My review of poet Aruni Kashyap’s debut fiction ‘The House with a Thousand Stories’ in the The Asian Age.
‘Kashyap breaks a basic rule of plotting a book: giving away what happens next. It is a mark of his confidence as a writer; he knows his storytelling will keep the reader hooked. From time to time he rotates the plot on the pivots of the story: Boben’s death, Aaita the grandmother on deathbed, Oholya’s temper, Pablo’s encounter with Anamika, Mridul’s love for the Nepali wine seller’s daughter Manju, the jurun … for the wedding, the suicide and so on. This is what lays layer upon layer of the thousand stories.’
Please read more here.
Tags: Aruni Kashyap, Assam, North East, The House with a Thousand Stories
I have admired Kishalay Bhattacharjee for long for his reporting on NDTV from the North East states so reviewing his book Che In Paona Bazaar in The Book Review was a pleasure. Kishalay has now also become a friend. Please read review here …
Tags: Che in Paona Bazaar, Kishalay Bhattacharjee, North East, The Book Review
I had the opportunity to host a panel discussion on Conflict Literature: Under the Shadow of the Gun at the recently concluded Bangalore Literature Festival. The panellists were: Babar Ayaz, Jahnvi Baruah, Farooq Shaheen and Arindam Borkataki. Here is a report in The Hindu, see section two. Please read here …
Tags: Arindam Borkataki, Babar Ayaz, Bangalore Literature Festival, Conflict, Farooq Shaheen, Gun, Jahnvi Baruah
Rajmohan Gandhi’s Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten is the first book in 125 years to chronicle the undivided Punjab from Attock to Delhi. The region was seven times the size of the Punjab in India. Please read the full review here.
Tags: History, Punjab, Rajmohan Gandhi