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.

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.

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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:)