job of hooking the reader.  The main characters are well-developed, the pacing is quick, and most importantly, the novel scores well on what I call the "gripping factor" that keeps the reader wanting to know what happens next. This ...

The Testaments is a 2019 novel by Margaret Atwood, the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale (1985).  The novel has three narrators: Aunt Lydia (who doesn't remember her from The Handmaid's Tale?), Agnes (the elder daughter of the Handmaid growing up in Gilead) and Daisy (or Nicole, the younger daughter of the Handmaid, who was smuggled out of Gilead as an infant and is growing up in Canada with her adoptive parents). The novel is fast-paced and doesn't waste any time. We are quickly introduced to the current-day Gilead and the rot that has set in society. What nobody knows is that Aunt Lydia is gleaning the evidence of all the wrongdoings by the Commanders and their Wives, and the other men in power. Aunt Lydia - what a transformation she undergoes while remaining true to character. We are given plenty of backstory about her beginning in Gilead and how she came to become an Aunt, the friends she betrayed and the crimes she committed to save herself. She is a tough, conniving c...

Career of Evil is the third novel in the Cormoran Strike series by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.  More than the gripping first chapter from the POV of the serial killer who wants to kill women and chop their bodies, more than the shocking object Robin Ellacott receives by courier, more than the gruesome backstories of the three prime suspects, more than the serial murders we witness from the POV of the murderer - what I enjoyed the most about this highly entertaining novel is the evolution of the relationship between the two primary characters, Cormoran Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott. It's the one uniting thread between all the novels in the series and the way their relationship evolves from the first novel to the subsequent novels has been depicted in a most delightful and engaging way.  Without giving away any spoilers, the real clues about the identity of the serial killer are hidden in the events of the story, amongst the re...

The Maze Runner is the first novel in the Maze Runner series by James Dashner.   From page one, the novel is a gripping, adrenalin-pumping, roller-coaster of an adventure in a dystopian science fiction setting. The protagonist, Thomas, finds himself in a metallic box that brings him to the Glade, a sort of an encampment in the middle of a massive, unsolvable maze. If you've guessed correctly that the Maze is a dangerous place inhabited by blood-thirsty creatures that are half-animal and half-machine, you're right. The Grievers always come out at night and sometimes during the day too. The Gladers, boys between twelve to seventeen years old, have established "order" to survive. They grow vegetables, rear animals for slaughter, build residential structures, bury their dead and they run. The best of the best become the Runners, who go into the dangerous maze each day, every day to find a way out, a way back into the normal world where Mom and Dad and normal things like s...

I stare at a blank page in front of me hoping to find the light of inspiration and the spark of an idea worth writing about. I’ve often heard and come across about three types of people – optimistic, pessimistic and realistic. The two extremes and the reasonable middle. One school of thought claims that if you remain constantly positive and - to quote what I’ve read - “if you want something badly enough”, you will achieve it. Another philosophy discredits this theory with the assertion that “wanting something badly” is not enough to actually achieve it. A poor person wants riches badly, but not every poor person in the world becomes rich. A blind person wants to see badly, but not ever blind person is able to see. One commonality among most successful people is that despite a flurry of failures early on in their chosen field of work, they never gave up. If something didn’t work out, they did not become disheartened. They learnt lessons from their failures and tried something diffe...

Some of the greatest novels that I have read and still recall fondly have one thing in common – memorable characters whose joys, sorrows, successes and disappointments seem very real and personal. A Suitable Boy sketches not one, but a multitude of characters, from a genius child of ten to an irascible doctor of seventy, whose contours start appearing as we are introduced to them, and who, by the time we finish the last page with a sigh, have taken an indelible shape on the canvas of our minds, and a select few of them find a way into our hearts. A Suitable Boy begins with the wedding of Pran Kapoor and Savita Mehra, the elder sister of Lata Mehra, whose mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, vows to find “a suitable boy” for her younger daughter as well. The incidents span over a period of a year and the story culminates with the wedding of Lata almost a year later. During this period, Lata falls in love with Kabir Durrani, who, among other things, is a Muslim. The setting is a little after...

8th of March was celebrated worldwide as International Women’s Day. As a woman, I received wishes from friends, colleagues and family, but the day held no special joy for me as a woman. In a country like India where crime against women is on the rise, where politicians and netas make outrageously sexist remarks with impunity, where a certain Prime Ministerial candidate flippantly attributes something as grave as malnutrition in his State to ‘figure-consciousness’ of girls (can you believe that?), where rape victims and their families are asked by the Church to ‘stay away’, where eve-teasers and acid-throwers get away with light sentences, where extremists barge into private parties and beat up and molest girls, where a young girl stepping out of a pub is molested and stripped by a crowd goaded on by a reporter, where thousands of tribal and low caste women are raped with an audacity that is shocking, where Nirbhaya faces an unspeakable ordeal but doesn’t go down without a fight… I...