Private India by James Patterson and Ashwin Sanghi (Private Series)

Blurb (from the jacket):

In Mumbai seemingly unconnected people are dying, strangled in a chilling ritual and with strange objects carefully arranged with the corpses. 

For Santosh Wagh, head of Private India, the Mumbai branch of the world’s finest investigation agency, it's a race against time to stop the killer striking again. 

In a city of over thirteen million, he'd have his work cut out at the best of times but this case has him battling Mumbai's biggest ganglord and a godman who isn't all he seems.

And then he discovers there may be an even greater danger facing Private India. Hidden in the shadows is someone who could destroy the whole organisation along with thousands of innocent Mumbai citizens...

The Turning Point (Best of Young Indian Writers) edited by Nikita Singh

                         

                                                      The Turning Point edited by Nikita Singh

                                                              Wisdom Tree, New Delhi

                                                              Page Numbers : 1- 201 pp.

  

                                                                      INTRODUCTION                                                

                                                               

Stories By :Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan * Durjoy Datta * Juda Balan * Harsha Snehanshu * Shoma                            Narayanan * Parinda Joshi * Atulya Mahajan * Nikita Singh.

 Insert a Carrot  ( Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan) : Insert a carrot , no doubt seems to be cheesy and speaks of a hidden meaning ,so is the story. It's an adult conversation between two friends ,who speak about  their boy friends. I was embarrassed to read  the cheesy , perverted conversation between two girls. It's because of my conditioning that only boys are perverted and have a conversation full of vulgarity. 

                This story through some light of how the girls in this generation are advanced and almost stand equal to men in this corporate world.

The English teacher (Durjoy Datta) : This is a story of a boy who has entered his adolescence, who is high on his hormones. All he wishes is to satiate is carnal desires , his amorous fantasies towards his English teacher who is already married . He is full of lust and always behind his English teacher .The malicious desires to enjoy his English teacher are always haunting him.As time moves, he enters college, then into a company holding a good position but  his fantasies ....they are still there.\

   

                  This story tells us how one's desires can fuss up with our life and make us a villain.

The Return of the (original) Vampire(Juda Balan): This is a story of a vampire ,who wants to satiate his thirst by the blood of a beautiful girl but ends by falling in love with her. 

           

            I could only understand this much , because many parts of the story were esoteric and the clause and phrases were a little bit complicated for me to understand due to the narration which was a  bit confusing.

The Summer Showers( Harsha Snehanshu): this is a sweet love story between two youngsters ,written ,narrated ,expressed  with lot of humor in a fresh style which I loved the most .

The X-Boss (Shoma Narayanan): this is a funny , surrealistic story of a Boss and his employer . speaking  few more words will kill the surprise of the story. 

   
 An Unlikely Accomplice(Parinda joshi) : This is the story which I didn't fathom at all , The narration turned out to be a little complicated and the plot was also very lamenting.


The U-Turn (Atulya Mahajan) :  This story is about a person who's wife is about to deliver their baby and he was filled with insecurities about how to handle his new child.Not knowing how to choose his priorities.

A Whispered Prayer( Nikita Singh) : This is the story of a rape victim , who her life has changed  after that incident. How is able to fight back ,staying bold and strong with the help of her boyfriend.

           This story actually disturbed me so much. I just couldn't imagine my self in the protagonist't shoes. The story  speaks of how the society should change it's perspectives towards the rape victims.

 NOTE : ALL the short stories actually do not have a strong plot  but they have strong thoughts, sharp ideas which are thought provoking and make the reader think for a while.
                             
                                                                                                                         ISBN 978-81-8328-356-4

                       

Vengeance Of The Warrior by Shobha Nihalani (NINE Trilogy #2)

                                                 NINE: VENGEANCE OF THE WARRIOR

                                                                          Edited by

                                                       Vaishali Mathur and Arpitha Basu 

                                                   

                                                        Penguin metro reads, New Delhi

                                                             

                                                              Page numbers: pp 1-339

       

                                                                     INTRODUCTION 

AUTHOR: Shobha Nihalani is the author of Nine:Curse of the kalingan warrior,the first book in the NINE trilogy,and The Silent Monument. Her debut novel,Karmic Blues ,was translated and published in Denmark. She lives in Hong Kong with her family.

ESSENCE OF THE BOOK: This book being the second book in the NINE trilogy contains new characters which weren't mentioned in the first one. In the first book the kalingan warrior's  spirit is imprisoned in the temple of Angkor.

                                         And now  the spirit is back with double the vengeance, arrogance, anger and thirst to kill the three members of the secret council of nine- Tara, Aksh ,Zubin and finally destroy the Mauryan era.

                     And this time it is not the spirit but Tejaswi who pestered a witch to invoke an evil spirit in her with the help of her black magic for her personal reasons. The kalingan spirit which is thirsty immediately turns up into tejaswi. A combination of Yan and Yang. Feminine body with a masculine consciousness, warrior's spirit in Tejaswis's body is back to battle against the secret council of Nine.It's few times more stronger, angry and arrogant.

                      This time it is a tough battle for all the three young members of the council to battle against the spirit . They seek the help of the six senior members synchronizing their energies ,honing their physical abilities to tackle the kalingan's spirit

                      Raakin and Anitha are the protectors of the three members of the nine this time, they work hard ,sparing their lives to protect them.

                      

What happens when  Tejeswi along with the kali yogis encounters the young members Tara,akash,Zubin and their protectors Raakin and Anitha at  Dhauli in Orissa ( which is the battle field of the kalingan empire ,The place where the terrible war took place in 261 BC between Mauryans and kalingans ) is best savored by reading the book.

NOTE : The author has very well depicted the second book too ,festooned with a few facts like

              

                  The twenty -three -foot -high Ashoka Pillar in Delhi ,weighing over six tonnes ,built during Gupta era ,is an enigma. Modern metallurgists are still pondering over the quality of the pillar which has shown no signs of corrosion for thousands of years.                                     

      It's an amalgamation of facts and fiction ,together formulating into an objective ,crisp plot. The narrative style is perceptive, captivating and energetic.
   
         Overall the book is great,with a few cliched descriptions ,form the first book.  
                                                                                                                            ISBN:9780143418832 

Review in association with The Bookaholics

                 

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore, David Lloyd (Illustrator)

Blurb (from GoodReads):

"Good evening, London." It's nine o'clock and this is The Voice of Fate... It is the Fifth of the Eleventh, Nineteen-Ninety-Seven...

"The people of London are advised that the Brixton and Streatham areas are quarantine zones as of today. It is suggested that these areas be avoided for reasons of health and safety...

Police raided seventeen homes in the Birmingham area early this morning, uncovering what is believed to be a major terrorist ring. Twenty people, either of them women, are currently in detention awaiting trial...

The weather will be fine until 12:07 A.M. when a shower will commence, lasting until 1:30 A.M... 

Have a pleasant evening."

A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world, V for Vendetta stands as one of the highest achievements of the comics medium and a defining work for creators Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it. Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V for Vendetta brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November..."

Curse of the Kalingan by Shobha Nihalani (NINE Trilogy #1)

                                                     
                                                       
                                                                 
JOT( from the back cover) :

               THE PAST HAS COME TO DESTROY THE PRESENT AND CHANGE THE FUTURE.


 261 BC.
After his bloody battle with kalinga,the Mauryan emperor Ashoka ,overcome with remorse,swore never to wage another war .And to make sure no one else did .His Navarathnas- the NINE-
     Zealously guarded their powers and knowledge, handing them down through millennia and generations to ensure lasting peace.

                                                EXCEPT THAT IT WAS NOT TO BE!
from the corpses of kalingan warriors rose an angry spirit bent upon avenging the kalinga empire ,destroying the NINE and using their hidden knowledge to rule the world and change its destiny.
      
                                                                PRESENT TIME
The bloodthirsty warrior has possessed the body of a young man,making him hunt down and kill the NINE one by one. IT is now up to the chosen Trinity -nurse Tara ,DJ Akash and forensic expert Zubin -to stop him.

MY REVIEW ON THE BOOK:

            The cover page is festooned with a green emerald in the middle, a picture of tomb and a building to the corners.I initially didn't fathom their presence on the cover page, but as I leafed through the book ,they started making sense.
            Firstly I don't have words to describe the author's narrative style. The plot is absolutely terrific.It's a fine tapestry of history, philosophy, science, technology, spirituality and religion. Even though this is a work of fiction few parts of the book are actually objective like:
                                            
             'Everything we experience has a purpose. It might not be what you thought it would be but you know you can handle it. If you were not who you are, if there was the slightest doubt that you were incapable, then you wouldn't have been here. You have a reason to be here..'

These few sentences have a great effect on the reader. I felt, they were written as if to address the reader.

            It's amazing how the author has interwoven the whole plot around spirituality and Buddhism.

'The mind works in two ways: Linear thinking and associated thinking. IQ is associated with the linear thinking and emotions with associative thinking. And a repetition of a chant breaks both these circuits and allows the mind to be in a state of rest and awareness.'
          
          Through these lines the author has given a scientific approach towards chanting mantras (religious) which is very informative to youngsters,who are usually septic towards  rituals and praying.

          All together the book has kept me curious, enthusiastic and surprising through out the read. Once reading the book I learned that there are many thing to explore in the world.

Note: I specially thank the author Mrs. Shobha Nihalini who has written this beautiful Novel which has inspired me and educated me about many things and I am anticipating to read the next book of the trilogy.

                 

Twice Upon A Time by Anjali Bhatia

Blurb (from the jacket):

Is a man’s past set in stone, or can it be changed? Rewritten and reshaped?

Is time a reality, or a construct of the imagination? Fleeting and fragmented?

One man is about to find out...

Meet Arpit, a bitter young man who embarks upon an incredible and seemingly impossible journey to right the seven wrongs that have shadowed his life, all in a quest to be together with Mannat, the love of his life.

When Arpit meets Nishimaya, a modern-day mystic, little does he know that his life is about to change. In entirety. But change comes with effort. And Arpit has to lose himself in order to resurrect his past and set things right. With every past mistake he corrects, he finds a corresponding change in his present life . . . but not all changes are easy to make. And as Arpit travels further back into his own life, he’s forced to dig into frightening depths and fight against his own self to dredge up the truth from the sediments of folly that litter his world.

Unknown to him, however, Mannat is supporting his struggle from halfway across the world even as she tries to gather her own life together. And Nishimaya, as she takes Arpit through the swirls of time, has to confront ghosts of her own as well. 

As their lives get caught in the web of karma, dreams, memories, and destinies, Arpit, Mannat, and Nishi must stumble and fall if they are to reach the end. But Time still holds a revelation none of them had expected...

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)

Blurb (from the jacket):

Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. 

Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. 

Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished...

An Affair to Remember! by Harkeerat Anand

Blurb (from the jacket):

Filled with cheesy motivational posters, computer workstations crammed side by side, dumb bosses / blonde's and bored employees looking for a career change - ABCDEF Corp., a software giant, rankles with a sameness of a suffocating software giants existence. Until one man and his best friend take things into their hands.

What follows is a series of misadventures, flushing both men down a pink-caked urinal of self-destruction. Set in a city that once was, in an IT giant that once was, the two men journey through a cobweb of friendship, ambition, embezzlement, crime and most importantly, love. Will they survive ABCDEF Corp.? More so, will ABCDEF Corp. survive them?

Peppy, wild and bitterly sarcastic, An Affair to Remember! is a modern-day retelling of a decades-old classic.

Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar, Jerry Pinto (Translator)

Blurb (from the jacket):

A paying guest seems like a win-win proposition to the Joshi family. He s ready with the rent, he s willing to lend a hand when he can and he s happy to listen to Mrs Joshi on the imminent collapse of our culture. 

But he s also a man of mystery. He has no last name. He has no family, no friends, no history and no plans for the future. 

The siblings Tanay and Anuja are smitten by him. He overturns their lives. And when he vanishes, he breaks their hearts. 

Elegantly wrought and exquisitely spare, Cobalt Blue is a tale of rapturous love and fierce heartbreak told with tenderness and unsparing clarity.

Unsung Songs by Khushi Jivan

Blurb (from the jacket):

Khushi’s is not just a collection of poetic thoughts worded together; hers is the song of a little robin on your window, the cuckoo in her nest. Sweet, melancholic, longing, warming still the cockles of the heart… With a surreal sense to these expressions ‘unsung songs’ is a glimpse of her journey so far on the long road of soul-searching. Come feel serenaded by this bouquet of compositions, poetry born not from thoughts but feelings, not the mind but the heart.