I was born before I was born. All owls are. True to the species, my fate was chiseled on ancient rocks by comets hurled from alien space. No one could change it after that, not even God. Certainly not father.…
Boats on Land: A Bewitching Voyage
Boats on Land is a bewitching voyage to the Khasi heartland spanning over a century and a half, offered through a string of stories by Janice Pariat. The journey affords a panoramic focus on the lives of the ethnic people…
It Happened to a Wobbly-legged Boy
Many years ago, when time had still not shriveled my mother, and I was still a shy little boy, I was struck by a bout of measles. The only memory of the suffering that has survived the quicksand of consciousness…
The Red House – A Review
‘Prayer, faith, redemption, consolation, how did you hold the world together without these things?’ -The Red House The Red House by Mark Haddon is not just another ‘stream-of-consciousness’ novel out to spill the emotions of its characters on the freeway…
The Casual Vacancy: A Boatload of Miseries
Far, far away from the enchanted lands of Hogwarts and the sweep of magic wands, the author of Harry Potter tales has summoned a sordid world into existence on the terra firma of lowlife in The Casual Vacancy. So fiercely…
The Sense of an Ending – A Review
Unlike rolls of cinema, life that fades away into the past is not available for playback. Recollections are more a collage of overlapping images, colours fading into sepia, hues into grayscales, realities crisscrossing and blurring with wistful fiction. Like vignettes…
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders – A Review
‘In Other Rooms, Other Wonders’ is a collection of short stories by Daniyal Mueenuddin, some of which have been previously published in The New Yorker and other journals. The eight faintly interlinked stories depict a feudal world in its dying…
The Immigrant – A Review
Sun sets early on eligible girls in the matrimonial bourses of India. Those blessed with boundless beauty or in affluent lineage may nudge the timeline further by a few odd years, but rarely for long. Nina’s lush hair and pinkish…
Just Married, Please Excuse – A Review
There go the wedding bells for a cute IIM alumnus, oven-fresh from classes, peddling soaps and detergents for an MNC! Déjà vu? Let’s find out. We enter the story through a scene where the thirty years old beau of a…
The Lance in My Heart
Is love a primordial element of life? It depends on the lover, of course! Yet, there are few who have not smouldered in these flames. Indeed, many have turned to cinders. For it is the nature’s trump card to ensure…
Marked
"Drifting, what am I like? A gull between earth and sky." -Du Fu / Vikram Seth The more I think of Internet as a huge river where blogs float like boats, the more I am overtaken by the faithfulness of…
A Tented Image
It was not many decades ago that I was shot but since I live to tell the tale, it is only fair to reveal that the weapon of assault was a grumpy black box sporting a round lens on one…
One Grain Amongst the Storm 