Amandeep Sandhu » North East

The Road to Tawang

aman — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 02:05:06 +0000

Oftentimes the hard thing about being a writer or pursuing any art is that creations can languish for years in your various storage devices and the beauty is that they can suddenly be discovered by great editors. This is what happened with this travel piece. Thank you to Sumana Roy and Aruni Kashyap for sniffing this out and giving it a home it truly deserves – the Northeast Review. This piece is from 2005 when I had quit my job to travel in the North East to get a sense of what was this place which was often in the news but no one really knew about. This is a piece on one of the most dangerous roads anywhere in the world, it is a bit long.

‘A friend said, “Go to a far corner. Tawang.” I had liked the sound of the place. Any travel is about seeing a place with our own eyes but often we let our ears shape our itinerary.’

More here …

My Review of The Girl From Nongrim Hills

aman — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:36:46 +0000

Ankush Saikia and I had shared the stage at Stein Auditorium in December 2007 at the launch of his and my debut novels. Since then he has moved out of Delhi to Shillong and I have followed suit to Bangalore. They say, in this age, to pursue a career in literature it is important to be in Delhi. That is where the networking happens. But we decided otherwise, hoping to continue writing. If Saikia’s book is any evidence, he has done well by moving out of Delhi and depicting a reality which is true to places of the country which are not defined by how the Delhi-centred politics plays out. He uses a crime thriller to portray the social-economic reality of the North East. A worthy form which goes beyond the non-fiction essays.

Please read.

Review of ‘The House with a Thousand Stories’ in The Asian Age

aman — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 06:37:36 +0000

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.

My Review of ‘Che in Paona Bazaar’ in IBR

aman — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 08:27:54 +0000

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 …