The Kabul Beauty School; Deborah Rodriguez, Sphere, Rs.499.
The book is narrated in first person by the author, who joins a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan. Despite the language and cultural barrier, she starts a beauty school, trains women, and in time, becomes their confidante — gaining the courage to face her own problems and overcome them. While the stories are sweet, funny and heart-rending in turn, the language and sequencing are slightly jarring at times. However, the content makes up for most of the writing.
The Uncommon Memories of Zeenat Qureishi; Veena Nagpal, Tara, Rs.299.
Veena Nagpal’s latest offering deals with a multitude of subjects — the Partition, the Babri Masjid demolition, the London tube bombings, past life regression, and a cross-cultural Hindu-Muslim love story. While the story is simple — a Muslim girl is sent to India from the UK and falls in love with a Hindu boy — the narration and the background in which the story are set is anything but: Zeenat, the protagonist, has disturbing flashes of memory that set her on a path to discovering a dangerous truth. The book contains a little too much information for one story, but is well written.
14 Stories that Inspired Satyajit Ray; Ed&Trs Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, Harper Perennial, Rs.350.
A lovely anthology of stories originally in Bengali, that includes one by Ray himself, the book is a must-read. Beautifully translated, the collection begins with Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay’s Devi and ends with Ray’s own Pikoo’s Diary . The book contains interviews with Sharmila Tagore and Dhritiman Chatterjee as well — a bit of a bonus offering a peek into the genius filmmaker’s mind.
The Vanishing Act; Prawin Adhikari, Rupa, Rs.250.
Prawin Adhikari’s debut book of short stories based in Nepal and among the diaspora is a good read. The theme of vanishing — whether it be a young boy’s innocence or a monarchy — is prevalent in all the stories. The writing is crisp and lucid, the characters very relatable and the stories just long enough to hold one’s attention. An engrossing collection that moves from magic to realism and back again smoothly.
Terms & Conditions; Robert Glancy, Bloomsbury, Rs.399.
Terms & Conditions is an old tale of greed, lust, love-gone-wrong, sibling rivalry and amnesia told in a refreshing form. Narrated in first person, the book revolves around a Contract Lawyer who has amnesia and his search for his buried memories. Nearly half the story is told in footnotes; the author’s insistence on wanting us to focus on the fine print loud and clear. By far one of the better books in recent times.
Litizen Shorts: Carnival; various authors, litizen.com, Rs.199.
Litizen.com’s second collaborative effort, Carnival , deals with the theme of choice. The anthology covers various genres — fantasy, humour, thriller, sci-fi, adventure and more. The protagonists of each story are faced with choices — at times difficult, at times life-altering. None of the stories is preachy, but they do make you wonder what you’d do if you were in the protagonist’s shoes.
