The Phantom Rickshaw & Other Eerie tales by Rudyard Kipling..

A lot of us have always liked reading, watching movies and listening to the endless tales that grandmothers still sometimes tell us at bedtime. People like us wait for the morning’s paper, chat endlessly with our friends, gossip all day long and hear patiently the tales our co-workers tell us from their experiences. This thread that binds us and keeps us going is a common love for a good story and how it is told.

I particularly cherish all Indian tales. Coming from our land, these stories are rich with mystical drama, vibrant with color and as diverse and intriguing as stories can ever be.
The legendary tales of majestic kings, queens and magicians from history and ghostly accounts that friends tell when they get back from Himachal or Coorg, make it to my list of favorite tales that I can hear at any time. I love hearing about the fantastic setting of historical palaces, the grand words spoken and kept and how, the struggle of a million people in the Indian history and how they yielded their character at crucial moments and most of all the chronicles of paranormal activities at strange and frosty places in the countryside. A combination of all these would be my dream come true and I would any day let myself be consumed in the incredible aroma of this incantation.

Now the thing about ghost stories is that they are best told and not read. Told either by someone you know or through a movie with all its Dolby Digital sound track making the experience more marvelous and exciting. This is the reason why ghost storybooks don’t really appeal to me. Most such books I have read haven’t managed to tickle my senses except for “Omnibus” by Ruskin Bond. Its an adorable collection of fables and why I use the word ‘adorable’ here for a book of ghost stories is because, it has stories that I am sure you have heard before. They will bring back the memories of your childhood time when you heard the stories first. Reminding you of all the beautiful times spent with nanis and daadis and best buddies from childhood. These are the stories that I am sure we will pass on to our nieces, nephews and who knows even our grand children!

Book Review: The Phantom Rickshaw & Other Eerie Tales
A few days ago, as I browsed through a range of best selling classics on the shelf in my friend’s house, a thin paperback peered out at me and hit the chord in my mind that was in the mood for some wraithlike adventure.

Rudyard Kipling’s “The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Eerie Tales”, roused all the curiosity in me and soon I found myself enrapt in the loony, spooky and wondrous world of the vaporous beasts that might have been at large some great many decades ago.

It’s an amazing collection of parables from the times of the Raj that transport you effortlessly to an epoch of game hunting, hand punkha and rickshaw rides across the beautiful slopes of Simla. Rudyard Kipling is indeed one of the greatest story writers and especially in this compilation he has spun yarns that are truly eerie without the necessary presence of a ghost character and yet they leave the reader with an uncanny feeling that it’s not quite forgettable.

As the words right in its beginning of the book say “May no ill dreams disturb my rest, Nor powers of darkness me molest”, do read and enjoy this book!

Its available in India for Rs. 199. I for one will not forget to return this book to the friend who I borrowed it from! 

Whimsical trivia it is..

I should have written this a long time ago..
Before I heard the silent blow,
When senses were heightened and vision clear,
Before hope swept out and I cried o dear..

Entwined with the twilight the darkest hour,
That envelops within its core, the sour..
It's hard to see and numbness prevails,
The hardest part, memories remain..

From Here to what, from what to where,
Feels like looking for night in a wild dark fare..
Veracity has hit the whims in my veins,
And soon the mind will develop melancholic drains..

I should have written this a long time ago,
When words would have made a pure and pretty prose

Keep Off The Grass by Karan Bajaj

I had read many serious books lately and thought I could take a break. That’s when Keep Off The Grass by Karan Bajaj came into the picture.
Brought for me again by a friend who had this time read it himself and recommended the book as a great fun read. So I decided to give it a shot.
(Even though I thought I was done for life with the books written by the IIT/IIM types. Nothing wrong with the books though, in fact I really liked some of them specially Earning The Laundry Stripes by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar. But the decision was just that - a decision based on wanting to read a book that came out of a mind that doesn’t produce twirling tales of action that resulted due to suffocation by the trivialities of the rigorous IIT/IIM routines or because they just weren’t doing well at the course and had lots of time to smoke up, get wasted and write books. I mean, of course they all know what they are in for before taking admission there but still they enter and then they whine and struggle and whine more about it through their books. And publishers line up at their doorsteps and then people like us have to read those melodramatic almost the same sounding accounts of the ultra competitive rat race in their books just because some IIM graduate has written it.. oh c’mon! I thought I was done with that)

Book Review: Keep Off The Grass

A refreshing account of the escapades of an 'ABCD' Wall Street investment banker who quits his job, leaves his country and comes back to India to join the IIM in search of his roots and who he is within. Sure enough life as he finds it is not only very different but also difficult at IIM along with being a complete contrast from his high achieving spell at Yale. Throughout the process of breaking through within himself the protagonist makes friends and brushes past various incidents with aghorees at the ghats of Banares, auto rickshaw drivers doubling up as pimps and drug peddlers, the predictably corrupt cops and earnest promoters of Vipaasana in the Himalayas to being locked in a prison cell, knocking on Ruskin Bond’s door and anecdotes about many other lesser lives trudging along towards the grades glory at the IIMB. The incidents are witty, surreal and in a funny and strange way all credible.
The fast paced nature of the book takes you through a humorous joyride with a hint of mellow excitement as the author delves deeper into contact with his real self.
Keep Off The Grass by debutant novelist Karan Bajaj is available at leading bookstores for Rs 195/-

Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer

Bashrat Peer who is currently based in New York after a series of reporting stints with Rediff and Tehelka and after having written for various publications including The Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman and Foreign Affairs, recently released Curfewed Night.

It was gifted to me by a dear friend who thought I love reading depressing and sad non fiction books (which might actually be true).

I truely enjoyed reading the book and would reccomend it to all the people who appreciate reading a book that is a result of the author's honest and heartfelt rendition of the stories from his much beloved native village in the troubled Kashmir valley.

In the book, being the author's first, he writes beautifully yet matter of factly about the troubles that besiege the valley and how every man there lives in fear. He certainly has avoided any kind of melodrama or self pity in the narrative while rendering the lived experiences and deeply touching stories of the many unknown mothers, sons, poets and millitants from Kashmir.

Without presenting a political picture of Muslims versus Hindus, or Islamic fundamentalists versus secularists he has brought to light the situation of an agonised people whose lives have been torn asunder by factors beyond their control.

A wonderful and insightful read, Curfewed Night is available at all leading bookstores at Rs 395/-

Many thanks to my friend who picked it up for me :)

The spring has finally arrived..

I am a person of abounding big plans, ideas and musings and can easily be described as lazy. To tell the truth I am extemely happy with myself today for atleast initiating what I had been comtemplating ever since i.e. blogging!

Writing has always proved to be therapeutic specially for people like me who are very expressive and have almost always atleast something to say about anything and everything. Like I said before, lazy as I am, typing is what I found more convenient than writing and therefore here I am.

At this point it is difficult to predict the future of this blog and what literature it might dish out. It will atleast be full of trivial things that I fancy from time to time. The blog will mainly chronicle reviews on any new and interesting books I read, any new places I visit, reviews on restaurants, clubs, pubs and stores & salons and anything else that perks up my attention.

Wishing you a happy diversion from your hectic/sad/dull worklife and hoping any information provided was atleast entertaining if not helpful!