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.

A novel by Karan Bajaj who had earlier written Keep off the grass.

It is a decent attempt to refresh your memory of the great Chase novels, but falls flat most of the time, with time, geography taking a beating.

The hero is ‘IIT’ which makes him invincible enough to escape, run a retail empire carved from drugs, become a IT millionaire and keep giving it all up.

It ends up as a mish mash but at Rs. 100/- makes a decent airport timepass.

On a recent visit to Hyderabad, spending time at the airport, chanced upon Indian authors and picked up some books out of which two ‘The Young Turks’ & ‘Delhi Durbar’ by Krishna Pratap Singh; The Betelnut Killers by Manisha Lakhe; The Game Changers by Fake IPL player.

In terms of grading, the books are no literary marvels, however the ones by Krishna Pratap Singh were worth the money paid.

They are well written, the characters being brought alive & you can recognize the tongue in cheek references to the past & current crop of politicians as well as the incidences referred to. They lighten your mind and the author manages to entertain the masses.

The Betelnut Killers by Manisha Lakhe is a mish mash of American Born Confused Desi with decently etched characters which neither entertains, but you just suffer through the laborious story.

The Game Changer is just a rehash of last year’s blog, but shows how Perception is different from reality. Better books than this have sunk without a trace whilst this is supposed selling well.

It is good to see that there are numerous Indian writers coming up and writing over a plethora of topics. Now only if enough Indian readers read:)