The Immortals Of Meluah

I never though that I would end up buying this book. The most impressive feature which attracted me was the cover of the book and an unusal title 'The Immortals of Meluha'. The cover shows Shiva, with a muscular built, few war scars and a trishul, which I must say was impressive.
The author here is trying to produce an image of the Lord Shiva as a human with flesh and bones.

The story is about Shiva is a tribal leader from Tibet and is persuaded by the Suryavanshi's to join them to Meluha (Indus Valley as we know it today) to fight against the Chandravanshi's who were helped by the Naga's. Author has also tried to explain some of the features of Lord Shiva, like the blue throat, the Natraja pose and things.

The story is well paced but is sluggish when the author tried to used modern words at many places, he should kept it simple or should have used traditonal words instead. The fight scenes should have been more elaborated, he has cut kept it short and many of the characters seems to be pure fictional, specially when he was trynig to explain the Naga's.

The book is really good for a debutant and hope the other 2 books of the trilogy (yes it is a series of 3 books) is as catchy as this and elaborate the characters a bit more and make us understand more about them.

One thing I would ask every reader to notice that, the author is another in thel ist from IIT/IIM. Yes, Amish is from IIM, no wonder why all Indian authors need to come from IIT/IIM.

I would rate this book as 3 stars, worth a shot.

Johnny Gone Down

This is one short and sweet book, with fiction added at appropriate places. This is an exciting book if one is reading this kind of book for the first time. Karan Bajaj seems to have taken the inspiration to write this book from 'Shantaram by Gregory Roberts' only difference being Shantaram was more of an autobiography and his life in Mumbai (the city of dreams), whereas Johnny Gone Down is totally fictional and the author has taken the liberty to take the character around the world and narrate the story.

Coming back, this book is about Nikhil Arya and starts in the yerar 1975, an Indian guy who completed MIT and was on the verge of joining NASA. The story is about the decisions he made in his life span which ended in taking him to different places around the world.
First to Cambodia where he became the victim of Khemar Rouges coup and ended up loosing his arm. He also learnt the biggest lesson in his life, "We can just do the things and rest depend on our Karma and have to accept it".
Then his escape to Thailand, where he accepts Buddhism and becomes a monk.
Then to Rio de Janeiro, where he quits his monk life and becomes a part of the local mafia, doing all sort of wrong things.
Then his escape to Minnesota - USA where he creates a revolution over the internet.
Then back to India, where at an alumni meet he realizes his life has not been that bad and was special in one way. This is where the story come to an end.

The author has narrated the story really well, switching between the present and the past was showcased beautifully. At places he drags a bit too much and at places he has abruptly ended his journey, like his stay in USA. The author has also shown the character as the one who can do extraordinary things and at times this does not digest well.

Over all, this a good book to read and I would rate this 3.5 on 5.

Love, A Rather Bad Idea...All It Gives A Lousy Hangover

Yes, even I was wondering the same, have I read it correctly and is this the title of the book. Seemed different and that is how I ended up buying up this one. The book is written by Anirban Mukherjee, an IITian, who is narrating an incident, happened at the time when IITians do all NON-IITian things.
This is when he introduces our main character, Samar and his bunch of friends Pranav and Skimpy. Life was all time high for Samar, as he had a good looking girl, Jiya, by his side and he was also heading the race to become the head of the student body (General Secretary) in IIT.

The book tells the story is three parts, first with the introduction of the characters and the collage life, especially that time of the year which all ITians wait for.
Then followed by the part where Samar tries hard to win the G-Sec. The feeling of getting to the top makes him blind, self centered and selfish. This is when things start to fall at wrong places for him, and life takes a drastic turn where he ends up loosing all his close friends.
Final part, when he realizes what he has lost in the horse race and his efforts to patch up things with all his friends, but at a price.

This book is fun to read, a light hearted one with a bit of fiction added here and there. The only problem is I couldn't get why this name was chosen for the book. The book also comes with a tag line saying "He could've had everything. If only he had said 'Thank You'.". But I feel, "He could've had everything, if only he had said 'Sorry'.". The start of the book is a bit draggy, but then goes on till the end with a steady pace.

My verdict for this one will be 3 stars, worth reading especially when it comes at just 100 bucks.

-Anup

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This is first time I am reading Mohsin Hamid, so really wasn't sure of what to expect.

The book is about an encounter between an American ('you') and a bearded Pakistani ('Changez') in a restaurant on the streets of Old Anarkali road in Lahore. This is a story of just one evening where Changez narrates his experience of America. He talks about his graduation, his first job, his high flying career and his love life and how things change since the attack on the World Trade Centre.

The book stands by his name 'Reluctant Fundamentalist'. Changez is an unwilling fellow, he has been hesitating to take decisions throughout, and if he takes any, he still has doubt about those. And post 9/11 shows his fundamentalist character. He leaves his high flying career and decides to settle in his hometown, Lahore.

The story telling in the book was really good, this is the first time I have seen such a story telling. The pace of the book is really slow and it never grips you because, while reading you are sure of what is in store next. If the author wanted to display the trauma of post 9/11, he could have it by taking some other real life characters, who have actually gone through the suffering. The character in the book haven't gone through anything, he is a person earning a healthy salary and just decides to quit America because of his religious thoughts.

I would say one can happily avoid it, if one wants to unless you love non-fictional a lot.
My Verdict would be just 2 stars. One for the story telling and other for the character which I liked the most, 'Erica'.

Oh Shit, Not Again!

The cover of this book said it's a National Best Seller, and the abstract written at the back of the book tempted me to buy this when I was just going through the racks of books at the Crossword. It also held the caution in the first page saying
'Beware before you read......
   you may die laughing......'

But sorry to say this was a complete disappointment. I have completed the book in one day not because I enjoyed or it gripped me, it was only because I didn't wanted to invest another day reading this stuff.

The author, Mandar Kokate, seems to have written this as if a deadline of couple of days was given of him to complete the book. The story revolves around 5 friends and the narrator being a character called Raj. Really don't know, what was expected from him, because in the entire book all he could think about was sex, a typical sex starved guy who could not control his manhood.

The story was far more than fiction, I will say the entire story was hypothetical. It didn't had any real life similarity.
Things like moving on to a new locality, then a porn movie being mistakenly played in front of a grandma, falling in love, again falling for other married woman, then again falling for his cousin, then seducing and kissing each one of them, then a dramatic murder, a divorce, an attempted killing, mixing vodka and sex pills in the soft drinks in a party and finally suicide. All this things happening in a matter of 10 days.
Is anybody so STUPID to believe all this.

Mandar, shows how desperately he is trying to become an author. My suggestion will be, write some realistic stuff, and please please please do not try to imitate anybody, because there will be only one Chetan Bhagat, only one Ravi Subramaniyam etc etc.

My Verdict 1 Star.

Please avoid reading this book

-Anup