Dollar Bahu: A Review

Dollar Bahu (or Dollar Sose as originally titled in Kannada) has been written by Sudha Murty. For people like me, who belong to the IT background, Sudha ma'am is an icon. A computer scientist and engineer in her early career she was one of the first female employees at Infosys which was founded by her husband Mr. N.R. Narayan Murty. Now-a-days she keeps herself busy in philanthropic work through the Infosys foundation.

Sudha Murthy has written many stories, mostly published by Penguin, which deal with common lives and her views on donations, hospitality and realization. I first came across the current book in the hands of a grey haired lady in her late sixties or early seventies while I was in the waiting lounge of Indira Gandhi airport on the way to my home. It was the title that caught my attention. 'Dollar Bahu', as the name suggests is about the dollar and a bahu and soon I had the book in my hands.

Set between Bangalore and USA with Dharwad sprinkled a bit in the start and a bit in the end the book is about an average Indian family. Gouramma and Shamanna live in a small house with their children. The elder son, Chandru, has dreams of making it big while the younger one, Girish, is happy and content with his job as a bank clerk. The daughter, Surabhi, is a happy-go-lucky person not concerned much about the world around her except for her own needs and desires. Shamanna has been a school teacher all his life and has no frills or laces attached with his life. The mother Gauramma (Gauri) however has dreams that her sons will make it big and she would also be able to flaunt her family's fortunes in front of others.

Gauramma's dreams finally come true when Chandru goes to the USA for a project and decides to 'skip' i.e. to switch jobs without informing his employer in India and living in low profile until he gets a green card. Chandru helps Gauramma's dreams become a reality and also in adding another floor to his house. Girish gets married while Chandru is in USA and the irony is that he gets married to one time romantic interest of Chandru, a girl called Vinuta from the small town of Dharwad.

After getting his green card Chandru comes back to India and gets married to Jamuna, a not-so-simple girl from a rich family in an arranged marriage. From here starts the comparison between Vinuta and Jamuna and without any doubt Jamuna is Gauramma's favorite due to her husband earning in dollars. Vinuta, the one who stays with her in-laws, cares for them, devotes herself to their service and daily needs is compared time and again with someone who visits once in years and whose only contribution towards the family is a monthly check from her husband.

The author has very well described the plight of Vinuta and the circumstances she has to face. Girish is the usual Indian husband, oblivious to the talents of his wife while Shantanna is a mere spectator for most of the part. All these characters are so close to reality that this could have been the story of a family from any part of India.

All other things apart it is the character of Gauramma which towers over the rest by the time you reach the end of the book. The old age proverb of 'Grass is greener on the other side' is something that Gauramma gets to experience first hand. When she goes to America she has expectations and one by one all her expectations are sent for a toss by her beloved Dollar bahu. Slowly but surely Gauramma realizes that America is not where she wants to be. She wants to be in India, at her home with her family.

In the process of that realization Gauramma comes across many faces of the Indians living in USA and the problems that they encounter while living there. The cheated ones, the lonely ones, the ones split between the two cultures and quite a few more. Through Gauramma, the author explores many faces of life in America, something which most of us have heard about and some of us have had first hand experience of it.

The author leaves quite a few things for the reader to think over by the time one finishes with the book.

Is money the sole ingredient of a happy life? No, you would say instantly, but just think for a moment and then ask yourself if you are doing things any differently from others.

Does money manage your relationships, life, way of thinking and you in totality? Yes, may be it is.

The book is very predictable and obvious. There are times when you would know what to expect on turning to the next page. Quite a few characters are stereo-typical but still it is a good read for someone desperately seeking something to do on one of those 4 hour flights or the train journey from say Delhi to Agra.

It is definitely not for someone who believes America is the true heaven on earth.

A must read for the would-be mother-in-law to dollar bahu's though!

The Long Road: A Review

So finally I am here with my review of 'The Long Road' by Dr. Vivek Banerjee or Ben (as he is popularly known in blogging circles). First of all I would like to thank him for sending me a review copy. It was rather a surprise for me when he asked me to review his book just after my first review.

Thankfully enough his book reached me despite the delay by the infamous postal department of our country. There after there was a slight delay on my own part in reading the book as I had halted all book reading activities till The Book Reading Challenge started. I hope Dr. Banerjee won't mind that.

The first time he asked me to review his book I was a bit skeptical. The reason being that despite not belonging to the medical profession I have seen the life of medical professionals from very close quarters. I was uncomfortable with the idea of reading a book about medical professionals and finding it to be just another love story like Sanjivani and Dill Mill Gayye (two famous serials which were supposedly about doctors aired on Indian TV channels) turned out to be.

Thankfully the book is not only a love story. It has a love story, no doubt, but it also gives you an insight into the life of doctors and the much revered profession of medicine. The love story runs side by side but the book also talks about the joy of conducting the first surgery. There is also the conflict between the ambitious Sarika and happy-go-lucky Rahul. The reservations of attic living Hina who wishes to break free of the shackles and get a better life and the born rich Ranjiv whose sole ambition is to be on the wrong side of his dad.

The story is predictable at times but it is so because the author has taken real life incidents and put them into words. The titles of the chapters are something that could have been done away with as they give away the suspense even before the person starts reading the chapter.

The character of Sagarika could have been used a bit more in the starting to keep her in the readers mind. I had almost forgot that she was also a part of this book until she suddenly popped up towards the end of the book.

This book could have been set in any scenario. It could have been about people working in the IT industry or as teachers or as bank employees. The characters of this book face the same dilemmas that many of us face in our own lives.

The book would make a nice weekend read. Not too long or overstretched and just conveying what it needed to. A nice read in all. :)

The Immortals Of Meluha: A Review

So I'm here with my review of 'The Immortals Of Meluha' by Amish Tripathi.

It is the first book of The Shiva Trilogy and Amish has done a wonderful job in handling the characters India has been worshiping since ages. But before I go to reviewing the book I would like to share how I chanced upon it.

I was at GIP, Noida and went to Om Book Shop just to check the new arrivals and while doing so saw it. It was the cover that intrigued me as like many other Indians I'm also a devotee of Lord Shiva. I picked it up and read the blurb which talked a civilization from 1900 BC. It was also about the Suryavanshi's, the Chandravanshi's and the Nagas.

Then it read, "Is the rough-hewn Tibetan immigrant Shiva, really that hero?"

Lord Shiva as a hero! But God's don't play heroes, they just do things with a snap of their fingers, was my first reaction. I put down the book and moved on to check other books.

Later that evening while sitting on my laptop doing some work that image of Shiva on the cover with battle scars and trident kept coming back to me. Without any doubt it was one of the most impressive covers I had ever come across. I googled the name 'The Immortals Of Meluha' and opened the official website. There I got to read the first chapter of the book and it had me hooked.

I spent the next three days asking for the book from every book store in my locality but none had it. I rued over leaving the book when I had it in my hands but I finally got it from a Odyssey store on a metro station. I started at about 8pm spent the entire night reading it and finally slept at 5:30 am that day (or night, if you want to call it so).

Now coming to the book, if you know about Indian mythology then you will enjoy this book for sure and if you don't then also you will as you will have no strings attached and no prior perception about the characters. People might have problems (I had) with accepting the gods they worship as mere humans, thinking and acting like everybody else in the world does. But that's only in the starting, as the story progresses you will not have any room left for those doubts as the book will occupy your mind totally.

The books borrows a lot from Indian mythology but at the same time Amish does not allow the book to become overtly religious. The characters of Shiva, Bhadra, Nandi and Sati among others retain their basic characteristics and are as one knew them to be since ever. It's the treatment that is different.

One can divide the book into three phases;

1: When Shiva is expected to be the one.

2: When he is accepted as the savior but kept under wraps.

3: When Shiva is acknowledged by one and all to be the savior.

At places Amish has sprinkled the story with a fair bit of imagination and kept the reader on his tows. There is no page in the book where you will say that you felt bored. There is an ambush and a war described with detail and that add to the story rather than diverting attention from it as such incidents usually do in many occasions.

In the end after the conquest of Swadeep (The land of Chandravanshi's) there is a twist in the story. A twist which gives a whole new perspective and leaves the author with enough to play with in the second part.

Interestingly the comparison between Meluha and Swadeep reminded me somewhat of China and India. Sound's crazy? It may but read the book and then think about what I said.

In all Immortals of Meluha is a nice read specially if you like reading mythological stories. Move over Greek and Norse mythological heroes, Shiva is here. :-)

Truly Madly Deeply by Faraaz Kazi: A Review

So finally I'm here with my second review and this time I’m reviewing ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ by Faraaz Kazi. Released in Dec '10, TMD (The short form for ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’, which I’ll be using from here on) may appear like yet another love story like the many already in market by first time authors but it's not. The book is about love, no doubt about that, but it's also about the other emotions like jealousy, loyalty, hatred, friendship, grief and longing.

The prologue starts on an interesting note introducing to us the main protagonist called Rahul sitting in a park, late in night longing for Seema, the girl he loves. The literary apt with which the author described the park and Rahul’s emotions through actions as simple as plucking the grass or unconsciously tracing Seema’s name had me hooked. I had not expected this level of literature from a first time author just in his twenties and this was just the starting.

Faraaz begins the first chapter by quoting from ‘The Secret Delights of Love’ by Pundit Bilhana and he does not stop there. Throughout the book he has used lines by famous poets and stalwarts of literature like Browning, Wordsworth, Drayton, Yeats, Shakespeare and Khayyam, most of the times when Rahul is going into flashback.

The ease with which Faraaz shuffled between the past and present amazed me. Even experienced authors find it a difficult task and he did it without creating confusion in the reader’s mind. Rahul lives in two worlds simultaneously. One in which he is reminiscing the time he spent with Seema, the events that led to his downfall from the most promising, multitalented student and the topper of his batch to a failed prodigy and the other in a new college, in a new country, thousands of miles away from the place he called home.

In the starting pages the author has used numerous analogies and is highly descriptive, bit too much descriptive at times but then everyone has his own style of writing and that is Faraaz’s style. On the whole these descriptions help the reader as he is able to visualize the place and connect with the protagonist but I’m one of those who prefer leaving some things to the reader’s imagination, something that Faraaz has not done in the initial chapters. But then again, this is how I prefer things and everyone has a different thought process.

Throughout the book one can feel Rahul’s love and longing for Seema and at the same time also connect with the mistakes he commits because most of us have done almost same things in our teenage. Then there’s Rahul relation with Sahil, a friend he makes in his new school. A friend who is more like the brother he never had. The relation between Rahul and Sahil will make you smile and remember your best friend for once at least, a friend who doesn’t leave your side whatever may come.

And then there’s Jay. Once he was Rahul’s friend, rather best friend but out of jealousy he makes a mess out of Rahul’s life, forgetting that Rahul was the one who motivated and coached him during the days of his failure. He is the prime reason behind all the excitement in the story and would at times remind you of the backstabbing and ever conspiring character from a bollywood movie.

Seema is not the only heroine in this story though. We have Grazil playing second fiddle, trying to convince Rahul of her love for him. The character of Grazil is sweet and carefully handled. Her introduction into Rahul’s life was one of the points in the story which made me think that may be this book would also tread the beaten path but thankfully it didn’t.

The ending of TMD is something that I especially liked. I am not going to disclose what the ending is, but all I can say is that it is different and would bowl you over. Hope that Faraaz continues with this good work and we get to read more books from him.

To all those love birds out there, this is one book you would love to gift to your beloved. The editor of this book also deserves a note of thanks for giving us a book free from common grammatical errors of the type that plague books of debutant Indian authors these days.

Urban Shots: A Review

The choice of doing a review of Urban Shots as my first ever book review was not an easy one. The very thought of reviewing the work of thirteen well established authors gave me jitters but given how much I liked this book I thought it would be a crime not to review it.

'URBAN SHOTS - 28 urban tales by 13 writers' is an anthology of short stories edited by Paritosh Uttam, the best selling author of Dreams in Prussian Blue. It is set in an urban backdrop exploring the different realms of urban life. The book is divided into five parts called Relationships, Love, Friendship, Angst and Longing.

The stories are set in the six metros and each of the stories makes a different image of the city life in the reader's mind, introduces him to yet another complexity of the urban life.

I tried to pick up my favorites from among these 29 stories and 'It's a small world' by Ahmed Faiyaz was the winner without any doubt. It was not that I didn't like the others but this one was a story that truly engrossed me. The others which I specially liked were 'Hope comes in small packages' by Kainaz Motivala (Of Wake Up Sid' fame) which is a sweet story about a woman trying to come at terms with her miscarriage, 'Heartbreakers', 'Between Friends' and 'Effacing memories' by Paritosh Uttam, all three of which explore the complex relations. Paritosh is a master at the art of leaving things to the reader's imagination yet conveying the feelings as they should be. 'Apple pies and a grey sweater' by Prateek Gupta is a feel good love story with which many of us would recognize.

Apart from these 'Love... In a fast lane' by Ahmed Faiyaz, 'Love-All' by Kunal Dhabalia and 'Stick Figures' by Vrinda Baliga are also mentionable. Each of the 29 stories introduce you to a new face of the urban life, a face you would have come across somewhere, a face you might recognize as that of someone you know, that of one of your friends or may be your own.

In all, 'Urban Shots' is a must read if you consider yourself a city person. Do I need to say more?