I had blogged about authors from IIM & IIT in February 2010 here.

A lot of my twitter comrades had commented on it too. In the meantime, I had read the mint occasionally. After a while, maybe a year or so, I realized that I had the pleasure of interacting and then subsequently getting followed by the phamous Sidin and his more beautiful colleague Priya Ramani Read the rest of this entry »

I had earlier blogged about Sabarna Roy’s books here.

Then, I picked this up. Finished it over last weekend; but dilly dallied about writing here. The fourteen stories are based in Bengal and cut it too close to the bone in some instances, particularly some facts/fiction that is similar to some people’s stories I have actually heard over the years.

The stories, separate but all carry a tinge of pathos, happiness, question and leave you wanting more. There is not much to just read about, but even learn from it with different human tendencies that everyone has in some measure, but refuse to acknowledge mostly.

Unfortunately, the poems are not mu cup of tea and hence gave them a miss. But, definitely a read.

Books from an author, that normally I would not read. However receiving those books and reading them, I was glad having read them.

Pentacles The first book that I finished reading has one long story and couple of four short poems. I just gave the poems a miss because I do not understand anything remotely poetic, but the story was something extremely magnetic and believable taking up from a soft beginning, playing on natural emotions like indifference, bits of hatred, love and finally acceptance over the years of childhood, adolescence, youth and finally maturity. I am sure all of us have undergone in some manner or other.

Abyss is a full length play in two acts. A sort of familiar story with twists and a bit of suspense, which fiction readers of theatre watchers may pick up by the end of Act one. Having said this, it looks something where I would like to see a Paresh Rawal directed Play itself.

I still have to commence reading Frosted Glass…..hopefully over the coming weekend.

In my phase of wanting to try out Indian authors writing fiction, I ordered a couple of books from flipkart, which provided a good deal on them. I have blogged some of the better known earlier, but did not have the energy to do so for all of them, so clubbed the rest of them.

1888 Dial India by Anuvab Pal - Part Rant, Part Satire is how it is described, however it looked as if a collection of Tweets that were Rants. One of the most useless book I have had the misfortune to read.

Accidentally in Love by Nikita Singh - A truely chic lit fiction, where the so called modern self earning woman falls in love and is undecided. Add a bit of sex in Indian Mills & Boon and there you are. Managed to read it in an hour flat.

I never thought I could fall in Love  by Chanchaldeep Singh Sandhu - Seems to be part autobiographical in nature written by Punjab da Puttar, something a lot of college students or millennials would identify with.

The Company Red by Shantanu Dhar - Soon to be a major motion picture says the mast head, humans, vampire, different fonts…..phew left it half way.

A book by Ravi Subramanian, who had earlier written ‘If God were a Banker’ and ‘Devil in pinstripes’ which I liked, had me scrabbling to pre order it and once delivered, first on my list to read.

It begins with a promise, woven well with Naxalite, Foreign Banks, their aggression, deceit, treachery, credit card frauds amidst corporate politics.

But some relations have not been woven well and are abrupt - Kavya & Karan - whilst some parts have dragged, the flitting of naxal movement with banking may appear to be new to readers and the suspense may appeal; however John Grisham it ain’t.

Over all personally disappointed after the first two books but still worth a one read.

Another one from the Alumnus stable of IIM Ahmedabad, I do not know who, how, where, when this book landed on my table but in a moment of desperation decided to flip through it.

The book is an attempt to be a kind of Robin Sharma or Deepak Chopra to the professional beginners, but lacks the conviction that experience should, which probably may be true.

But, Hey I am not a beginner and hence may have not understood the book.

Nearly a fortnight ago, I was surprised to receive a mail from Puneet Gupta, the author of ‘The Suicide Banker’ telling me about himself, and that he had read some reviews of mine on my blog.

Coincidentally, I had been surfing my current favorite book store - Flipkart.com and was on an Indian author trip and had already ordered his book.

Read the rest of this entry »

A month or so ago, I had either received a tweet or mail from Abhay Nagarajan, wondering if I had read the above mentioned book.

Frankly, it was of no interest to me and had forgotten, till last week, looking for a book on flipkart saw the book and price (Rs. 100/-) ordered it along with Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai The Premier Murder League by Geeta Sunder.

Aha, well back to the afore mentioned book. A sort of poor @sidin about investment counselor from two tier B school and his boss, with too much jargon and extremely thin story line, trying to encash on the so called ‘market melt down’

Personally, I think it should have had a better story line, with less jargon and more humane touch.

Also for me the fact, that everyone wants to write, manage to write publish is ‘courage to follow your dreams and realise them’ is cheers time.

And hey, it may probably work for that age group, B school people, with a great price point.

A couple of weeks ago, a colleague dropped in for a chat over coffee.

Whilst discussing, he mentioned that they were thinking of getting into the publishing business and in this regard, he had read a novel, that he found exciting and would like my view.

Promptly the book was sent, which I dutifully carried with me and left it in the pile of unread books on my bedside table.

Cleaning the sides as part of my virtuous diwali spring cleaning, decided to riffle through the book.

Once upon a time, I was a voracious fiction reader, finishing a Ludlum on a Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai flight and probably remember the plot even today:)

Five pages into the book my suspicions arose; flipped through more pages and the end.

My suspicions were right - ‘Society’ by Mehernosh Kapadia is a straight lift - probably page by page - from ‘The color of law’ by Mark Gimenez with the names and locations changed, a book coincidentally read by me only a month ago.

Why, when, what and other questions are probably best addressed by both authors.

Another book by an Indian author, who was a banker, is good compere, loves scotch, cigars - Anish Trivedi.

A first attempt, which looks an attempt to climb the band wagon of becoming a novelist.

There is nothing new about the story except BPO theme and how middle class life is about and how they make choices.

It looks as if BPO is now the flavor of the month/season.

I prefer Anish as a columnist or compere.