When the Signal Turns Red - Book Review

Snapshot:

A global ordeal
A couple in distress
The struggle to keep afloat
Prudent thinking in tumultuous times

Girish and Prajakta are in love. Very soon Girish will be joining the numero uno IT company of the country. He prepares himself by buying expensive clothes and other accessories he had always dreamed of. He and Prajakta have together planned to build on a good bank balance and then meet each other’s families to talk about marriage, probably after a year or two. Unexpectedly, the families get involved before Girish can join the IT Company. Against all odds, the couple manages to convince their family and an engagement date is fixed. But destiny has other things in mind. A global catastrophe mars their plan which leads to the engagement getting annulled. 

Will Girish find a way out of his predicament? Will he ultimately win Prajakta’s hand or will he move on in life, learning to live without her? 

My Take:

I received this book as a review copy from the Author. This is his debutant work. A simple, fast paced book revolving around the life of handful of characters within a span of a month. The plot of the book involves the journey of love stung couple who fights with turbulent circumstances knitted by fate with strings of Global financial recession. Many people who are associated with multi-national corporate sector can very well relate to this book which portrays the financial recession as the catalyst of chaos in the life of main protagonists. 

The language of the book is very simple but quite indianized and the length of the book (198 pages) is comfortably manageable. I finished this book in my metro ride from Gurgaon to Noida. However, I feel that few sub plot blended with the main story could have added that extra zing to the book. The lucid character sketch of lead characters remains as mild dampener however too much detailing has been included in few parts of the book. Those pages gave me feel of reading a screenplay of any movie or TV soap where minuscule facets about less important things have been elaborated to the core which could have been trimmed. 

Also, the end was bit abrupt and I would have loved to read about few good moments spent by the main couple after the tempest settles down. Overall, a one-time read which you can enjoy in journeys or bed-time with a relaxed mind.

• Title - When the Signal turns Red
• Author - Jayanand Ukey
• Publisher - Alchemy Publishers
• Pages - 198
• Price - Rs. 175
• My Rating - 3/5

Tick-Tock, We’re 30 : Book Review

Snap shot:

Interesting, isn’t it, how someone is always utterly attractive to someone else? For every male tree frog, there is a female tree frog whose dry skin and warts and bulging eyes are the most divine. And to you, Lara Bagai, a karela is a thing of beauty, Nishad comments.

So he remembers I love karela. So what?I take it your interest in frogs is purely academic?
I snigger. 
'I promise you I am not in danger of being madly besotted by one anytime soon,' he half-smiles.

The clock is ticking towards Lara’s thirtieth birthday and the whole gang is coming together to celebrate it. It’s a pact they made back then to meet when they all finally turned that age. So far, so cool. What isn’t cool is the other pact Lara had made one tipsy evening with Nishad. To marry each other if neither of them were hitched by then.

The last thing Lara wants is to give Nishad the pleasure of knowing he was right about Ranndeep being so wrong for her. Ranndeep, all-male, pro-motor racer whom shed been so sure of at the time. So there was only one thing to do. Lara would have to drum up someone else to pass off as her love interest for now. Enter flamboyant Perzaan, Turkish dude full of surprises. With the reappearance of Ranndeep and the gangs other quirky characters, its a week of audacious hookups and mix-ups. Chances are you’ll be guessing right till the end who ends up with whom, if ever.

My take:

The snap shot of this book is more than enough to kindle interest in your mind to read it. Whacky but believable characters, easy-flowing language, hilarious goof-ups, myriad emotions and a gang of friends hook you to this book till its end. The story shifts gear midway and flows smoothly giving way to an enjoyable tale of tangled relationship.

The bunch of friends and their reunion moments would make you nostalgic and might be you can end up whining to meet your old buddies to let the leash free of your inner wackiness. All the characters are reflection of real people whom you can easily identify with and therefore you can relate to their life, desire and aspirations.

However, the over-detailed persona sketch of various characters remains as mild dampener but somehow it did not affect the flow of the narration much. Too many characters and their intricate life moments sometimes becomes too confusing and apart from the mix-ups in the story, I had few mix-ups happened in my mind as well! The length of the book could have been reduced by trimming off few gratuitous facets of this book.

Overall, a one-time read which you can enjoy in journeys or bed-time with a relaxed mind.

• Title - Tick-Tock, We're 30
• Author – Milan Vohra
• Publisher – Westland
• Pages – 412
• Price – INR 250
• My Rating – 3.25/5

This review is a part of book reviews in Women's web. I am glad to be among the chosen 15 bloggers to review this book.

Return to India ~ A Memoir ~ - Book Review

Snapshot:

What is home anyway? Is it a place, a person, or merely a fleeting memory? Can one ever go back home, or is such a trip fraught with disappointment? Author Shobha Narayan captures the dilemma engulfing all those people’s mind who have moved away from their homeland and have adjusted in their new culture. A tale of aspiration & ambition which thrusts a Tam-brahm middle class young girl to make her way to USA. She utilizes her every bit of energy to break the shackles to pursue her dreams in that alien country. This memoir takes us through the journey of the author’s life in USA and her rendezvous with new culture, cuisines, life & friends and then her tryst with motherhood. Being a mother brings radical changes in her thought-process and she halts to evaluate her decisions, her choices with the new frame of reference.

My Take:

The candid narrative in the first part of the book which involves author’s chronicle of passion & determination to chase her dreams hooked me to the book instantly. I was able to relate with her itch to venture out from the conservative family background to initiate a new life of freedom in an unfamiliar land. The respite which she aptly portrays with her immigration to USA from the suffocating & distorted education & bureaucracy system of India was quite freshening. Her wit filled minutiae about her extended clan was remarkably candid.

Author very beautifully sketches the gradual changes that creep in their life and takes us through a realistic trail of her life events. She doesn't bat an eyelid to jot down her exploration of new culture and assorted measures opted by her to resume a living as an aspiring green card holder. However, as the question of ‘identity’ sneaks in her mind in second half of the book the flavor of the tale takes a different turn. Motherhood brings in her life the somehow clichéd NRI attitude for her kids. She starts worrying about the mixed culture of her daughter’s upbringing and ponders about the instillation of Indian values in her kids.

Author keeps on oscillating between the warmth of her close-knit family in India and the materialistic eased out life as an US citizen while portraying the dilemma through well chosen words.

“America, however, continued to seduce with the promise of wealth and the ‘good life.’ Like many others, I succumbed and stayed put, haunted by my homeland’s childhood warmth, but lacking the courage to return to its chaotic systems.”

However I was not able to relate to this part of the book much. I personally feel that we can never compare our childhood & upbringing with that of our kids. Every phase & situation has their pluses & minuses and we cannot force our kids to relive our childhood. Author kept on glorifying the Indian values and dependency culture and somehow I felt tried to fit in her comfort zone with ‘Return to India’ issue. Author tries to create a delusional scenario about all good things of India and travels to nostalgia where relatives go out of the way to help you kids, Nosy neighbours who spend their day idle playing chess & ludo keeps a track on your family activities and so on.

Author brings up some interesting humorous scenarios where she tries to force her ‘born again Hindu’ values to her family by dragging them to temple or wears ‘Saree’ for the whole month. Her spouse’s beliefs were more realistic as he believed in drilling right values in kids; be it anywhere in the world. I don’t deny the fact that this ‘moving back’ issue is too sensitive & required lot of thinking but somehow this part was quite long drawn.

Concluding it I can say that it is a good read. A book which deals with the ‘immigrant’s dilemma’ in detail. It caters those audiences who are away from their roots for long and are pining for their home. Also, I liked this memoir for the candid presentation of author’s life devoid any hypocrisy. The question of returning back to India has never been accessorized by the author with some social messages concealed in hypocrisy. However I would love to read another book from the same author about settling back in India about whom she had high hopes.

• Title – Return to India ~ A Memoir ~
• Author – Shoba Narayan
• Publisher – Rain Tree
• Pages – 380
• Price – INR 395
• ISBN – 978-81-291-1928-5
• My Rating - 3.5/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com . Participate now to get free books!

The Bankster - Book Review

Snapshot:

Bankers build their careers on trust, or so everyone thinks, till a series of murders threaten to destroy the reputation that the Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) has built over the years. Who is behind these killings, and what is their motive? 

When Karan Panjabi, press reporter and ex-banker, digs deeper, he realizes that he has stumbled upon a global conspiracy with far reaching ramifications a secret that could not only destroy the bank but also cast a shadow on the entire nation. With only thirty-six hours at his disposal, he must fight the clock and trust no one if he is to stay alive and uncover the truth.

My Take:

When I initially started reading this book, honestly, it was not able to capture my attention. I just read few pages that too only at bedtime. But, after first sixty pages, the story shifts gear and changes its pace swiftly. And, then it just becomes ‘unputdownable’. A multifaceted plot woven around three parallel sub plots, the story zips through different parts of the world while keeping its readers wondering about the next set of events. A clandestine CIA agent trading ‘blood diamonds’ & illegal arms with some extremist political religious group in Angola -  A septuagenarian fighting on the behalf of common man against the government to ensure the safety measures in development of a local nuclear plant in remote town of Kerela – An international Bank HQ in Mumbai where a big money-laundering scam is sprouting embellished with manipulation, power-clashes & corporate politics, all these plots although being so different from one another gets linked at the end very impeccably by the author.

Out of these three stories, my interest got hooked instantly with the story of the MNC bank where unnatural death of few employees one after other within short span shook the top management people. I was able to identify with the typical stereotyped corporate characters and I felt I have seen similar characters around me during my brief stint with corporate world. Dubious banking practices which are crafted by twisting the rules, targets, deadlines, compliance, audits, quality, appraisals, internal movements and office parties all sounded so familiar to me. The other two stories were not in my familial backdrop so took time to register in my mind.

The language of the book is quite simple and the author has took that effort to simplify the complex banking terms and delineate them in lay-man’s lingo.

The unpredictable twists & turns keep its readers glued and I finished the 3/4^th of the book in almost one day!! The translucent persona sketch of various characters remains as mild dampener but somehow this did not affect the flow of the narration much. However, I felt the climax was too quick and bit confusing as erratic findings keeps on dropping here and there. Also, I personally felt that by the end where the main protagonist, a banker turned journalist chips in to solve the conspiracy is quite dramatic & typical detective TV series type.  

But still I found book interesting & would recommend to everyone who want to read some crisp & devoid of shallow emotion tales.

P.S.: Another thing which I really liked about the book & Blogadda that it came Author-signed :-)

• Title – The Bankster
• Author – Ravi Subramanian
• Publisher – Rupa Publications
• Pages – 358
• Price – INR 250
• ISBN – 978-81-291-2048-9
• My Rating - 4/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

The Krishna Key - Book Review

 This is going to be my first official book- review. I received this book as a part of the initiative of  BlogAdda.com .

As I had to post the review within 7 days of receiving the book, I started reading it instantly. But soon, I realized that it is not of that kind of book which you can read casually while multitasking other chores. It needs your exclusive focus.

Snapshot:

Five thousand years ago, there came to earth a magical being called Krishna, who brought about innumerable miracles for the good of mankind. Humanity despaired of its fate if the Blue God were to die but was reassured that he would return in a fresh avatar when needed in the eventual Dark Age—the Kaliyug.

In modern times, a poor little rich boy grows up believing that he is that final avatar.

Only, he is a serial killer.

In this heart-stopping tale, the arrival of a murderer who executes his gruesome and brilliantly thought-out schemes in the name of God is the first clue to a sinister conspiracy to expose an ancient secret—Krishna’s priceless legacy to mankind.

Historian Ravi Mohan Saini must breathlessly dash from the submerged remains of Dwarka and the mysterious lingam of Somnath to the icy heights of Mount Kailash, in a quest to discover the cryptic location of Krishna’s most prized possession. From the sand-washed ruins of Kalibangan to a Vrindavan temple destroyed by Aurangzeb, Saini must also delve into antiquity to prevent a gross miscarriage of justice. Ashwin Sanghi brings you yet another exhaustively researched whopper of a plot, while providing an incredible alternative interpretation of the Vedic Age that will be relished by conspiracy buffs and thriller-addicts alike.

My Take:
A murder thriller with a serial killer out on a killing spree, the complex methodology used in each murder & remnants of evidence which he leaves behind are more than enough to keep you gripped till the end of the book. Dramatic twists and carefully carved characters keep the chemistry alive. The complexity of the characters add on to the spice of the plot.

Ashwin Sanghi completely captures the mind of his target audience with an exemplary style of narration in this book. Although narration of life instances of Krishna (the eighth avatar of Lord Vishnu – as per Hindu mythology) was there in the book to render relevance to the modern mystery thriller but somehow I read it as a parallel story-track. It almost gave me the feeling of reading two books simultaneously.

As a kid, Mahabharata & story of Krishna always interested me. This great Hindu mythology epic fascinated me so much that I had even borrowed from the local library and read it while I was in my twenties. Anyway, coming back to the book, its mythology portion made me nostalgic. The best part of this book is the smooth transition & connectivity between various diverse subject highlighted by the complicated tracks of that mystery killer’s mind. If we try to segregate the subjects covered in this book as per the literary notes, we can jot down so many different names like: Ancient history, Modern history, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geography, Sociology, Geology, Simple as well as Vedic Mathematics, Botany,….the list is long. Author has done a commendable research in all these subjects to pen down the smooth story-telling. The pace of the story loosens a bit in the midway but again braces up after few revelations of the mind behind the murders. The awesome blend of mythological tales traversing through ancient civilizations and moving onto various different time-period and correlating all of them scientifically makes this book stand out in crowd.

However, I personally felt the end was a dampener. The philosophical and bit abrupt end after a beautifully woven thriller packed in mythology was quite disappointing for me.

But still I would recommend this book. Even if we keep the fiction part aside it is a book which is meant to be experienced. Plethora of knowledge about our ancient times and its link to today’s world is the best feature of this book. Having read this book, I have already ordered my copy of 'Chanakya's Chant written by the same author to revisit the time-travel between mythology & present.

• Title – The Krishna Key
• Author – Ashwin Sanghi
• Publisher – Westland Ltd.
• Pages – 475
• ISBN – 978-93-81626-68-9
• Price – Rs 250
• My Rating - 3.75/5

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!