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Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 137 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 173933 |
| Visitors Out: 593 |
| Total Visitors Out: 593 |
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| A distant world, Part III : Siliguri |
| 2008-03-06 09:35:08 |
Read Part II
I am at last headed for Bengal. North Bengal, where I was born. Where I spent my growing up years. In Delhi, the plane sits on the runway, delaying our departure for almost an hour. Who cares about the North East? Backward, dilapidated, a laggard in the economic growth seizing the whole [...]...
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| A distant world, Part II : Delhi |
| 2008-03-04 09:51:58 |
I travel up north, to Delhi. Crowded city bursting at its seams. An excess of traffic and humans jostling for space in roads frequently interrupted with construction work. New roads, wider roads, flyovers, hotels. To accommodate more and more. People, motors, business. To claim more and more. Open spaces, green vistas to gray. Boom or [...]...
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| A distant world - Part I : Mumbai, Pune |
| 2008-03-01 05:03:42 |
More than four years later. Closer to five than four. The very words I use to describe the gap after which I return to India, for a vacation.
It is a long journey, from where I reside, nestled in the temperate forests of the Pacific Northwest of America, to the subcontinent. How many thousand miles? I [...]...
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| The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy |
| 2008-02-17 17:38:10 |
After plodding through the last few books, “The God of Small Things†was a refreshing change. It drew me in, into the lives of Estha and Rahel, into Kerala, Ayemenem, onto love and its fragile boundaries, easily crushed by blind traditions, by selfish, hypocritical motives.
What Arundhati Roy achieves in her debut novel, her only [...]...
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| The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai |
| 2008-02-09 16:58:52 |
It is not a badly written book. But not one that well written to deserve an award, and least of all one as prestigious as the Booker. So why did The Inheritance of Loss win the Booker award?
Answer:
a) The rest of the books in running were no better
b) The judges made a blunder
c) My perceptions [...]...
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| The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer |
| 2008-02-02 16:05:38 |
Mehring, a shrewd, successful business tycoon based in South Africa and a sexually prolific if slightly depraved man, buys a farm, somewhat on a whim. It becomes a sanctuary for him, where he escapes on weekends to get away from his stereotyped world and also supervise its functioning, Jacobus and the rest of the black [...]...
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| The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru |
| 2008-01-03 23:18:08 |
Hari Kunzru makes a fair impression with his debut novel, which begins in the early twentieth century.Young Pran Nath Razdan, suddenly realizes that he is no longer the pampered son of a wealthy household, which upon the discovery of his dubious origins casts him out. The timing coincides with the death of Amar Nath Razdan, [...]...
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| Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle |
| 2007-12-22 19:47:20 |
Paddy Clarke is not a funny story. The overwhelming feeling is one of palpable sadness, despite several humourous episodes, especially towards the earlier parts of the book. Ten year old Paddy, the eldest son of a large Irish family in fictitious(?) Barrytown of the sixties, thoroughly enjoys the company of his friends – Kevin, Liam, [...]...
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| A Beneficiary by Nadine Gordimer |
| 2007-12-18 13:48:14 |
Charlotte, an attractive twenty something woman, is confronted by a secret upon her mother’s death. In unraveling what is and what is not, the mystery surrounding her own origin, her doubts are resolved in the clarity of a father’s love.
Gordimer’s style is succinct and incisive, frequently interrogative in this piece, probing inwards for answers. [...]...
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| Book Awards Reading Challenge |
| 2007-12-12 23:25:51 |
Here’s motivation for the coming days.
The ones finished have links to review pages.
Commonwealth Writers’
1992 - Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
1994 - Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
1996 - Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
Booker
1974 The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
1981 Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1993 [...]...
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| Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry |
| 2007-12-11 14:54:10 |
Gustad Noble, indeed a noble man, struggles through the crises besotting his life. His eldest son spurns IIT, leaves home to avoid the bitter squabbles with him. His best friend disappears, then entwines him in a mysterious scheme with suspicious money. His daughter falls sick. Another good friend has cancer, dies. War breaks out [...]...
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| The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro |
| 2007-12-03 18:36:51 |
There is an unnamable mysterious quality to Ishiguro’s novel. Words like sly, minimal and simple come to mind, but none describes the work completely. Yet those are some of its discernible qualities. It does not feel the author is [...]...
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| Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry |
| 2007-12-02 01:13:32 |
A tale of the pains of old age and disease, Family Matters is also a reflection on ties that bind us in joy yet enmesh us in misery at the same time. It’s a statement on the pitfalls of succumbing to blind tradition disregarding love and logic, both in the matters of the family and [...]...
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| On Writing by Stephen King |
| 2007-11-29 15:11:02 |
I’ve never read a Stephen King story, having little interest in the genre that he typically caters to. But I must say that this book has some excellent tips and inspiration for anyone interested in writing. And why just that? It’s a good read in itself – part memoir and part instructional, it manages to [...]...
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| East West by Salman Rushdie |
| 2007-11-12 00:10:00 |
East West is a short story collection. The nine tales are grouped in three, by the flavour of their origins, the third being the mixed one of book’s title. That also happened to be the one I liked the most, with “The Courter” beating the [...]...
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| Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf |
| 2007-11-04 22:44:42 |
The book is a close examination of Mrs. Dalloway, a wealthy London socialite widely admired for her grace and finesse in social circles, and Peter Walsh, her unrequited lover who has just returned from his lacklustre stint in India. Parallely, the book also portrays Septimus Warren Smith, a young war hero [...]...
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| Shame by Salman Rushdie |
| 2007-10-21 23:26:51 |
Though the characters and events are cast in a fable like fashion, “Shame” is clearly a portrayal of post independence Pakistan, with some of its main characters replicating prominent political figures in real life, albeit loosely. Iskander (notice the wordplay: an interchange of the first two alphabets producing a name that means king) [...]...
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