Book Review - Tantra By Adi

The first impression of the book gives you a feel of a cheap story book - probably a translation of a Hindi horror thriller "Sahitya". The cover design backs up your thought even more - the ghostly imprint in the cloud, a mysterious female killer overlooking a mediocre town in the night....and the title of the book in Tomato Red colour.....overall this does not look like a book that one would pick up for an interesting literary read....

The "About Author" disappoints me further....the reading of hiding under the cover hardly throws a light about him. The "By Line" of the book is oldest cliché which is unnecessary and dismounting. I was dismayed when the book arrived. Finally I gathered courage to open up the pages.

The storyline of the book didn't impress me much either ... bits and pieces put together it appears a combination of the protagonist “Lisbeth Salander” in  Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson  and vampire hunting concept in  twilight series By Stephenie Meyer !!! It seems the author has a woven a story combining all his undercover fiction reads about which he has so proudly confessed.

The protagonist is an earnest vampire killing female looking for her lover's murderer. Anu is a New Yorker who moves to Delhi in search of the killer but is met by far more devastating and horrifying Indian folklore creatures than vampires to deal with. She discovers new ways to adapt to the ancient scenarios.

 The characters are believable and the story build around them gives credibility to them. The concept of vampirism is well encashed with its new age popularity among fiction lovers and television soap watching (refer Ekta kapoor serials and vampire style movies). The element of humour has also been pinched here and there with American and Indian culture references which lightens the mood of the reader now and then. The tantric concept has also been well explored and merged beautifully.

Though the book is an interesting read for mystery fiction loving readers, the book fails to inspire or elevate in terms of the content or story line or characterization ...everything in the book has been written and said in some or the other part of many regional books maybe even in other languages. The newness of the content is missing even though it has been tightly scripted with very few glitches and slacks here and there but entertaining nevertheless.

If you are looking for a time pass book with a taut storyline and want to engross yourself in masala type thriller....you can pick up this one without much thought. However, much more could be expected from our young emerging Indian authors who somehow are stuck with clichéd love stories (sometimes their own) or slapstick thrillers type. Time has arrived for us to over past these topics and come up with something more suave and likeable and less glossy.

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Book Review - "The Krishna Key"

The new novel "The Krishna Key" by Ashwin Sanghi is really a good read for the Indian mythology and history lovers.The author is very knowledgeable in mythological subjects and it shows in his writing. He has really worked hard to develop a thriller around the mythological characters. It surely reveals the level of research Sanghi has done to present the book in the way which forces one to rethink about the history and the event of occurrences. This is really a novel style and genre of story telling which the author has the upper hand on experimenting with and also cater to interest of large number of suspense/thriller readers, not only in India but in foreign countries as well.

For novice readers and amateur interest in religion, on the contrary, this book would offer you with over stretched explanations of religious concepts. With its complicated terminology and over usage of Sanskrit phrases, the book feels like a painful lesson in theology. The bollywood style flashbacks at regular intervals slow down the speed of the reading and gradually readers's interest. The author has tried to create unnecessary suspense at times about some stages in the story just to keep the readers hooked on to what is going on....A futile attempt though !!! Sometimes it feels the narration is unnecessary complicated with additional explanations and extensions to story line which at times slacks the story.The book is a normal suspense/ thriller story with an extra twist added due to the Hindu mythological characters' concept. The story starts well, is fast paced, builds your interest, there are a lot of interesting facts thrown in but ends a little disappointingly..The character of Taarak Vakil is intriguing and seems worth understanding. But generally, even after considerable amount of pages read, one would have difficulty spotting the real protagonist of the story. The story keeps shifting from one central character to other giving little space to apprehend the purpose of the each one in the story until the end.

All in all, the book is little disappointing for Ashwin Sanghi's fans by his previous book "Chanakya's Chant".The story telling and correct blend of past and present in Chanakya's Chant is surely missing in this one.. This book would only interest pure mythology and history lovers in its current state. Instinctively, author could have experimented with some other style of narration by now to avoid the repetitiveness and constant comparison with author's previous novels.

Author is really talented, so for the readers who have already read "Krishna Key" and are not quite impressed, I would suggest them to read other Sanghi's books as well. For others, I would recommend this book just for the sake for some thoughtful insights to Indian mythology. And of course a word of caution as to treat this story as a fictional piece as it might sway your existing concepts of Indian mythology. The author is witty enough to blend the 2 concepts very beautifully and it would be difficult to separate the two :)


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Book Review - Kitnay Aadmi Thay

There are various genres of books/novels/write ups being published daily. But there are very few books which explore the vast subject of Bollywood. Writer Diptakirti Chaudhari has attempted just that in his new book "Kitnay Aadmi Thay" and that too in a novel style.

The book has a tagline "Completely Useless Bollywood Trivia". And yes it’s true! It is totally time passical in nature.....the one which you pick up when you have leisure time and nothing better to do....

The first and foremost thing to understand is that this book is meant only and only for people with keen or shall we say ardent interest in Bollywood...to the extent that they would dig up all the stories behind their favourite movies, as if watching one wouldn't suffice their souls! The ones who would have scrap books made in their adolescent years of their favourite heroes/heroines, their likes/dislikes all their movie posters pasted on their rooms. I recall one such friend of mine who was crazy behind Shahrukh Khan. Every inch of the room screamed "Shahrukh, I love you". She indeed was a walking encyclopaedia. If you are close to the description, you can grab this book without much ado! Others please step aside. :)

The book gives a factual account of some known and unknown information of Bollywood....like which movie song inspired another movie name, shortest names, longest names of movies, famous dialogues, moms/papas/best friends of Bollywood....yes the information which we see and absorb over a collective period of time as almost each one of us has grown up watching the Indian sagas. Diptakirti has just taken the pain of compiling such information and providing us with the option of recounting if interested. But I must say a job marvellously done. I initially thought that the author would focus on only commercial films but taking movies like Manorama six feet under, Shabd, Earth etc. in one of the many lists he has so thoughtfully formulated, he had me impressed. He has truly encompassed all the spheres of Bollywood which is commendable considering the size and depth of our industry. Thus it makes logical sense not to provide an index in the book!

 Some parts of the book are really entertaining and any mild Bollywood fan would read them without blinking their eyes like how the famous superstars did met their fate-turning directors/producers. How did a bus conductor became so famous, how many star kids failed the big screen. Some of the categories are really creative like Meta Films - film in another film, soon to be clichéd dialogues, legendary confrontations, types of friends, depictions of various religions, brand placements. It was really observative of the writer to note the nitigrities of various dialogues, scenes, the things/brands used in the movies and come up with such beautiful compilation   .....While some part of the book does not inspire or grab attention at all. Sometimes it tends to get really boring as well..... May be some more intrinsic information or creative knowledge sharing would have saved this book from being stale soon after.  

All in all, this book is meant as a coffee table book. Nothing more nothing less.

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Book Review - The Devotion of Suspect X

This is a Japanese thriller novel by Keigo Higashino published in 2005 and has been made into a cult film in 2008.

Once in a while it happens that you come across a novel that captivates you completely and I’m really glad I found one last Friday night. I read this book with a single break......speaks a lot about the glued thriller content it has to offer! The book is a refresher for the writing style, the varied characters and the complicated web of human relations it has tried to portray maintaining the discreet pace of a suspense narrative.

The story revolves around a murder and the investigation procedure that follows.  The characters are a mother and her teenage daughter, a brilliant mathematician, a police detective and a physics Professor who is helping the police solve the case. Each niche and detail about the murder, the leads involved is finely fabricated with a witty description. The remarkable part is that reader is well aware of the murderer and yet he is captivated by the story as the outsmarting chase between the criminal and the police unfold. The mathematician and the Physics Professor have been beautifully used and their mental power struggle to outwit each other is the charm of the story.

 The book is pacy with new twists and turns in every chapter. No wonder it has sold so many copies! Revealing anything about the plot will defy the purpose and fun of reading.... The first few pages might seem irrelevant and boring but the book soon picks up momentum and it will be interesting to note that the early depiction make up for a very solid frame base for the later part. So far I've no complaints except two….the end of the novel is quite filmy and purely off track the theme…it somehow disappoints the reader and gives an impression it was just scribbled off quickly to finish (Apologies to the author for being crude but as the pitch of the story is built up, I expected a more sharp and clever finale)  ...I also wish I knew Japanese and could read it in original. If the translated version is so engrossing, the original would be entirely riveting! Nevertheless, the English version has also provided enough insight for a reader to sneak peek into the Japanese culture and despite its Japanese setting the story is effortless to follow. Kudos to the author for such a tight and entertaining detective story.

I would recommend this novel for every person craving for some classic suspense thriller. My rating would be 3.8 stars of 5.

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