indiascribe satire

    V ikram Seth's mega novel, ' A Suitable Boy ', is not for the impatient reader used to slim volumes of some 250 pages to be polished off in one sitting. The saga straddles a hefty 1,349 pages in the hard-bound edition and 1,488 pages in paperback. But don't let the heft put you off reading. The Kindle edition is available. Early warning for the reader At the very outset, Seth warns the reader in a satirical vein. "The superfluous, that very necessary thing..." and "The secret of being a bore is to say everything". Both quotes from Voltaire . Towards the end of the novel, a poet-novelist, perhaps fashioned after the author himself, says at a literary meeting that, faced with ponderous volumes like The Complete Works of William Shakespeare , he just rips out the particular play he would like to read. He says he stuffs the pages in his coat pocket to be read at leisure. Fortunately, there is no need to rip out the pages, especially in a Kindle edit...

D uring the past seven days, i t was as if I had been transported in a time capsule to Malabar in 1921 witnessing the Moplah rebellion sweep across the land like the Chaliar River in spate uprooting everything in its path including the Anangapara, the huge rock standing tall midstream that centuries of floods failed to move an inch. Yes, Anjana Varma's novel, ' Beneath the Devil Tree Malabar 1921,' proved to be quite a rollercoaster ride in the company of some interesting characters, moments of absolute panic and last-minute escapes. Women's Power to the Fore Of all the characters in this novel, the women stand out. Mathu, the matriarch of Nilambur Kovilakam, t her granddaughter Sethu along with her friend Priyamvada to the resourceful tribal girl Cheenkanni not to forget Benazir Biwi, Razia and Kunhaishumma, the Pathiri seller, all play key roles at various points. For those of us familiar with living in a matrilineal joint family in Kerala, Mathu would seem to be our...

                                                        The graphic novel genre seems to be slowly gathering a mature audience. It needs the coming together of a good scriptwriter to tell the story, an illustrator to bring out the subtle nuances of the characters. Most of these novels are dark, brooding accounts or violence-filled superhero stuff. Thus, it is a relief to come across the "Glorious Summers" series that brings plenty of sunshine and cheer to the reader.    Pierre Faldérault is a comic book illustrator who is always dreaming of creating that one character to catch the imagination of the reader and make him famous. However, he is stuck ghostwriting or illustrating the comic magazine Zagor for his boss, who doesn't mind saddling Pierre with last-minute colouring work and taking off to exotic locations for his own vacation. But...

Just finished reading "Face to Face", the first book by Ved Mehta that incidentally is also the first of his autobiography published by Penguin in 1957, when the author was just 23! Ved lost his eyesight following cerebral meningitis when he was just short of his fourth birthday. Having absolutely no recollection of sight, he adapts himself to a world where he would work a little extra hard to live like any of his siblings, participating in all their activities. So what if it involves kite-flying on the rooftops in pre-partition Lahore, or jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He also learns to cycle all by himself in the spacious grounds of the government quarters in Rawalpindi, where his father was posted as Director, Health Services, the first Indian to hold the post in the years leading to Independence. He even follows his elder sisters, without their knowledge, all the two kilometres to their school. And all this after being sent to a small institute for the blind in Dadar, B...

I was in a hurry. The Rajdhani Express was leaving Trivandrum in a few minutes and I wanted to buy a book to survive the nearly 48 hours long journey to New Delhi. Could not locate the Higginbothams on the platform and asked someone. He said it is located outside, on one of the exits. Managed to find it and the first book I saw was 'Elephant Song' by Wilbur Smith. Bought it in double quick time and boarded the train. Till then, had no clue to who the author was or what the book was all about. Somewhat like a blind date. The train started rolling and I started reading. Actually, Elephant Song is a misnomer for this thriller set in the wilds of Africa. The elephants figure only in the opening chapters. Then suddenly it changes track and picks up pace as the main protagonist, Dr Daniel Armstrong, a naturalist famous for his TV shows (shades of Dr David Attenborough, perhaps) finds his friend Johnny Nzou, chief warden of Chiwewe national park in Zimbabwe murdered along with his en...