Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Vitasta Publishing Pvt.Ltd (1 February 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-9382711216
The Blurb:
When Mrinalini, an art restoration expert, ventures into the ruins of Rang-Mahal and the Palace of Sumangarh, an accidental discovery of a skeleton and a manuscript detailing the exploits of Daniel, a Portuguese artist, opens a window to the forgotten era of grace and grandeur. The blossoming of love between a Moghul Emperor and a Rajput princess, is seen through the eyes of a foreign traveller, who himself falls in love with Jodhabai.
Publisher: Rupa • Published: 2013 • ISBN-13: 9788129124272 • Language: English •Binding: Paperback • Pages: 240 He is not your gentlemanly Murdoch or sassy Lynley- he is a man with passion set whole hearted for work. He is inspector Virkar- the otherwise amchi mumbaite. The city that reeks of crime and that gives least introduction of the underworld the roams free in the streets. But the compass Box killer- is not connected with the Big Fishes of the crime world. The twist is not just in the name- the twist is about the mastermind that leaves behind such tantalizing and spine chilling notes written in blood.
“For those who dare to leap over Time- The Mighty Clock has prickly
hurdles laid on their wake.” The same can be said in case of Scarlet Crescent-
written by Rajeshwari Chauhan. Nobility will always be able to sketch the
absolute picture of what happens behind the gigantic walls of a kingdom or an
empire. And Chauhan scores her first mark right there. With sense of splendor
and an eye of acute imagination she is able to retell story of the love from
the past. The vibes and the tug of passion are well addressed through the
choice of words most appealing to the ear…
But Scarlet Crescent is not exactly what you are thinking. It
is a story written like a movie script. The writer has experimented with the
format further more and has wrote the whole of it engaging three languages-
Urdu, Hindi and English. It never runs in paragraphs- instead actions, and
scenes separate each event and occurrence from one another. Dotted with images of
Mughal arts, related artifacts objects and most vivid flowers- the book is
heavily illustrated- may be too much- to distract the readers.
Indeed Scarlet Crescent is beyond its time. For in India at least a story that
reads like a play- refers constantly to different languages -will confuse a
layman reader. The use of props to give the mystery element an extra boost will
remain in the shadow for overdoing the twist and turns with present time and
flashback. Physically the book is too heavy- a normal 223 pages book never
makes your hands ache even you lay down on your armchair for a lazy reading
afternoon. The cover design will draw interest of many- but once they flip
through the book they will find it hard to convince themselves to regard this
as their best buy. The sentences are too close to each other- the font size is
too small- the margin alignment is not uniform. For a story to reach the heart
of its reader- perfect combination of the above points is most mandatory.
A bookworm will give this book a try and even enjoy its nuances of ecstasy and instance
word play- the rest of the hurdles he will cross- just to fulfill his appetite-
but Scarlet Crescent was surely not written to appease a handful. It is quite
oppressing for a writer to see her story getting butchered to such trying
presentation. My suggestion would be to readdress all the above issues and
give the book a fresh look. For it hurts to see a great story going unnoticed in
this fashion.
Note: Umberto Eco’s – The Name of Rose seems close to the way this particular
story goes- but that became a bestseller and a masterpiece for it could reach
out to the readers right from the beginning.
When big shots
write the layman must simply adhere to their fancy words! Tough for the spirit
born over burning coal- I must say! With the financial world laying aside their
pinkish newspapers and stock ledgers and picking up novels that coined new
genre- financial thriller- creativity became more of an universal skill. Lucky to
have got introduced to Indian John Grisham from the Banking world aka Ravi Subramanian.
Life is more like a dissected phase- and a certain amount of
confinement is sure to drive you hungry for thrill. 45 days in a cancer
hospital by Alka Dimri Saklani was a fitful inclusion to such boring
confinement. At least the protagonist had the pleasure to have her way out of
her hospital bed- all are not so lucky always. I will call the book a medical
suspense that dragged itself too long- since it’s her debut. Consolidation is
lacking at places- though the thrill, the romance, the sleuth attitudes and the
crook are all rightfully placed about the plot.
The story is about a successful writer trying her luck at
writing a novel from her close quartered experience. She intends to spend about
45 days in Umeed hospital, live in the proximity of ailing and dying cancer
patients with the dominant wish to write a book on their life experiences. But
then, the hospital has more to give her than just the saddening tragedies of
human lives. Having a mentality disturbed doctor as the man behind the wheels,
and few other cheats as assisting doctors- ready to kill anyone trying burst off
their nefarious organ racket is enough for a writer to bite on. But our protagonist
by god’s grace is sensitive and strikes a bond with the innocent victims right
from the beginning. She smells a rat late into the night and turns to her man
of interest a CBI official.
I found the setting more dramatic than the story. For you
have a psychotic person as a gate keeper, a confusing toiler for a gardener, a
disabled person nursing grievances as a pharmacist, some polarized nurses and a
whole faculty of doctors holding back a lot of secrets. Not to forget, a malicious peon lurking around
to snap your mind into two. And if you are speaking of action-yup! Alka does
have them at places- like walking on a thin parapet, being chased by a murderous
doctor, taking up disguises to investigate and sneaking around the hospital at
night to find out who is the other sneaker prowling at this hour.
On the whole the story could have been a bit shorter- to
justify the strong characters that the writer has painstaking etched out. Ashritha and Animesh are fitting
lead pairs- and Dr Chatterjee is one person you are bound to feel sorry for-
thus-I can afford a 3 out of 5 for the medical thriller laying vanquished on my
table right at this moment.
Format: Paperback Language: English Pages:242 Price:195
Publishers: Rupa Publications
ISBN Number: 9788129120175
Talking of Underworld- I am not surprised. Why! Because- you
need to paint it in macabre colours- and the red and black combo with a
silhouette guy pointing the gun at someone I can’t see is a perfect cover for
Piyush jha’s Mumbaistan. Hoot! The name-you can only get them in this part of
the world. “Stan”- is so Sanskrit and guys tell me it’s a dead language- say,
that again and I will turn you into my punching bag. The book is indeed a
punching bag. It never spills the beans, thus waits for you to discover the
rotten seeds in our society all by yourself.
I have this special liking for dark characters-no one seems
to understand that kids are born angels- but events turn them evil over the
years. Readers, who have already spent hours with Piyush’s new installment, can
very well understand I am hitting at Rabia, Aalamzeb and Porus Udwadia. I am
not so fond of the Coma Man- so I will keep that story out of our discussion. But just in case you wish to hear some of the
record babble- here it goes- a man wakes up from a long sleep shocking the good
but big mouth nurse, rushes out of the hospital- and makes you walk backwards
along with him- tasting communal and personal manipulation- love and jealous
and finally getting drowned in tight embrace in the watery abyss.
Chased by windmills of one’s mind- the stories are just some
delicious icing over the real Kill bills. You face the reels jumping out of the
movie screen as you keep turning the pages. The stories don’t promise you to
leave alone. Haunting to the core- justifying their plot line- as if
establishing a extraterrestrial code of law. All the three of them are sensational
pick depicting city life unless what we desire to see through high rising tinged
glass walls. After all only a man behind the view finder is capable of dragging
you out of your comfort zone and tell you how- pretty faces turn villains and
how love get sold out during chaotic hours of existence. And I got my favorite
among them- ACP Hani. Rumour has it- cops eat out from the hands of money
powered ring leaders- but not this character. He goes out there and does just
what the book asks him to do-hunt the predator and eliminates it as quietly as
possible. Indeed a book that keeps you hooked up! Straight 4.5/5 from me!
“Chicken soup for the Indian soul at work” is a book to look out for. After all, it’s subtitled- “teens talk growing up’! There isn’t much confusion about what it deals with. One can sum it all up by saying that this book is a slice of life, talking about people who have faced some tough times and have survived through it all. The focus is on the Indian youngsters. They are the people whom we neglect thinking them to be too young to understand yet bordering adulthood. Yet in their own way they have faced some adversities in life and have battled them, ultimately surpassing them all and coming out on top. The key is not to give up and have unrelenting faith in you even if the situation is utterly hopeless. This book is a tribute to all these individuals.
So, exactly, when is the right time to think about-“Ah! This life pains, wish I had known the way to Utopia?” Some won’t have given a second thought- if their miserable life would lead them to the enchanting island of Tennyson’s “Lotus Eaters”. But the barter to this rather chance of walking down the illusive path way is never easy- you got to leave behind your sense of rationality.
Book: Midnight's Children Author: Salman Rushdie ISBN: 0099578514 ISBN-13: 9780099578512,978-0099578512 Binding: Paperback Publishing Date: 1995 Publisher: Vintage Edition: 1stEdition Number of Pages: 464 Language: English
(Since there was so much of hue and cry about this author, I felt of breaking some rules and included a book I liked reading and I wrote about long time back. Thus, this is more of musing less of scrutiny- that I usually employ in Book reviews.)
It is difficult to deny the burden on the back, it’s prickly and heavy and how much we try to shrug it off, it sticks on harder….it’s the historical burden of the past. The language I am writing in right now, is essentially not mine, but borrowed from another land, my ways are not those of my people but an amalgamation of what I have and what I have borrowed. Thus it was never very difficult to understand this lingering sense of borrowed past, this impossible burden of past as I flipped through the first few pages of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.
Salman Rushdie, has a made a name for himself as a controversial novel writer. All his novels are characterized by an epic sweep of narration, a plethora of allusions to real events, real people, mythological and literary characters, and hilarious, often ribald humour reminiscent of Tristram Shady.
Rushdie has written eleven fictions- Grimus(1975), Midnight’s Children(1981), Shame(1983), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), The Wizard of Oz (1992), East, West (1994), The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001),Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992 - 2002 (2002),Shalimar the Clown (2005) and The Enchantress of Florence (2008). And most of them speaks of good overcoming the evil force, or at least survives. Perhaps for this one might be forced to agree that Rushdie is a romantic who uses the medium of satire, much like his Indian counterparts and in his own way presents a story where past and present overlap to give a blurred future.
Midnight Children expresses an historical connection through the literary journey. This journey is again not singular; it is the journey of self and a nation. Born at the dawn of Indian independence and destined, upon his death, to break into as many pieces as there are citizens of India, Saleem Sinai manages to represent the entirety of India within his individual self. His is the writer-protagonist, a son of an Englishman who has seduced the wife of a Hindu street singer. He is educated at the Cathedral and John Connon’s Boy’s School in Bombay. He is the ‘Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and Piece-of-the-Moon’, who rise and fall is linked miraculously to the faith of a new born country.
The Mexican critic Luis Leal has said, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world," or toward nature. He adds, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."
Writers like García Márquez, who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world. And Marquez’s A Hundred years of Solitude had a great influence on Rushdie’s take on Midnight Children, especially in the context of the theme.
The theme of magic reality, the combination of the two heavy words makes its presence felt almost in every page of the novel, a sense of overlapping entities that further tries to invade the identity of the reader itself. Saleem Sanai talks of 365 voices jostling and shoving each other inside him. And as the reader travels along the course of the story, he finds himself becoming a part of those persistently chattering voice. This is magical, yet an undistinguished reality. For, even if a reader is born much after the main events supporting the novel, has occurred, its sweeping history has become his own history; an important identity that cannot be considered a ganglion and amputated right away. The above observation lies true when we are to recall the gory Jalianwala barg massacre, the pains of the Emergency period, the terrorist attacks and the Bangladesh war. At one point, in Midnight’s Children, Saleem, makes use of the metaphor of a cinema to explain his peculiar business of perception. The same can be used to understand the profound use of magic realism.
‘Suppose yourself in a large cinema, sitting at the first in the back row, and gradually moving up,… until your nose is almost pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars’ faces dissolve in the dancing grain; tiny details assume grotesque proportions; … it becomes clear that the illusion itself is reality.’
The movement towards the cinema screen is the metaphor for the narrative’s movement through time towards the present.
Thus Salaam Sinai is handcuffed to history. Rushdie has carefully drawn numerous parallels between the protagonist and his country, right from his face which resembles “the whole map of India” to his fortune which is “indissolubly chained to those of my country. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter.”
This is exactly the problem of modern man who is driven by the whirling chaos around him. Salaam is just one such victim who stands in the middle of disturbance and turmoil and like a speechless witness chronologically tries to reproduce history. But his memory fails to maintain the accurate dateline. And factual errors are prominent symptoms. He frets over the accuracy of his story and worries about future errors he might make. Yet again continues in his own rhythm adding metaphors and images that increase the authenticity of the notion, India is a land of illusion, where magic and reality reside side by side, and quite often intermingle to give a renewed identity to the mundane existence.
Surprising how life turns us into something else—when you have more promising acumen left to be churned out from within. “Where the rainbow Ends” by Dr. Sayantan Gupta would leave you baffled at the intensity with which a doctor’s pen spreads emotions over leaves of notebooks with a urge to get published one in a life time to begin with. It is sheer commitment to a passion or flair-a question I will ask the readers to think of-for with poetic confidence the practicing Gynecologist is able to declare in the poem- “I write for You”- Did you know?
That I write because
You make me write?
Yes, you inspire me
As you stir up all
My hidden emotions
And make a poet out of me.
The trend suggests that if you have crossed the half the way—it is time to recollect what all you have left behind. You try to analysis what all you have conquered, lost and grieved over and what new pleasures you have been able to successfully carry along with you- if not the the touch then perhaps the memories of it. If not the same old face, then perhaps a new one to take its place… I could almost feel the atonement hidden behind the assuring lines of “When You are Old”-
Even now if you feel all joy’s on the wane
In fountains of happiness, there’s somewhere some pain,
Do keep it in mind that I’m there with a balm
To ward off all hurt, make turmoil calm.
Don’t think I’m a cloud to cut off sunshine.
I’ve a little shade to offer, for in pain you’re mine.
Even when you grow old, an’ fear end’s near,
Even then at some crossroads you’d find me, my dear.
If celestial beings are watching us from above- then the genre of poetry is bound to thrive in the comforting presence of rebounding philosophy, teaching the otherwise reoccupied selfish minds to appreciate beauty if at its docile stages. Solitude yields to the establishment of one such poetic figurine of the Dr. Sayantan Gupta –
Far, far away,
In an unnamed plain
You stand alone
Bedecked in a simple sari,
White, bordered with scarlet,
Wrapped around to hide with grace
A beauty
Nature bequeathed.
Not much of the modern day chaotic humdrum, even though marked with antiquity in terms of linguistic revelations, the collection speaks in favor of positivity- even when delineating the saddening aspects of life. It is as if the book gets manifested into an indomitable motivator- pushing through the walls of the mental blocks of denial and bathing the dark alleys of your psyche with the first rays of the sun.
About the author:
Dr. Sayantan Gupta, is a Consultant Gynaecologist by profession, presently residing in and practicing at Malda, West Bengal, India. He is a trained Laparoscopic Surgeon as well.
Born in Chandannagar, West Bengal, on 24th March, 1955, his entire schooling was in the city of Calcutta (now, Kolkata). After his school days, at the St. Joseph’s College, Calcutta, where he studied from KG Class till his Higher Secondary, he graduated in MBBS from the N.R.S.MedicalCollege, Calcutta. Thereafter, he specialized in Gynaecology and Obstetrics, having completed his Post Graduation also from the CalcuttaUniversity.
In 2007 he quit Government Service and opted for exclusive private practice.
Writing is his passion. He writes prose, poetry and drama. Some of the dramas he had written have made successful stage productions.
An anthology of his poems in English, “Where the Rainbow Ends”, has been published in September, 2011.
He is an ardent Rotarian having served in different capacities at Club and District levels. This area of Service is his second passion. He has published two books; both widely acclaimed, on Rotarian subjects, one in Bengali and one in English. The book in English had got a very good review in the February issue of The Rotary News.
