THE NANDA DEVI AFFAIR by BILL AITKEN

Quick aside, before I begin this review. Since the pandemic started, I find myself increasingly drawn to non-fiction and the more adventurous the book, the better. Doesn’t take much deduction to conclude that I am missing travelling and especially being in the mountains, and so am compensating, by reading tales …

HALF THE NIGHT IS GONE by AMITABHA BAGCHI

“Like an old man, which I am, I found myself yearning for the time, no, not the time, for the life that has gone by.  Not my own biological, chronological life, but the life of the place where I was born.” These words, written by a distinguished Hindi author, Vishwanath, …

SANJAY DUTT by Yasser Usman

Having lived in Mumbai during the tumultuous days of 1992 and 1993, when this most cosmopolitan of Indian cities city lived through anti-Muslim riots and the subsequent bomb attacks, I was naturally intrigued by the story of Sanjay Dutt. Mr. Dutt, a Bollywood star, and the son of a well-respected, …

WHISPERINGS FROM BEYOND by Lakshmi Narayan

What an amazing world we live in. You know someone for almost 30 years, and only now discover the hidden, almost-mystical side to them. My Mumbai-based friend Lakshmi Narayan has just published her second book (& here’s a link to my review of her debut novel) and what a revelation …

THE JEERA PACKER by PRASHANT YADAV

What an extraordinarily good read this book is. And, rather puzzlingly, what an extraordinarily uneven book it is too. I dislike crisiticising someone’s writing, because it is such an intensely personal thing, but this excellent book is so uneven in its writing that it could almost have been written by …