An Afghan’s odyssey I In the Sea There are Crocodiles by Fabio GedaI

At the age of 10, Enaiatollah Akbari sets out with his mother from his village Nava, in Afghanistan. After a perilous journey, they arrive in Quetta, Pakistan. She makes him swear three things: Never to use drugs; never to use weapons; never to cheat or steal.
This advice is all he has when his mother leaves in the quiet of the night to return to her other children back in Nava.

With most of the odds against him, chances of Enaitollah’s survival in a new, hostile country are bleak. But he survives to tell his poignant tale. The story is told by Fabio Geda as a series of conversations with Enaitollah. These conversations between the author and the protagonist are spread through the narrative. Written in Italian, the book has been translated into English by Howard Curtis.

Abandoned in Quetta, Enait picks up odd manual jobs. Even when he is reduced to a mere street urchin, he misses his days at school and Buzul Bazi, a dice game played a bone taken from a sheep’s foot after it’s been boiled. He listens to the children playing during school recess, longing to join them but is forced to go out into a world where a simple request for water elicits a scathing reply: First tell who are you? Are you a Shia or a Muslim. By now Eniat has learnt his lessons as he shoots back, "First I am a Shia, then I am a Muslim. Or rather, first I am a Hazara, then Shia then a Muslim." Hazara, inhabitants of Ghazni province, are identified by their almond eyes and flatter noses. While some claim to be descendants of Genghis Khan’s army others claim to have come down from Koshans, the legendary builders of the Bamiyan Buddhas. "Some others say we’re saves and treat us like slaves," says Enaitollah. Fed up of being treated badly, he decides to go to Iran, where he had heard "things were much better". Here begins  Eniat’s association with people traffickers, cramped trucks and the constant fear of Telisia and Sang Safid, the immigrant detention centres. At the Iranian city of Isfahan, he picks up the job at a construction site, which is where most of the illegal migrants worked. But with the constant police raids and the sword of deportation hanging on his head, Eniat decides to move again; this time to Turkey. This journey is far more challenging than anything he had been through. From Salmas, the last city in Iran and
closest to the mountains, begins a 27-day trek across snow-capped mountains.

On arriving in Istanbul, it becomes clear that there was no work to be found there. A journey further ahead to Greece is imminent. Here ensues a voyage in a dinghy which ends in his landing at a Greek port town without any clothes. The journey to Mytilene and thereon to Rome is largely aided by kind-hearted people. Enaitollah’s tale is a real-life account not a fictionalised narrative. His journey, that spans from Nava to Turin, may bring to mind the century-old adventures of Kipling’s Kim. This is however a much more realistic account pared of all the romance of adventure and powered by the sole grit to survive. Enaitollah refuses to name most of the people and places. "Facts are important," he tells Fabio, "The story is important. It’s what happens to you that change your life, not where or who with." While debating if they should take the journey to Greece in a dinghy, a fellow Afghan mentions the threat of crocodiles in the sea. The only answer available at that time to the group of young boys in desperate search of a better life is that there are no crocodiles in the sea. A postscript to the novel notes that Eniat, who is now 22 years old, and has received asylum in Italy, has discovered that there really are crocodiles in the sea.

The circus of dreams I THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern I

In 1886 a circus arrives in London: Le Cirque des Rêves (the Circus of Dreams). A notice at its entrance announces "Opens at Nightfall, Closes at dawn". On the night of October 13, the gates of the circus are thrown open. One steps into a world of wonder. Everything in the circus follows a pattern of black and white colours. As people move from tent to tent, they admire the curiosities. From painfully slow-moving human statues to a giant clock that turns itself inside out, everything in this circus touches the point of bizarre. Nothing is out of step, everything is too perfect. As the clock strikes midnight, a giant bonfire is lit by 12 archers. As each of their barbs produces a different colour at the bonfire, two people in the circus realize the "game" had begun.
The "game" is a challenge between two magicians Hector Bowen and AH, who swore their students into a battle of magic. The rules of the game are not clear perhaps because there are no rules. The students Celia and Marco, are mere kids when their "preparation" for the challenge beings. While Marco spends cold, comfortless days in intense study, Celia is subject to painful exercise like her fingers being cut up so she can repair them "magically".  
The Night Circus is Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Morgenstern, who lives in Massachusetts and is also multimedia artiste, describes all her work as "fairy tales in one way or another". Morgenstern’s peculiar brand of imagination works on details: frill and cut of dresses, smells that bring back memories, rain seeping slowly into clothes. The details present themselves through the magical world of the novel.  
The night circus is the stage where the challenge of wizards is played out. Celia is the illusionist in the circus and Marco is the owner’s assistant.  While, the bonfire lit by Marco powers the circus, Celia is the one who transports and "holds the circus together". The other members of the circus, including its owner Chandresh, have little clue about the real magic in action. The challenge involves a series of move with the two players adding their own magical tents to the circus and trying to gain control of it. Both Marco and Celia find themselves increasingly in awe of each other’s skills. By now the circus has tents like cloud maze, pool of tears, wishing tree, ice garden, desert world, to name a few. A steady group of fans known as rêveurs, follow the circus around. They dress in the trademark black and white of the circus but with a flourish of red. Meanwhile, the members of the circus don’t seem to age and begin to suspect something is wrong.
The admiration between Celia and Marco blooms into love soon, followed by the realization that the challenge would never end as long as both of them are alive.    
There is nothing ingenious about the story, given the rush of fantasy fiction in the last decade. While the magical challenge of Marco and Celia is played out in the world of muggles it is not clear how the two worlds interact.
This book would have been an ordinary work of fiction but for its stylized narrative. The story beings with the declaration: "The circus arrives without a warning." As you read the first chapter, you know Morgenstern is not in a hurry to tell her story. She lets the story breathe, slowly. Though, at 387 pages, it means a lot of breathing, but her prose has a lilt to it that accounts for more magic than all the charms in the book put together. She commits her blunders too, losing her rhythm to adjectives but pulls herself together.
Love between Marco and Celia is not something you see coming, given their detached rivalry. It does not sprout at the spur of the moment but evolves gradually, culminating to the point where both create breathtaking illusions for each other. A particularly interesting scene is the one where the two meet face to face as opponents for the first time. There are no pretences and secrets as the two wizards share details of how each controls the circus and what they are capable of. There is no love interest, but a
compulsion of having been unwillingly bound together by fate. While Celia stabs her hand with a dagger and heals it, Marco recreates a garden: What had been little more than a stack of rough stones moments before is now set and carved into ornate arches and pathways, covered in crawling vines and speckled with bright, tiny lanterns.
Contrived, yet compelling.

I am, therefore I am [ WELCOME TO AMERICASTAN by JABEEN AKHTAR ]

There are three stages experienced by one coming face to face with someone from Pakistan, explains Samira, the protagonist of Welcome to Americastan. First, disbelief that someone from the world’s most notorious brown country

ended up in the same room as you; second, fear and excitement that this Pakistani could have sinister ties with some of the terrible news events; third, the formulation of a bone-headed comment: You gave Bin Laden a house before our boys took his left eye out. Or, what an interesting time to be from Pakistan. With all the terrorists being from there and all.
There is method in the crazy humour.
I caught up with Jabeen Akhtar when she was in Delhi last week for the release of her first book, Welcome to Americastan. Akhtar is light-hearted, “cool” and surprisingly clear-headed. “It’s okay. We can survive people laughing at us,” she says before breaking into a giggle.
“It’s important to just sit back and laugh at ourselves and let other people laugh,” says Jabeen. “Humour is missing in any idea or literature about Pakistanis and Muslims. All the heavy elements on the subject have been out there for some time now, I wanted this book to give a kind of fresh
perspective.”
Welcome to Americastan deals with a peculiar Pakistani family that she calls “almost dysfunctional”, with each member seemingly headed in a different direction, with zero idea of what’s right or wrong.
It has a dramatic opening, throwing us right in the middle of a mother-daughter brawl. “Haramzadi! Awara! Bewaqoof!” Samira’s mother screams at her. Samira, or Sam, has come home, in Cary, North Carolina, after losing her job and her boyfriend of eight years in Washington, D.C., besides managing to get her name on the FBI’s terrorist watch list. None of this is known to her parents who think their daughter is home for a weekend. She bargains with her siblings to help her tow in her luggage secretly but is caught red-handed.
Here is a bizarre family in a state of disarray. Samira’s sister Meena doesn’t mind giving a blow job to a stranger at a party to get some weed for her heartbroken elder sister. Later she brings a female date to the elder brother’s Muslim wedding. Khalid, the elder brother who is about to get married, can think of
little other than videogames. He blows up the money saved up
for his marriage to get a fancy gadget.
The parents on the other hand carry deep memories and a longing for Pakistan. The father narrates how his date of birth was “estimated” after his mother
said he was born around an epidemic in India, on a cold rainy night with ber littered around trees. The children are unable to relate to any of this.
A new trend in the expatriat community comes across. “The concept of identifying with geography is becoming more and more irrelevant for second generation children in the US,” says Akhtar. “You don’t get a sense of ‘I belong to this country’; it’s more like I’m just out there, floating about in the world’.”
The author, who was brought up in the US, says she had been in Pakistan for less than a fortnight in her entire life. “It was nothing like I had imagined it to be. I had thought people there would look like me, think like me, be cool... but it was nothing like that. A lot of things I did there were inappropriate.”
Much like Akhtar, her protagonist also rejects being classified as either an American or Pakistani or Pakistani-American.
Back home, Samira looks for ways to recover from her heartbreak. She begins to help her father at PAC-PAC, a civic organisation he started in the aftermath of 9/11.
Samira has a brush with racism at a store when an angry woman swears at her, “F***ing Arabs”, and then adds, “Welcome to America.” Samira is surprised to find people around her more angry and upset at this than she is. Despite being the “victim”, she has to comfort and pacify the crowd.
Later she thinks of the retort that would have trounced her opponent, “Hey b***h, didn’t you hear? It’s called Americastan now.”
Still unable to get over her ex-boyfriend Ethan, Samira ends up in an affair with a guy at her gym. Meanwhile, at PAC-PAC things begin to get difficult as some members oppose helping non-Muslim Pakistanis through the organisation. At one of the meetings the debate even turns into proving who is a better Muslim.
The fact that Samira had been put on the FBI’s terror list is revealed to her father at a crucial PAC-PAC meeting. The author puts Samira’s brush with law in a comic light: After realising that her boyfriend had left her for her bestfriend, she chases them and tries to run them over. She is caught by the cops and becomes a terror suspect. However, when she returns home, nothing troubles her more than the end of her relationship with Ethan. Being on the terror list seems to be the last thing on her mind. “It would be difficult for someone who thinks about his/her identity all the time to come out of such an experience,” says Akhtar. “But for someone for whom identity is not an issue it would be a joke.”
Meanwhile, Khalid is going to get married to his girlfriend, a white catholic, much to the dismay of his parents who insist on a Muslim wedding by a maulvi from Pakistan.
At the wedding Ethan is also invited and Samira prepares for the final faceoff.
The story has a young, hip tone. This is the view of the world from someone who doesn’t listen to newsroom debates or reads winding editorials.
The narrative does begin to lag towards the end, sounding nothing more than a girl’s pursuit of her ex-boyfriend. But humour being the touchstone, it keeps the story together.
Akhtar takes an unapologetic view of Pakistani expats. She doesn’t feel the need to “appear” American or even Pakistani. Like her, Samira belongs to an increasingly threatened brand of liberal-minded people. But her beliefs are not shaken either by the “terrorist” label or by a peer group that doesn’t share her views. Neither does she come across as a smug rebel. “Rebellious?... Oh, it’s nothing that glamorous. We’re just suburbanites,” she says.
Akhtar cleverly inserts thought into a largely humorous novel. She often manipulates farce and gives it a surprise sentimental twist. The father, for example, time and again uncovers his “Partition-era” scar for the children to see. The display is followed by a “scar speech” to remind them how hard the struggle was and how privileged they had been. This comic family scene takes a sharp turn in the end. “It is a part of me,” father tells Samira, “and it follows me wherever I go, but all I have to do is put on a shirt, you see. Cover it up and I can start over… that is why everybody comes to America.”

KARMA CHAMELEON I The Man Of A Thousand Chances by Tulsi Badrinath I

During the reign of 17th century emperor Jehangir, gold coins were minted for the king’s beloved wife Nur Jahan. She became the only empress to have her own coinage without ascending the throne. One of the biggest Mughal coins, the 1,000-mohur, weighing around 12 kilograms was also minted in this period.

This coin found its way to the coffers of the Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali, and is now locked away in a Swiss vault. It is one such coin that becomes the karma leash of Harihar Arora in Man of a Thousand Chances.

Weighing two kilograms and worth millions, the coin is in a Chennai museum where Harihar works and hatches the plan to “borrow” it. As Harihar’s colleagues watch mahouts trying to control an enraged elephant, he steals the Jahangir coin and rushes straight to the pawnbroker.
Having pawned the invaluable piece for `2 lakhs, guilt-ridden Harihar goes home to his wife Sarla and soon-to-be-married daughter Meeta. Harihar is determined he will return the money and restore the coin soon after Meeta’s wedding. Harihar notices his wife’s crumpled sari and preoccupied look. He resents her transformation from the shy woman who would greet him at the door wearing fresh clothes and a special smile. He recoils at sight of her tooth that had turned blue and could not be cured because of the money involved. As his daughter displays before him the purchases of the day he is drawn into a labyrinth of memories. The story of how his father had moved to Chennai for business unfolds. Harihar’s estranged relationship with his elder brother Ashok had led him to move out of the family business and the family house. He had then found a job at the museum and a mentor in his boss Mahadevan.
From Sarla’s angle, the world looks different. The fact that she trades in shares has been kept hidden from her husband all these years. He believes she spends her time trying to sell plastic kitchen boxes and “getting nowhere”. That, however, is far from truth. She has a mind and flair for business and is able to earn some money out of it. Another hidden name arises as we hear Sarla’s story: Ratan, the son who had gone missing and was never found. Despite all the years Sarla grieves for her lost son and somehow holds Harihar responsible for him.
A second generation north Indian in Chennai, Harihar’s household is a queer mix of traditions and language. Sarla’s learns bits of Tamil from her maid and the family works out a part-Tamil part-north Indian menu for the wedding. With sufficient cash at hand now, Harihar buys his wife and daughter saris of their choice. He has invested in a fund which will come to maturity soon after Meeta’s wedding. From this Harihar plans to buy back the coin. While the wedding is in progress Harihar gets to know that the fund managers are unable to pay back investors. On the other hand, the coin is spotted by a collector who recognises it’s real value and takes it from the pawnbroker. The pawnbroker tells Harihar the coin had been melted down. Dejected and beaten, Harihar is sure the loss of coin will be discovered anytime soon. Fate, however, has several surprises in store for him. Not only does he escape being accused of theft but is also able to mend his decaying relationship with his wife.
While one might think a second chance can make a world of a difference, this is the story of the man who gets a thousand. Caught in the storm of affairs surrounding his life, Harihar makes desperate attempt to make sense of it. His boss and mentor Mahadevan helps him connect the dots between karma and destiny. As Mahadevan takes him through a tedious journey from Gita’s karma to Schopenhauer’s will, Harihar emerges a man ready to take charge of his tumultuous life.
The Man of a Thousand Chances is Tulsi Badrinath’s second novel. She has made an attempt to bring together aspects of karma and art. She is unable, however, to weave the theme into the story. The exploration of karma and art by Mahadevan towards the end stands aloof from the rest of the narrative. It is also hard to believe that a mere lecture could induce a major change in Harihar. However, Tulsi has a keen eye for detail and her portrayal of family life is seamless. Be it Meeta stealing glances at the picture of her fiancé or the husband, wife and daughter filling their weekly store of water; the descriptions are warm and colourful.
One finds it hard to reconcile how a man may get so many chances while the others struggle for a single go. If we were to believe the words of Harihar’s mentor Mahadevan, that’s where karma comes into play. The story moves through pensive scenes without breaking into a common laugh at the face of destiny. While to a simple man like Harihar Schopenhauer may be too much to understand, humour can provide the perfect umbrella to take shelter from the moods of karma. After all a coin is as much a slave of karma as the man who carries it.

Truly Asia: Love in times of turmoil I THUNDER DEMONS by DIPIKA MUKHERJEE I

What goes into the bitter-sweet broth of an Asian tale? Fry a pinch of radical politics with a subversive plot. Add a spoonful of mystery. Marinate some individuals in love and mystery and throw them into the political frying pan. Whip the beans of mystery with past till they are a smooth cream. As the soup comes to a boil, add a piece of tragedy and let the broth sizzle. Garnish with desi flavour and serve. Conceived on these lines, Dipika Mukherjee gives us a perfect Asian tale in her novel Thunder Demons. The novel was long-listed for Man Asian Literary Prize (2009).

The mixed Malaysian culture of Chinese, Indians and Malays provides the perfect ground for the action to unfold. The sensitive ethnic equation of the country and a constant political simmering are the backbone of the novel. Incidents like the Malay authorities seizing 20,000 Bibles for referring to God as Allah, find an echo in the story.
As the book opens we find a sinister Colonel S tying explosives onto a Tibetan model who is thereafter executed. Issues of attire and conduct of women are a part of the brewing social upheaval.
Jayantha or Jay, a professor at an American university, is called back to Malaysia by his mentor Colonel S. For Jay, Malaysia is a bank full of memories. He writes to his dead friend Shanti’s daughter Agnibina. In Agni’s honest reply Jay sees the prospects of an exciting visit. Meanwhile, Colonel S is hatching a terrible plot for which he intends to enlist the help of his best recruit, Jay. A stent filled with super-explosives in place of drugs, is the project for which he needs Jay’s help. Though aware of his ulterior motives, Jay decides to go back and lay at rest the “demon tooth” of Shanti.
On his arrival Jay finds himself in the midst of a mass protest. A large number of Indian men have gathered to protest the “growing arrogance of a Master Race of Malays.”
Jay’s visit rattles Agni’s bedridden grandmother Shapna and so a trail of secrets begins to spill out. Through her gurgling sounds Shapna tries to warn her granddaughter about Jay but is unable to.
Agni, recently back from a long affair in the US, knows Shapna hadn’t told her the real story of her birth. Though back in Malaysia, Agni isn’t sure of her relationship with the land where her mother lost her life for love.
Abhik, the son of Mridula and Ranjan, is a lawyer and is the voice of minorities in the country. Agni and Abhik are in love.
A multi-layered story unfolds as grandmother Shapna tells us about her journey from India to Malaysia. A child bride Shapna was taken by Nikhil, 40 years her senior. As a stunning Shapna looks the groom’s side in the eye, everyone knows she is an unusual bride. Brought to Malaysia, young Shapna finds little comfort in her marriage. As she loses her first child during the years of First World War her best friend Siti (a Malay) nurses her with Malaysian magic. Siti evokes charms for a child to come to Shapna and soon the duo “find” Shanti. This story of Shanti being a fairy child is passed onto her daughter Agni.
However, what Agni does not know is why years later Siti is shocked to see her vagrant husband Zanial’s shadow merge with that of young Shanti. Why Shapna refuses to let Shanti become Zanial’s second wife. Why do Zanial and Siti vanish from the scene? Shanti drowns to her death after Jay, spurned in love by her, reveals the Oedipal truth of her birth.
Still burdened by the death of Shanti, Jay now falls in love with her daughter Agni and watches as death strikes Agni’s life.
The shifting point-of-views of Shapna, Colonel S and Jay reveal the complex story of three Indian and one Malay family. While Shapna hates Jay and holds him responsible for the death of her daughter, Jay grudges her liaison with his father. Colonel S, on the other hand, is embroiled in a political plot and driven by the idea of Malay supremacy. The most powerful of the three is the voice of Shapna: “I was brought up hearing that a woman’s life is like that of a Koi fish, hanging on to life despite all odds. Such was the idiom of acceptance for other women, never for me.”
Dipika Mukherjee, who is currently Professor of linguistics at Shanghai International Studies University, is a gifted story-teller. The narrative moves forward in a mystery maze as characters emerge in bits and pieces. Though the story has a distinct cultural flavour one can’t help asking for more. You also miss the picturesque life of Malaysia which gets nudged out in bid to make room for a complex story.
Malaysia’s tourism logo “Truly Asia” works as a foil as the country is seen falling apart over the question: who is “Bhumiputra”. A past muddled by invaders a present plagued with poverty and a future that asks poisonous questions makes this story of Malaysia truly Asian in spirit.

Meeting of flames of unconditional love I LONEY GODS by Shivani Singh I

THE WORLD of love stories is full of oxymorons: cloying yet irresistible, predictable yet thrilling, dumb yet inspiring. Shivani Singh’s Lonely Gods is a love story with a mystic twist. You may relate “Unconditional Love” to a romantic’s toilet dream, but in the novel it has a radically scientific avatar. UCL (Unconditional Love) is the

huge quantum of energy released when “Twin Flames” or two energies vibrating at the same frequency, come together. UCL, the most refined form of energy must be created to balance out the end-of-the-world scenario of 2012. Of course, the twin flames (who are people actually) find each other after thousands of painful lives.
Making love the ultimate weapon to protect the world from destruction, Singh walks the thin line between farce and humour. She dishes out the clichéd “throbbing of heart” and “look in the eye” but adds to it a touch of out-worldly magic. While the story moves towards a very predictable end it does so in the style of one powered by divine force.
The VNP is a secret society in Delhi to which Kamini has found an easy entry. A top-level project is on and Kamini finds herself a part of it. But unlike other members who specialise in forms of occult, Kamini is just another girl. Mira, Kamini’s landlady who brought her into the society, is a master of the Vedas and an astro-palmist. Carlos a “Caucasian swami” is an expert at ashtanga yoga and is said to have a range of supernatural powers from levitating to becoming invisible. Rita, Kamini’s boss, heads the quantum mythology wing of VNP. Ali, the brat, is the son of a filmstar and a powerful sorcerer. Hari, who is the keeper of the project’s flame and conducts its meetings, falls in love with Kamini. Rudra, a young boy who couldn’t talk is the last member of the group. While everyone else seems to know what the secret project is about, Kamini is the only one in the dark. As the members of the group join their energies to help her understand, she finds herself increasingly attracted to Hari, on one hand, and facing threat from “negative energies” on the other.
From Mira’s “Machu Picchu” house in Delhi where the members are holding their meeting, the story rolls back several years to Kolkata. In Chowringhee Apartment, young Raj meets Aparajita. Both are unable to sleep that night knowing all the while that the other is awake too. Aparajita is a married woman with a baby. Raj finds a way to meet Aparajita who is also a psychic. Strangely, both are able to connect in their minds even when they are physically apart. No words signalling love are exchanged in the physical realm but the two are perfect lovers in the world of thought. They find themselves together in their dreams, taking acute pleasure in each other’s bodies. Both are disconcerted by what is happening to them. Unwillingly, they feel the other within physical reach, the minute they shut their eyes.
As Aparajita gets up sweating hard from the feel of Raj’s hands on her thighs, she is unable to resolve the conflict in her dreams and real world. As their social positions make it impossible for them to meet, they drift apart and Aparajita moves out with her husband. The only physical evidence of love between them is the ring that Aparajita had chosen for Raj’s fiancée. Years later as Raj is on his deathbed and still pining for Aparajita, the ring assumes the power of his love for her. The “negative energies”, characterised by the villains in the story, fight to gain the ring. Needless to say, the villains too are masters of occult and magic.
As the VNP’s plan unfolds before Kamini, the real reason behind her being made a part of the project is disclosed. Inspite of her lack of magic, she is the most powerful weapon of them all. The climax takes place at a cosmically sacred site, where the twin flames will regain their power. A massive cyclone, brewed up by the villains, rages in the physical world while the final battle is fought in the non-physical realm of dreams. No magic and contraptions can win this war but forgiveness.
The suspense is kept up as the answers to who is the chief of the VNP and what is the relation of Kamini and Hari are reserved for the end. While the beginning of the book is listless, the end marks its culmination. The scene alternates between the VNP members preparing Aparajita for what is to unfold and the Raj-Aparajita love story.
Singh is aware of the love-sickness that her novel may induce and she adds a generous dose of humour to neutralise the effect. Kamini is the foil who makes fun of the magic percepts that are doled out to her making the reader relate to her. There is a little bit of everything here: Mills and Boons-style high-voltage romance on one hand and Chicken Soup for Soul-style eternal undying love on the other. Mysticism and occult form the mainstay of the novel making it appear different from the browbeaten mould. Yet, it’s not hard to figure that the basic format of the story is not too imaginative. “All love stories don’t come with pink accessories,” Hari tells Kamini during one of the VNP lessons, but this one definitely does qualifying it as a perfect romantic gift.

THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN... I Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World by Alex Rutherford I

There is something immensely fascinating and heroic about a warrior king. While history is replete with tales of such monarchs, we never seem to get enough of them. Empire of the Moghul: Ruler of the World is the third in the series of fictionalised accounts of the Mughal empire. Diana and Michael Preston, writing under the pen name of Alex Rutherford, pick up the reign of King Akbar in this work. Their focus, however, is not the exploits of the warrior king and the giant expanse of his empire but also the single strain of weakness in his rule: his sons.
Indian history commonly evokes the image of the hunt: King mounted on a tusker vanquishing a tiger. Akbar himself is believed to have a fascination for cheetahs and is known to have kept a large number of them in captivity. At the opening of the book too we find the 13-year-old Akbar on such a perilous expedition complete with drums, elephants and gunpowder. While he is still celebrating the kill the news is brought in that he had lost Delhi to King Hemu.
As the first “real” action faces him, the boy is coaxed to leave Delhi and move to safety. Minutes later, we are at the boy-king’s war council. But it is the commander-in-chief Bairam Khan, who calls the shots while Akbar sits and waits for his turn to speak. As the council begins to mull ways of retreat, a dramatic speech by young Akbar brings the chiefs back to onslaught mode.
At Panipat, Akbar with his 1,00,000 men faces a stronger army of Hemu. This is the battlefield where 30-years-ago his grandfather Babur had defeated the Lodhi Sultan. A mix of manoeuvres, grit and courage sees him bring down Hemu. It is a landmark win for Akbar but as Bairam Khan chides him for his brashness we know the king has yet to lose his commander-in-chief and his boyhood.
It’s a quick climb for Akbar into manhood as Mayala, a concubine, gives Akbar his first lessons in lovemaking.
Years later, when he has built a huge harem with several wives, Mayala continues to be one of his favourites. However, what stays missing is the bond he had seen his mother share with his father.
After defeating Hemu, Akbar begins to find Bairam Khan increasingly irksome. The king easily falls prey to a court plot to get rid of his right hand man. As the royal conspirers are brought to justice Akbar regrets his own gullibility. The echoes of this episode are felt much later as over the years Akbar trusts few, not even allowing his own sons the privilege to know his mind.
After recovering from the loss of Bairam Khan, Akbar turns his attention to Chittorgarh. Rajput warriors of Chittor prove worthy opponents. Akbar has his victory but only after losing an equal number of his own troops and witnessing the women throw themselves into live pyres. He decides it would be better to have the Rajputs fight for him than against him.
A Rajput princess, Hirabai, becomes his first wife. The alliance is a great success for the king but to the man it brings little comfort.
In Akbar, Hirabai sees a ruthless conqueror, someone who had to be driven away. In the author’s version Hirabai could never get reconciled to the marriage, beginning from the first night when she tries to stab her husband. Despite his vast harem, Akbar could not ignore Hirabai as he sees in her eyes the expression of a wild leopard. He promises, however, to leave her alone once she gave him an heir. After the birth of Salim, he keeps this promise.
Salim’s birth comes after much delay. A hostile Hirabai is suspected of using ways to keep off childbirth. However, after the blessings and predictions of Sheikh Salim Chishty, a son is born and consequently named after the saint.
Hereon, Akbar gradually fades as the story veers towards Salim. While he sees in his father a tolerant, generous king, his mother’s views are different. The father meanwhile, suspects that his wife is turning his son against him.
Unable to bank on his family, Akbar finds a faithful in Abul Fazal, who grows from being a mere chronicler to the king’s right hand man. In the course of time he meets the same fate as Bairam Khan at the hands of a jealous Salim.
No problem is insurmountable for Akbar, be it the Ulemas, the Christian priests or the queen mother’s displeasure. But it is a strange stalemate when he finds his son unable to control his desire for his prized dancing girl Anarkali. On discovery, the image-conscious king sentences the girl to death while the prince is banished to Kabul. Unlike the popular Salim-Anarkali lore there is little love in the affair. The authors give us a peep into the sexual jealously between the father and son that culminates into an open rebellion.
While Salim with all his ambitions and faults seems lifelike, Akbar begins to appear a mere fixture. Salim’s insecurity on sensing the odds of his own son superseding him is acute whereas, Akbar’s misgivings for Salim look insipid. The story deals numerous aspects of Akbar’ reign, reminding you of the history book subheads: Akbar as a warrior, builder, administrator, religious head etc. However, none of these are the core of the novel which essentially deals with Akbar as a family man. An excess of angles douses out the focus.
Hirabai, for example, is an intriguing character, but over the 36 years of Akbar’s reign that the story traces, her case stays the same. The authors make an attempt to pare down the King, his queens and princes and show us their human side but too much history is piled on and the men, women and boys in the royal corridors stay hidden.

PERFECTIONISTS

Half-a-woman
she was
no beauty
no coy
no mystery,

and half-a-man
was he
no grit
no rich
no logic.

No people these,
wandering
in their world
of no words
no language

and yet, look,
in the arms
of a shameless
night,
they weave

Our world of
full women
robust men
and clever
things to say.

NAUGHTY AT SIXTY I Pure Sequence by Paro Anand I

Munching biscuit-namkeen, clicking cutlery and trading dirty jokes at a card game are not activities one associates with 60-year-old Indian women, but that is what Kunti, Satya, Sheila and Tosh do and that is what makes them worthy of being the leading ladies of this novel. The setting for Pure Sequence, Paro Anand’s first venture into adult fiction, is unique yet familiar. Anand styles her characters after the aunties next-door: the retired, unmarried schoolteacher (Satya), the wife shackled to a bed-ridden husband (Sheila), the lonely grandmother longing for her foreign-settled brood (Tosh), the temperamental mother suffocating in a house full of grandchildren (Kunti). But she gives them all that one special thing — joy of living.
We are familiar with one half of the stories of such women who fill our mundane afternoons with drama and gossip: A past full of beautiful memories, a present plagued with pain and a future holding little promise. But Anand’s aunties are not brooding, oldies resigned to fate and gods. Their chatter spiced with popular Punjabi slang and gaalis, these women struggle to beat old age, and sometimes they win.
Anand cuts into a card game and traces the shadows of pain on their lives. Like most old women, they too regret not having led a life of their choice, so, it’s catharsis time when they meet. The result is obscene jokes, ingenious swear words and nasty rounds of bitching. From struggling to get a hang of email, to screaming out “bitch”, they try hard to stay relevant in the changing times. Often realising that they can’t.
Anand switches montages quickly. We find ourselves in the middle of a brawl as Kunti screams “F**k! F**k! F**k!” in her son’s face. She then faints while attempting to call him up to say sorry. Tosh is called in to stay the night. When alone with Tosh, Kunti confesses, “You can’t imagine the gandi, gandi gallis I gave my son”. Tosh admits her own burden, “I did wish, they, my own family, would just go away”. Relieved of their guilt, the two women have a whale of a time eating chips, watching Jungle Book and singing aloud. Sheila and Satya watch with envy the change in the other two and wish for a similar getaway.
The next jolt comes when Sheila’s husband passes away. Satya steps in to help, also hoping that she will find some relief from her own loneliness. The hard life of a single woman has left Satya scarred and she finds herself unprepared for the delicate situation that unfolds at the house of her bereaved, widowed friend. With her successful attempt to make Sheila smile, the ice in Satya’s heart begins to melt. As they lie down for the night, Sheila talks of her dead husband while Satya reveals her secret: Why she never married.
As days pass, Satya finds years of bitterness lifted from her voice while Sheila is freed from the death of husband. Satya breaks the mourning period declaring, “Bhad mein jaye this dakhiya noosi thinking”, and revives the card party.
Soon, Sheila asks Satya to come and live with her and the deal is sealed with a hug. The four eventually plan a weekend at Sheila’s house. They christen themselves the “Bitchy Biddies Bunch” — BBBs, and swear to have no rules. The weekend also being Satya’s 70th birthday, she is promised a surprise. The weekend is a riot. Drinks are “seduced”, porn DVDs stolen and Playboy copies distributed.
But the book is no fairytale, and the joy seems to be on a short fuse as Sheila’s house is put up for sale, Satya survey’s old age homes and the others return to the lives they were living. As the story runs its full course, Satya gets her birthday surprise and crowns it with her first real kiss. The old women are brought together again to complete the Pure Sequence, the perfect life.
Kunti, Satya, Sheila and Tosh may seem empowered, even liberated, but a feminist reading of these characters is less appealing. These are upper middle-class women, their sense of freedom fuelled by the money left by their husbands. Even the “poorest” of them, Satya, has a flat of her own. Also, they use a lot Punjabi words, even complete sentences, which puts the book out of bounds for readers not from  Delhi.
Yet, Pure Sequence is an interesting read for the position it takes on old age. Old characters usually end up pitiable or dead. Hemmingway’s Old Man, for example. You would never want to be in Santiago’s shoes. But here, you want to be a part of Paro Anand’s old biddies. They are profane and naughty, and determined and spirited, and you want to grow old like them.

THE MIGHT OF MISCHIEF I Small Acts of Resistance By Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson

When King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal’s Parliament in 2005 and declared a state of emergency, the country quickly turned into one of the most strictly censored nations in the world. As elected politicians were put behind bars and telephone lines severed, journalists fought to spread the news. Broadcasters at Radio Sagarmatha hit on a novel idea and decided to call news haalchal instead of samachaar. As the authorities caught on to the ploy, the broadcasters re-disguised news as entertainment and called in a well-known comedian to sing news in his comic style. Even as popular radio stations were shut down, innovative and defiant ways of taking information to the masses continued.
Steve Crawshaw and John Jackson’s Small Acts of Resistance is a compilation of such inspiring incidents. While the stories are brilliant for the sheer courage and innovation, their outcome may have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Crawshaw, who was in Delhi recently, admits however, that the brief incidents in his book “may not be the end of the story”. “But acts such as these or say Burmese protests of 2007 or more recently China’s Jasmine protests are significant steps that set in motion wheels of change,” he said in an interview, adding, “Our aim was to come up with a compendium of inspiring acts where people have come out of their fears to speak against injustice, and not venture into a political statement.”
Crawshaw is international advocacy director of Amnesty International. He was also a journalist for several years. Jackson is currently vice-president of social responsibility for MTV Networks International.
The incidents narrated in the book are grouped into 15 broad chapters. Each episode is in not more than a brisk 250 words. Asked about emphasis of the title on “small acts of resistance”, Crawshaw explained: “We were looking at putting together protests that were fundamentally non-violent, and yet could make a difference. Revolution, in its nature, is not always non-violent. In change that comes through a violent revolution it becomes difficult to eliminate violence and violence leads to more violence and more violence leads to yet more violence. Hence we put together these seemingly small examples of exemplary courage of ordinary people.” The episodes range from popular ones like Zhao Ziyang whose posthumously published book Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang made waves in 2010 or the social ostracism of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott in 1880 from which the word boycott came into being, to lesser known ones like Afghan woman Malalai Joya who stood before a loya jirga packed with men and asked them to throw out the warlords present at the meeting.
Crawshaw said he found Burma’s monks led-”saffron-protests” as the most inspiring. Two instances from those protests find mention in the book. Among those he witnessed he recalls 1989 protests in Leipzig, then East Germany. People organised peaceful protest marches every Monday, demanding change. As the protests began to swell, the authorities sent out a warning that the protesters would be dealt with firmly. Around the time for protests “sixteen trucks with armed workers’ militia stood waiting in one side of the street alone.” Heavy security blanket was thrown around yet 70,000 protesters came out defying the threat of gunfire. “Watching those people walk into the face of death… I don’t know if I would have the courage to do that. I don’t think I would have it in me,” said Crawshaw.
Quite relevant to the uprising in the Arab world, a whole chapter in the book is dedicated to “Digital Dissent”. Crawshaw said it is not easy to tell if the modern technology has made it easier to express dissent or if it has made us a slave of convenience. “It is what we call slacktivism or activism at the click of the mouse,” he said. A portmanteau word,slacktivism is formed out of “slacker” and “activism”. It is used to describe “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. Yet, given the fact that in the context of Arab uprisings digital world has played a major role, he said “Protests in Tunisia or Egypt or Iran have a lot in common with armed protests but the way of being able to get the message out to the outside world and to each other has changed. It does amount to a significant change but it does not make a world of a difference. Solidarity protests in Poland would have happened anyway and the Latin American banging of pats and pans would have happened nevertheless.”
What makes Egypt protests special were their largely non-violent appeal, said Crawshaw. “The fact that protests in Egypt have managed to remain fundamentally non-violent brings hope for revolution there. Yet there is more change that is needed there and is to come. Even as we hope for the best we know that the story of Egypt is not yet over. Same could be said of East Europe in 1989 which had seen great churning but the more momentous events were yet to unfold. A number of Egyptians I have spoken to of late say that they feel more confident in last few weeks simply because of the sense of power and pride.”
Asked about how to make out a genuine protest from an attempt at propaganda, Crawshaw suggested a scale of moral compass and courage. “I met quite a few officers who in the Bush-era stood up against the excesses of the administration. Such people keep the moral compass of the society right.”
India also finds frequent mention in the book. NDTV’s SMS campaign in Jessica Lal case, pink-chaddi campaign against SRS chief Pramod Muthalik among the more recent ones. On his first visit to India, Crawshaw said Amnesty report on Kashmir (released on Monday) was among his latest projects.
One of the most interesting ideas in the book is about Sudanese women in 2002 practising “sexual abandoning” on the lines of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. “Women decided that by withholding sex from their men they could force them to commit peace-and it worked.” The result may sound exaggerated but as the writers put it “some people are deluded enough to believe that they can change things, and right wrongs. They think that change is worth taking risks for-even when there is no certainty of the outcome.”

CARAMBA! THE COUNT IS DEAD I Murder In San Felice by Chandralekha Mehta I

The people of San Felice, still dizzy from Count Jeorge de la Bolla’s party, wake up to the news that their host had been murdered. The grapevine of servants carries the tale of the death to the diplomat bosses. While the Indian ambassador is informed by his butler, the maid cries out the story at the Counsellor’s house. As we catch people receiving the dreadful news, their relationship to the flamboyant count is revealed as is the life and pace of the Latin American city.
The author, Chandralekha Mehta of Nehru-lineage, is a diplomat’s wife. Murder In San Felice turns the spotlight on life of diplomats. Mehta not only has an eye for detail but also has the talent to weave it into the story.
We begin to know more about the dead man as the town women mutter between their sobs that they were "so close" to him. On one hand Counsellor Bhagwan, is relieved to know that the man with whom he suspected his wife was having an affair was dead, on the other the diplomat’s daughter is worried that she had left her riding shoes in the count’s room.
Pepe, a visitor at an exclusive boutique, claims he had killed the count by turning down the count’s "proposal". As the list of suspects grows Anil, a prospective groom for the diplomat’s daughter Mona, arrives in the San Felice.
The newly-arrived guest is drawn into the mystery as he is told that the police had found Mona’s boots under the dead count’s bed. An apparently naive 19-yearold Mona is hence being seen as the final "kill" of dead the Count. To add to it Mona confides in Anil that she could not find her passport and feared she may have dropped it next to her boots on the eve of the murder.
Chandralekha Mehta adds a string of colourful characters to the story. The police commissioner, for example, is a man obsessed with the exotic, much like the dead count. The Indian community in San Felice must take his fascination with a pinch of salt: "You have a marvelous country, so spiritual! I would give anything to visit it, but I fear terrible poverty would upset me too much  People dying of hunger, lying in the streets with no shelter. And all those sacred cows. No, unfortunately I can never go to India." Besides, the commissioner has a fetish for sarees. He asks Anil to send him a saree with peacock embroidery from India, which he intended to use as a table spread.
The ambassador’s cook is another such character. A great chef with slovenly ways and dim wits, Gulati Singh, breaks down when the ambassadress meets sudden death at the National Day reception.
This death coming soon on the heels of the first one, still unsolved, leaves everyone unsettled. The mystery deepens when Anil goes to the Bhagwan’s house to borrow a book and finds a note threatening to reveal the secrets about Shiela, the Counsellor’s wife.
Meanwhile, Mona is deeply affected by the death of her mother. Hardly absolved from role in the count’s death, she finds herself a suspect in her mother’s death as well. The ambassador, on the other hand, "flowers" after the death of his wife. Curtailed from pursuing his interests by his wife, he now finds himself a free man. His fancy for artefacts, which had till now been restrained only to an ugly collection of daggers, now expands to expensive china.
A parallel plot of diamond smugglers begins to unfold and a Byomkesh Bakshistyle Anil finds his way to the bottom of the mystery of two murders, missing passports and blackmailers.
The best thing about Chandralekha is the consistency of her disciplined style. At less than 200 pages, this is a slim, easy-to-read and engaging novel. Characters are drafted with care and life-like feel.
The biggest surprises of the book is the daft undercurrent of playfulness.
A sense of humour runs through the story without diluting the plot. Suspense can be a tricky job for a debutant novelist but Chandralekha seems to have done it with considerable ease.
Murder, infidelity, smuggling, and quirk all are brought within the embassy house. If you are still wondering who killed Count Jeorge de la Bolla, the only man who could have told you does not survive the treacherous ride of Chandralekha Mehta’s plot.

In the league of extraordinary writers

This is the company that published Jane Austen, Chares Darwin, Lord Byron and Flaubert, says Anurima Roy, publicity manager at Hachette India.
Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in UK, burst upon the Indian scene in 2008. Anurima says the challenge then was to make up for being a late entrant in the market. With publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House that had been established players, it was important to build Hachette as a brand at the earliest possible. However, given the kind of names Hachette has under its banner, it wasn’t too difficult, she says. “We have a huge stable of names so our pedigree is high… but here we were new and went with a choice of new writing to begin with,” she says.
With its nine different companies straddling trade and education across literary and commercial genres, Hachette operates in every segment.
“This is what we bring to India too,” Anurima explains, “We began with a slight emphasis on commercial fiction but we are also going after literary and narrative non-fiction in a big way.”
On the subject of established writers vs new, Anurima, who has seen both editorial and marketing sides of the industry, says she personally, enjoys the challenge of working with new writers. “Working with established writers is also a pleasure since there is no pressure of having to establish names. Having said so, there is always the struggle to go steps higher with each book by an established writer and that’s exciting too,” she adds.
Stickler for quality, Anurima says Hachette books are good enough to be up on any international shelf. “The production flow is essentially planning the look and feel of a book that the editors, production department and our MD do at Hachette. We take the images we have and roll with them for our marketing campaigns.”
So did the “giant venture” tag save Hachette India from the trouble of convincing distributors? Anurima admits that with the top management having long years in publishing, and with an available depth and range of lists, it was easier. “But equally our local publishing began from a scratch and we had the challenge of building new names,” she says.
Anurima, who joined Hachette in 2008 as a part of its founding team, describes her journey so far as exciting. Publishing is a passion and one should get into it only if one loves books and the challenges that come with it, she says.
As a person who enjoys working with authors, Anurima reminiscences her first tour with debutant author Alice Albinia, as one of her most memorable moments.
With no ambitions of being a writer herself, Anurima believes it’s best if authors are guided by their instinct, “the only advice one can give is to write as you feel like; and for those in search of non-fiction or commercial genres look at the trends, and see what you can write that will interest readers.”
Publishing is a creative business but it is essentially also numbers’ business, she explains.
Each publishing house has a fixed brief in terms of how much it can publish, and what slots it needs, she adds. “So rejections may have nothing to do with the quality of a manuscript but merely a function of a submission not fitting a particular programme,” says Anurima.
About the publishing scenario, Anurima says that though the number of readers has increased over the years but a big percentage is reading cheap commercial rather than quality fiction: “People like to read stuff that is racy and easy rather than heavy literature that was the dominant trend earlier.” India is still in nascent stages of publishing, she says. The industry is beginning to grow, and grow fast, though currently threatened by a proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, says Anurima. She feels the industry is also bogged down by primitive marketing methods and the tedious cycle from supply chain to payment realisation. Though Pakistani writing is the new flavour and is catching up fast, she believes, India remains a non-fiction readers’ market and each publisher needs to have a healthy non-fiction list that could be a steady-backlist.
Anurima says she dreamt of being in publishing since school days and never wanted any other career. For those who wish to make a career in the industry, she says, passion for books is the key, money being secondary. It is one industry where you see most creative minds working at most innovative products.

Writing @T20

Aditya Sudarshan is 26 years and two novels old. He entered the league of young Indian writers in 2007 when his first book A Nice Quiet Holiday was published. His second work of fiction Show Me A Hero is the latest to be released. The novel is set in contemporary Delhi where a group of twentyfour-year-olds are making a film about a cricket star Ali Khan. While on one hand, the “just-out-of-college” youngsters struggle to come to terms with adulthood, on the other, they must deal with the player who’s career has been tainted with match-fixing allegations.
Having studied law at Bengaluru, crime has been Aditya’s forte in his two books. His first work, a detective thriller set in a quiet peaceful town, Bhairavgarh, at the foothills of the Himalayas, was written when he was still in law school. Aditya left his practice mid-way much to the shock of his family to take up writing full-time. “For a writer, writing is more like a compulsion,” he says, “you just need to let it happen. Your mind keeps going in that direction.”
He does not believe his work falls in the group of business school breed of young writers who swear by Chetan Bhagat. He feels his books will connect more with a serious audience. Yet the short and easy format of his work makes a perfect light read. It bears a strong resemblance to the work of popular writers like Abhijit Bhaduri with a metro setting, educated youth protagonists, quick involving story and a slice-of-life narrative.
Aditya admits his novels are not research heavy. “You will not emerge anny more knowledgeable out of my novels. They deal with the analytical and psychological aspects of life.” Aditya, much like the writers of pulp fiction, is not apologetic of the life he portrays. He identifies with the works of Arun Joshi who won Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982 for his novel The Last Labyrinth. “Joshi deals with the community head-on and without a sense of guilt or compunction of being dismissed as pulp or chick-lit.”
Besides the engaging mystery plot, Show me a Hero draws on the theme of hero-worship in India. A Tendulkar fan himself, Aditya says, “It is very easy to be cynical about someone but its a different experience to simply admire someone.” The title of the novel is drawn from the Gatsby-famed Ftizgerald’s note: “Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy”.
Aditya, does not see himself doing a story removed from the Indian context or set-up, “Even if I make it sound well-researched it would seem fake,” he says.
Inspite of his natural affinity for Indian setting he not game for the India shining argument. He describes the Indian condition of the as a “confused” one. “It is difficult to get a sense of who you are, in a country so diverse and vast,” he says. It is a similar difficulty that faces the protagonists in novels. “India still has a long way to go, this is not time to celebrate,” he says
As an author too, he does not carry the sense of having arrived. On lookout for more, Aditya is in Mumbai now, searching for opportunities and stories for a third novel that he aims to base on Bollywood.

FANCY DRESS

Now there's so much
that I could be
Super-man
Magic-man
Satan
Time-traveler
Jinni
Alien
Mutant
God
And what am I?
A mere man.

KHUL JA SIM SIM I The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud I

When was the last time you heard the story of the jinni who came out of Aladdin's wonderful lamp? Bartimaeus is that kind of demon. He runs errands for his masters, yet keeps an eye for ways to outwit him; is punished repeatedly for his audacious behaviour and finds himself time and again in the midst of trouble.
The Ring of Solomon is a prequel to the Bartimaeus trilogy published between 2003 to 2005. But this novel is different from the trilogy which is, quite in the Harry Potter fashion, centered in a fairly recent London. The Ring of Solomon, however, takes you back to the land of Arabian Nights. The Jerusalem of 950 BC is a kingdom full of magic. It is ruled by Solomon who's sovereign control lies in the power of a ring on his finger. A ring by merely touching which the king can summon thousands of spirits. The king has an array of powerful magicians at his beck and call. Sharp-tongued and free-spirited Bartimaeus is the slave of one of the magicians of the king. Desperate to be set free Bartimaeus devours his master. When the king hears of this he orders Khaba the cruel, to bring back Bartimaeus and punish him. Far away in the kingdom of Sheba, Queen Balkis, is visited by a demon messenger of king Solomon. The spirit threatens the Queen into paying a regular tribute of Sheba's riches to the king and gives her 15 days to make up her mind. The queen sends out one of her royal guards, lovely Asmira, on a secret rescue mission to Jerusalem.
Bartimaeus, who has been sent by his new master, saves Asmira as her caravan is ambushed by robbers. Asmira gains attentions of Khaba and steals Bartimaeus from him. She summons the jinni to help her kill king Solomon and gain his ring. Bartimaeus has little option but to obey, but that's not the only reason for him to help Asmira as he begins to respect her abilities.
This is a racy book, hard to put down and easy to recall, unlike other novels of this expanse where you might have to turn back pages to find out who was who. Only once in 400-pages of the book you may find the narrative loosing grip but it makes a quick comeback and proceeds thereon to a grand finale. You may not have heard of the trilogy, but you will understand the world of spirits into which Stroud takes you. The novel is sprayed with interesting and humorous asides regarding nitty-gritty of the way spirits function.
The story assumes a picaresque character as Asmira who in the course of her adventures comes to see her own beliefs shattered. Bartimaeus and Asmira both begin to seem similar at a point as they both carry out orders. A naive Asmira must get over her absolute trust of her mistress and find her own happiness while the 2,000-year-old Bartimaeus struggles for his freedom and peace.
Bartimaus' story is enthralling the way fantasy and magic holds on to the mind. Taking it off the mundane and "impossible" aspects of life, leaving you with a twinkle in the eye similar to that of the child who talks to winged, horned friends in the air.

OF A TELL-TALE WORLD BY THE BOSPHORUS I The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak I

For most readers in India, Turkey is synonymous with Orhan Pamuk which makes writers like Elif Shafak somewhat of a delayed discovery. Shafak is one of Turkey’s most acclaimed, and outspoken novelists. The 39-year-old is the author of nine books, seven of which are novels. The Saint of Incipient Inanities, The Gaze and The Flea Palace are among her recent works.
While she writes both in English and Turkish, the translation of her novel The Flea Palace was brought out by Penguin Books last year.
Among the themes of motherhood, feminist issues and Sufism, Istanbul is central to her body of work. Shafak is known depict the Istanbul as a “She-city” and likening it to an old woman with a young heart eternally hungry for new stories and loves. The Flea Palace is also constructed around the motley inhabitants of an apartment building, Bonbon Palace. The building brings together the contrarieties of modern Istanbul: the East and West; the ancient and modern; Orthodox Christianity on one hand and secularism and Islam on the other. If truth is a horizontal line, deception becomes a vertical one and nonsense, thereby, becomes a circle, says the opening of the novel. Though dissociated from the narrative that follows, a mesmerising beginning prepares you for what is to follow.
In the belly of the run-down bug-infested Bonbon Palace many stories are churning. The story of its making, to begin with. Pavel Antipov, an aristocratic Russian migrant, who built the place for his distraught wife, Agripina. The story of how Agripina, at the edge of her sanity, eating bonbons and looking at the world through the wrapping papers came to name the place Bonbon Palace. The tale of the neighbourhood, built at the site of ancient cemeteries, Muslim and Armenian; and that of the now lost grave of a saint “Hewhopackedupandleft”.
Its almost as if a real-life Rashid Khalifa is spinning you through the world of Kahani.
There are 10 apartments in Bonbon Palace. The rest of the novel unfolds through chapters based on their lives:
Flat 1; Musa, Meryem and Muhammet: Musa is the son of Meryem and Muhammet. Meryem is pregnant with her second child and has developed a “bizarre” disposition.
Flat 2; Sidar and Gaba: Sidar, a lonely man is obsessed with two things: Death and his dog Gaba.
Flat 3; Hairdressers Cemal and Celala: Identical twins Cemal and Celal, who were separated in childhood, are temperamentally dissimilar yet their lives are sewn in together with intuitive and surreal threads.
Flat 4; The FireNaturedSons: A family fraught with misfortunes ranging from smashed-up nose to volatile natures, they keep themselves insulated from other inhabitants of the building.
Flat 5; Hadj Hadj, his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren: Hadj a devout old man narrates stories to his grandchildren, (not always out of love) as the parents are out to work.
Flat 6; Metin Chetinceviz and HisWife Nadia: Metin’s wife Nadia is a Russian migrant. While the couple doesn’t get along well and Metin stays away, Nadia develops obsession for bugs and a dubbed soap opera The Oleander of Passion.
Flat 7; Me: The narrator, a divorced university professor, in a state of reverie.
Flat 8; The Blue Mistress: The young and beautiful Bue Mistress spends most of her time waiting for an olive -merchant who has kept her.
Flat 9; Hygiene Tyijen and Su: Hygiene is a cleanliness freak while much to her disdain, her daughter Su has lice.
Flat 10; Madam Auntie: Eccentric old lady who’s story unfold itself only towards the end.
Much of what Shafak writes is “slice of life” but what distinguishes it from other such narratives is the finish with which she delivers it. Her manner is reminiscent of the old tradition of storytelling where one character leads to the other and the listener or the reader is carried along the tide.
Picture her style like a tiny plant sprouting into a full tree. The growth is speedy, mesmerising and symmetrical at the same time. The stories of the 10 apartments of The Flea Palace are not organised numerically but organically. One story leads to other as dwellers run into each other, merging into the thick canopy of life.
Hadji’s youngest grandchild is learning speech and “picks up” words at her whim attributing meaning to them. Musa, son of Meryem, dislikes going to school as it taught him how to read. That was when he figured out that the letter’s bakers daughter sent along with the bread and which his mother read to him everyday, were actually labels and so, “To learn to read was to lose forever the mystery of writing.”
Shafak, who is known to has suffered a long-drawn period of postpartum depression, also writes about motherhood frequently in her works. In The Flea Palace too the theme surfaces in Agripina, the wife of Pavel Antipov. Agripina is pregnant when she lands in Istanbul. Unlike a “normal” expecting mother she feels great “injustice” as her belly begins to swell, “Impossible as it may sound to those who believe that every woman is by nature maternal and that motherhood is as scared and pure as the rivers in heaven, Agripina did not love ‘the thing’ she had given birth to.”
From the plight of an out-of-job military general to that of a blond-hair woman, Shafak is the weaver of all stories in the heart of Istanbul. The symbolic stench plaguing the apartment works as parallel to the decay in the society and provides a perfect acme to the story that comes with the revelation of the Blue Mistress.
The Flea Palace leaves one wanting for more of Shefak and her mystic world of untiring stories.

...OF THOSE WHO USE COMMAS I an interview with Sanjana Roy Choudhary, head of publishing, Amaryllis I

"Sometimes you need that one knock in life to stir up new ideas in your mind," and that is what led to "Amaryllis", says Sanjana Roy Choudhury, head of publishing. Amaryllis was launched last year as an imprint of Manjul Publishing House. Sanjana, who worked with Rupa & Co. for 18 years, says within three-four months of leaving her previous job, she decided to go ahead and said "yes" to starting a new imprint with Vikas Rakheja, managing director of Manjul Publishing House that publishes books in Hindi and Indian language translations of bestsellers, including the cult Potter novels. "He had always been keen to start an original English publishing imprint. That’s how Amaryllis took shape," she says.
Predictably, the path was strewn with challenges. "Starting an imprint from scratch is no mean feat," says Sanjana. "Right from deciding your first list, evaluating innumerable manuscripts, getting the catalogue and contracts going, and most importantly, establishing the imprint was quite immense." But she has come a long way and is now faced with the problem of plenty where she often has to reject manuscripts."I have a small, but hugely enthusiastic team," she says and adds, "being happy with your work and the people you work with, and for, is so important. That’s what keeps me going."
Amaryllis will complete a year in March. Going down the memory lane, Sanjana is both nostalgic and proud: "The kind of support we’ve received from authors, literary agents, both in India and overseas, makes us feel we’ve been around far longer!"
She reiterates the goal Amaryllis has been targeting since its launch: Not more than 1 or 2 books each month. Why be so selective, she explains: "Authors in large publishing houses tend to get lost. We were very clear that we would not print 1,100 copies of a book and push them out into the market. For us, books are not products; each writer has to be given that respect and made to believe that his work is important. Our first print runs of all the titles that we’ve published have been upwards of 5,000 copies."
The Amaryllis’ first list boasted of big names like Jaswant Singh and Ashok Banker but Sanjana says a balance between established and debutant writers is the best way ahead. Moreover, she cherishes her work with debut writers. "The joy is unmatched when you hear the thrill in their voices on receiving their contracts. They are enthusiastic, and leave no stone unturned in being with you at every stage. And when you are able to sell 3,000 or 5,000 copies of a debut work in a span of 4 months, what else could you possibly ask for!"
Having spent years in the industry, Sanjana says the job of publishing a book is very rewarding, yet it comes with its challenges. Each author is different and has to be handled with kid-gloves. "At Amaryllis, what we try to do is firstly, be prompt about responding to authors about their manuscripts.... Giving an author feedback is very important. You have to be honest with them whether their manuscript is working or not, and work closely to have a final MS in your hands." But that’ not all. "Publicity and marketing is very crucial to get the book and author noticed."
While many new ventures in the industry find it difficult to deal with the distributors, Sanjana believes the issue has been hyped. "Authors are made to believe that some publishers have a stranglehold over distributors. This is furthest from the truth," she says. "Distributors and booksellers want a good book, as they too, at the end of the day, want to make money. So if you have published a book that will make readers sit up and take notice, there is no reason why it won’ t sell, and why booksellers won’t stock it."
So what is the key to a successful publishing venture? Sanjana has a two-point guide: You have to sure of what you want your list to look like and you have to stick to your word; You cannot make promises and then not deliver.
She believes that contrary to popular belief, books are selling in huge numbers, in spite of the onset of technology, like ebooks. Advances to authors are on the rise, something that would be impossible if publishers weren’t sure of sales, she says. Talking about her favourite projects she finds it hard to draw a list. "It would be unfair to talk about just a few; I’ve lost count of how many books I have worked on," she says but adds, "You always learn from all your authors. One little piece of advice I will never forget - from T.J.S. George, founding editor of Asiaweek, and Jeet Thayil’ s father - that the world is divided into two - those who use commas and those who don’t!"

HISTORY FROM BEHIND THE VEIL I Shadow Princess by Indu Sundaresan I

In history Mumtaz Mahal is an indelible name associated with the queen for whom the Taj Mahal was built. Few, however, know the woman she was, Arjumand Bano. Of her 14 children, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb are prominent for their succession battle won by the latter. However her daughters Jahanara and Roshanara have quietly been relegated to fading the family tree. Indu Sundaresan's Shadow Princess deals not with the empress but her daughters. It
attempts to undo what history's ruthless editors cut out. The novel is the third book in the Taj Mahal trilogy, first two being The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses.
Mumtaz, pregnant with her 14th child dies in the opening of the book. 15-year-old Jahanara emerges as the woman incharge. It is the lot of the favoured eldest daughter to now head the harem, guide her awkward brothers and stand by an inconsolable father. King Shah Jahan's two other wives hope to get a hold of the zenana reins. They mull plans to fight the eldest daughter for what they believe is rightfully theirs only to realise that battle is already lost. "How could a daughter take the place of a wife?" they think, as does the rest of the kingdom.
Aggrieved Shah Jahan mulls handing over his kingdom to one of his sons. Jahanara's word assumes great importance as she is closer to the King than any of her siblings. The princess watches the court polarise around two teenaged sons Dara and Aurangzeb. She can't help siding with Dara while her sister Roshan stands with Aurangzeb. Roshan resents the status that has come unsought to her elder sister. Jahan, on the other hand is overwhelmed with the changes in her life and lacks the tact to win Roshan
to her side. The wedge so drawn runs deep through their lives and widens over the years.
When a distressed King is unable to stand up to his traditional appearance before the people, Jahanra shoves her brothers to stand by their father's side and prevents a political disaster. She wins the King's necklace and trust after the jharoka incident. Order is restored at the court as the King abandons the plan of retirement and the harem gets a new Padshah Begum, Jahanara.
The dead Queen had intended her eldest daughter to marry a court amir Mirza Najabat Khan. Unfortunately for Jahan, her mother died before she could convey her desire to the King. The young princess easily loses her heart to the amir when she sets her eyes on him. While the princess may have all the kingdom at her feet she is unprepared to face competition from her own sister for a suitor.
The King, on the other hand, is in no mood to loose either of his daughters in marriage. So while Jahan must organise a grand wedding for her brothers Dara, Shuja and then Aurangzeb, she must also arrive at peace with her own spinsterhood. But the most powerful women in the court are not so easily tamed. A lovelorn Jahan takes her favourite eunuch as her lover after Najabat stops answering her letters. Later, still longing for Najabat she orders a man from her personal orchestra to teach her how to make love.
Over the years Dara and Aurangzeb emerge as men who will fight out for the throne. Aurangzeb being the more strong-willed and having support of the court, while Dara powered by the blessings of his father and a powerful sister.
As the King begins to take women of the court to his bed, rumours about his liaisons with his daughter are dispelled and Najabat returns to Jahan's side. Curtailed by the will of the King, a clandestine affair blossoms between the two and an unmarried Jahan is soon pregnant. The king, for his part, ignores his beloved daughter's defiance. Jahanara sets off to the fort of Ajmer to deliver her child, calling her visit a pilgrimage.
Clearly, considerable research has gone into the making of this novel. While Sundersen has historic facts quite in order, the story-telling needs much more conviction. The reader, time and again, finds himself disbelieving the author. A dying Queen in the middle of the 14th delivery is described as a woman of immeasurable beauty. Similarly, a simple girl of 15 years hidden behind the veil suddenly comes to wield immense power over her father and the court. The story lacks imagination. While the author links
the dots of history well, she is unable to breathe life into them. The Taj Mahal, meanwhile, appears now and then, its details sounding dreary and detached from the story.
The story however, has a poignant end. Jahan who has spent nine years imprisoned with her father, leaves the Agra fort for Delhi. She agrees to become Padshah Begum of Aurangzeb's imperial harem, joining the brother whose ascendance to power she so vehemently opposed.