A humming word

Sita and Rama are the most unfortunate couple in the Hindu mythology. When I was growing up, my mother would often tell me, one must never name their daughters Sita or Janaki. Their fate and life was deplorable.  Volga, the pen name of Lalitha Kumari, is a noted feminist writer and is a stalwart in the Telugu Literature. And hence, this fictional account is written with its ink dipped in feminism. The right kind, ofcourse.  This book is set in Valmiki's ashram and Lava and Kusa are now grown up and explore the forest. Sita, along with the mothers in and around the ashram, performs the duties of a mother. However, nudged by fate, she begins her internal journey by meeting Ravana's disfigured sister, Surpanakha, who is now tending to a beautiful garden, Parsurama's abandoned mother, Renuka, the wronged Ahalya, and lastly Urmila. The book ends with the chapter on Rama, who was equally wronged, wrapped in the ethos and pathos of Arya Dharma. Also, my favourite chapter.  What ...

 When Manohar Grandhi, an enthusiastic member of the Hyderabad Book Club , shared that his daughter wrote a book. It took me by a surprise. Writing a book is a difficult task. Writing, while managing school work must be difficult but the young author who also entered the India Book of Records did it. Meet Disa Grandhi, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing over email.   Hi Disa,  Why did you think of the book? I wrote many stories in my storytelling class. So when I wrote my own stories this story was one of them. My parents encouraged me to write it in a book. What resources did you go through while writing?  I did not go through any resources to write this book. It is completely my own story. How was writing benefitted you at school? Now everyone in my school knows that I am a young author. My Principal Anju Madam, Supriya Madam, and my Class Teacher congratulated me when I met them personally.   How many books do you read in a month?  I read ...

After a baseball match, Murakami picked his pen and began writing by the kitchen stove; since then he has been weaving magic through lucid narratives making pedestrian events phantgosmagorical. Reading the twin novel “Wind/Pinball” which spans from 1969-73,   will make one realize there’s magic around us if we pick up a magnifying glass and carry it with us – or have a keen writer’s eye. Murakami adheres to   style which requires love for lyrical prose, music and nature and in this novel: The Pinball. It was a Sunday morning and the sky was piercing blue. The grass beneath our feet was filled with the premonition of its approaching death until next spring. Before long, it would turn white with frost, and then disappear with a blanket of snow. The snow would glitter in the crytal-clear morning sunlight. The pale grass crunched beneath our feet as we walked along. Back to novel one, it spans for eighteen days and it takes us through the life of the narrator ...

Rudyard Kipling, a Nobel laureate and popularly known for his book: The Jungle Book, was a prolific writer and he wrote till the day of his death on January 18, 1936. His book Kim was among his famous books and unfortunately I have not read the unabridged version but I did pick up a graphic novel version, adapted by Lewis Helfand and illustrated by Rakesh Kumar; the book is published by Campfire Books. I stumbled upon Campfire books at a Comicon in Hyderabad and picked up two books: one of Krishna and one on Ravana. Kim doesnt disappoint either. The color schemes, the illustrations and the sketches were done extremely well.The earthern colors, the seamless flow of the story and artistry shone through. Kim is set in early 1900s and revolves around The Great Game, a political confrontation between the British and the Russians for claiming Afghanistan and South and Central Asia. The central character Kim is a young boy, a son of a late  army officer, who lives in Ferozepu...

The Kalyan Mandapam was decorated with racks of books and tables with boxes of picture books and coffee table books. The stage was set with boxes and card machines. People formed lines to buy the boxes of three various prices: Rs. 999/- ; Rs. 1499/- and Rs. 2499/-. Lock-the-box by bookchor.com was an event that book readers would hoard to. Books of various genres and categories all stacked neatly in racks and people were picking them out like mangoes from orchards and placing them in their boxes. The seems of the mandapam had people seated with books and boxes. Each of them had to ensure the the boxes were filled and the price of the box was justified. A few of the book lovers shared the box and a few bought the box-worthy books. A young woman acquainted me and we shared the box. I am glad she did.  The fact that the mandapam was filled with used books made it endearing. However, books like Diary of Anne Frank, Mein Kampf were brand new. What I liked particularly...