Book Review: A Country For Men

If the cover page can say all about the story then “A Country For Men” is on such. I was waiting for this book since its cover revel and I would say it is a bold attempt in recent days by any Indian author. The title and the cover picture ironically synchronise and it’s crushed paper like back ground silently says the situation of Indian females. 

Just as the blurb says this isn’t an entertaining story but it shows the ugly truth of India. I don’t know how many of us know each and every detail mentioned on the book. I hardly knew 20-30% of the incidents mentioned on this book but this ugly truth left me traumatized. Before our independence women were locked inside the home but in last few decades women have started coming out of their homes and achieving in various fields but these acts by few men might take them to the same stage.

The author has done a poignant work in compiling the facts to portray the state of women in India. Every fact leaves the readers shocked and we know how severe the situation takes us to. The author has also brought how many obstacles and difficulties are faced by the victims during their fight to justice. As we turn the pages the author’s hard work and his efforts for the research are clearly visible. While reading there are many questions clouded on my head and puzzled me why these men have become so brutal.

You may be wondering why haven’t I summarized what is written on the book but I would suggest everyone to read the book to know the seriousness. The author has collected all the visual and written details of the incidents and jotted down in a readable manner. Judges were meant like God to many people and there is an incident that is committed by a Judge itself in this book. So where is the country heading to is what anyone who reads this book will ask. Our irresponsible politicians promised us for enough action but are none was put forward. The mob who protested for days have also forgot the unfulfilled promises and only the victims are fighting every day.

Don’t think this book is a collection of news articles from various news papers but it also explains the situations of the victims, their family, their difficulties faced while fighting and also the situation of the perpetrators and their brutal acts. This book can tell anyone the lenient law system in India. Only a strong and immediate action can control these perpetrators to stop their moronic acts.

Books were meant to change people and this book if it reaches to every Indians can clean our society and make a country for both men and women. “An epitome of awareness, excellent research with perfectly portrayed horrific truth” is all I could say about this book in few words. The author has done a commendable job in writing this book and his bold attempt is really appreciable. The language is kept simple making it understandable to anyone and excluding few printing errors I did not find any flaws.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to read rather I would say it is a must read to all women to know about the various incidents and also remember they are not alone in this fight. It is also a must read for all men to protect and respect all the women equally. I am not rating the terrific truth mentioned in the book but I am giving a full score to the author’s effort in bringing out this book. I wish Mr.Rohit all the best for the book and for his future endeavours.

About the Author: Rohit Kumar Singh Jadon (RKSJ) has always taken a keen interest in travelling and the questions about life, which are hard to answer. An engineering by profession and a writer by passion; after being in and out of many jobs his passion have taken over his profession and he is now totally driven towards writing. After the success of his first book, he has written a much bolder book. This book is all about the injustice the women of this country face everyday.

You can get a copy for yourself at Flipkart, Infibeam or Amazon.

Book Review: Teenage Blues Parenting Clues

When young writers make their debut with a formal love story, here is a debutant who has written a guiding manual for parents which I’m sure is very thought provoking.  As always Jaico never fails to wonder me with its choice of books. Thanks to JAICO. The blurb turns out to be very interesting which will easily impress any parents.

UNCOMMUNICATIVE, SELF-INVOLVED,
REBELLIOUS, AND RUDE...
There are many ways to describe your teenager. It is easy to point out the things you’d love to change about them. But the truth is that you are no closer to finding a way to curb that raging house of hormones than you are to finding a solution to the global economic meltdown. It’s there, it’s in your face and you have to deal with it. Wouldn’t you love to know what goes on in that complicated, ever-evolving mind?
Finally, here are some answers for you. Anjaneya Mishra’s Teenage Blues, Parenting Clues is a bold and comprehensive attempt by a teenager to unravel the teen world for parents. From teenage aspirations, sexuality, attractions and distractions to the acrimonious acne and drug abuse, Anjaneya takes you step-by-step through the maze of surging emotions and tantrums so that you can finally make sense of the tumult that is your teenager.

This book, as the blurb says, is an attempt to guide parents in understanding their teenagers from a teen’s perspective. Teenage is a period where a mom’s child makes a move from a dependent life in search of his or her own space. This a phase when a teen tries his or her best to explore the world with their peer group, discover new meaning for relationship and draws a line to create their own space.  Most of the parents go wrong in realizing their teen’s need at a period where a teen longs for more attention from them. There comes a sudden change in their behavior which parents do not fathom why. Here is when parents start worrying about them and make a move to bring their teen under their control only to make it even worse. So what should a parent do to tackle such a situation? Is there any way to befriend their teen in order to know what is happening in their life?

Anjaneya Mishra, the author, with this book on parenting titled ‘Teenage Blues Parenting Clues: Powerful Parenting Principles from a Young Adult’, helps parents to deal with their teen with simple logics and stories. Being a young adult who has just crossed teenage, the author has proven the fact that parenting is no more worrisome job when you starting thinking from a teen’s point of view. Having crossed this period, all parents do know what it is mean to be a teenager. Realizing this simple fact, parents have to just look them from closer but not to interfere in their life. Covering all the changes that a teenage brings, say the influence of peer group, the desire to look hot and also alcoholism, the author directs a way to handle every situation in a way that doesn’t make things worse.

Written in a simple way, this book is surely a meaningful and thought provoking parenting tool which makes parents to fathom the nature of teenage phase and the simple logics to gain the trust of the teens. With few short stories, which are more of the author’s experience, it makes it easier to imagine a situation and find the solution for it. More than seeing it as a book, parents can consider it as their own teen’s request to direct them in a meaningful path.

To conclude my review, Mr. Anjaneya Mishra, has done an appreciable job in taking a step to help the parents out there who are finding it difficult to handle their teenagers. It is surely a bold work for a young adult to guide parents which is not alone for the welfare of parents but also for the bright future of the teenagers. I very strongly recommend this book for all the parents and also teenagers and I would rate it a 4/5. Thank you Mr. Anjaneya Mishra for this wonderful book and I’m looking forward with lots of expectations to read your next book.  

About the Author:

ANJANEYA MISHRA is a commerce student at HR College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai. He did his schooling in Mumbai and Delhi and graduated from St. Xaviers School, Jaipur. Anjaneya is a voracious reader and loves to participate in debates. He is also an avid sportsman, having played national-level squash for several years. He loves surfing, travelling, adventure sports and meeting new people. He currently lives in Mumbai with his mother, brother and a dog named Taurus.

You can get your copy from Flipkart.

Happy reading and Parenting :-)

Book Review: Life's like that

Some debut authors are strangers to us until we complete their novel but Mr. Prashant, author of “Life’s like that” is not a stranger to me, not to many, if you are a subscriber of TOI. I have read almost all of his articles in TOI and I know how he writes the articles but I wanted to know how his novel would be. The book’s jacket says

Set in the beautiful city of Udaipur, this love story is filled with everything, jealousy, one sided love and betrayal. Amit gets approval of Preeti, his love and Ishita, who unknowingly helped Amit gets involved with Sankalp. The story moves on with ups and down of college life.A nicely flowing story takes turn when opulent guy Shekar comes into the picture who is not only rich but intelligent. Unlike fairy tales, the love starts to take a backseat and money takes the charge.Do dreams shatter when they meet the harsh reality? can waves of love survive having hit by the shore of wealth? can love still be based on fairy tales where money cannot distract?Remember its money that is running the world, love is only a part of life. So what wins and what should win?

With the synopsis on the jacket and its design we can easily conclude that the story deals with college life. Thanks to RKSJ for the good cover design.

Coming to the story, as mentioned in the back cover, it is based on Udaipur. The story starts on the 3^rd semester of the protagonists when a hot girl, Ishita joins the university in Udaipur, transferred from Jaipur. She gets every guys attention on her first visit and sits next to Amit who was deeply in love with Preeti. Preeti stays next to Ishita’s house and eventually they become close friends. Nandini, one of their class mates was getting married and the whole class was present on that occasion. That was when every guy got a chance to see the girls of their class in Saree. Amit on the other hand was astonished by Preeti’s beauty and Sankalp, Amit’s best friend couldn’t take his eyes off from Ishita. In a few minutes Amit and Ishita were left alone and Amit had to help Ishita in driving her to home. Reaching her home, both of their touches makes them to make love. From the next day Amit and Ishita gets close and the sudden closeness cause Preeti to envy, who so far was not bothered about Amit. For the first time she talks to Amit and both falls in love. Sankalp on the other hand love Ishita. All the four gets close during the project time and two more Rahul and Niharika also joins the gang. A trip to Kumbhalgarh makes the three pairs intimate and the bonding grows stronger. When everything goes on the track, the gang leaves to Jaipur for a job fair where only Preethi gets selected. The gang parties for Preethi’s victory and meets Shekar who is one among the five who was selected along with Preethi. What has Shekar got to do with the story? Does it affect them in any way? What happened to Ishita and Sankalp? Do Amit and Preethi marry at last? What does money got to do with the story? Who betrays who? Read the book to know more about the story.

It is a light read and fun filled story that could give entertainment throughout the read. The first few pages were simple but it gets the readers hooked from page 40. The author has kept the language simple and I could see few mistakes then and there which could be rectified on a little rework. The story covers almost all the ups and downs of a regular college life including friendship, love and betrayal. Author has portrayed every scene well and brought out the emotions properly. Climax is what I liked the most in the story as the emotion has brought out clearly and conveyed perfectly.

At few places the conversation was not that clear. I mean the delivery part. Proper spacing between the conversations would have made it clearer.

The author has done a commendable job with his debut novel. The characterisation is strong and the author has made enough roles for all the character. Only after reading the whole book I could understand why the author has titled the story ‘Life’s like that’, as the story has more situations that which conveys “life’s like that”. The writing style of the author has many changes when compared to his articles in TOI and I hope it helped him in producing this novel. I would give 4 out of 5 for this book. I recommend this light read entertaining book to all. I’m looking forward to read his second book soon and I wish all the best for the author’s future endeavours.

You can get the books from Infibeam or Flipkart.

Happy Reading :-)

About the author:

Born and brought up in Udaipur, Prashant wrote his first poetry in 1998 and since then he has been a creative writer. Later in 2007 he added English article writing to his skill set and started penning articles for The Times of India. In order to pursue his writing passion, he opted to be a Technical Writer in his IT job.Being a post graduate in computer application, he uses his technical prowess in creating and maintaining several websites. Life’s like that is his first novel published by Blackbuck Publication.

Book review: Chapter 11

Here I sit to review this book after a very long time since I received it. Reviewing when you have no time might spoil not alone review but also the hard work of the author. So I waited for the best time to read this worthy book. The blurb which shortly briefs about the whole story says,

Feeling suffocated within the confines of Udaipur, his past and inconsequential job, Virendra Vikram Singh aspires to be a part ofan MNC. However, with dreams having a nasty habit of going haywire, the day he joins his dream company, it files for Chapter Eleven bankruptcy. First of its kind, Chapter Eleven is a bold and honest portrayal of corporate sleaze, dejection, love and self-discovery.

After reading his ‘love is vodka’ which was more about a modern girl, this book “Chapter 11” with the tag line Kissa Corporate Bankruptcy Ka is completely different from that. Only very few books come out with an undeniable fact and this book is one among them. Though the corporate world has become the major part for income nowadays, the clumsy realities of that world that probably no one talks much about is what the author has very boldly written with a good narration. The book starts with how the protagonist VVS enters into the corporate world with his own dreams of going to live a classy life. The day he starts a new life in a very big firm brings a bad news when the company fails for Chapter 11 in which they might have to throw few employees out of the organization. The whole book travels with his fear of being thrown out of the firm. Knowing the readers well, the author has well managed to bring in humor into the story without which the book would have dragged the readers into boredom. His wife’s complicated character is addressed nicely. His family and religious belief is well described. The entry of Ambica changes everything and his relation with her is also narrated beautifully because I thought it would be too sensuous to handle but author kept it very light and real. The author has honestly portrayed a common man’s life who works in corporate world.

Reading two of his novels, I would surely say that he is one among the very few authors who are talented to bring up honest facts of the society into an excellent book. The cover page is well designed which clearly relates with the corporate world. The 353-pages story is published by his home publisher- Vitasta. Though the whole book is all about a serious topic, I found no portion to drag with the narration. The protagonist VVS is neatly portrayed where one can easily imagine him accurately. The only disappointing part was when something related to Ambica became quite obvious at a point of time hence the story became predictable for me since then.

To conclude my review, I would say Mr. Amit Shankar has again done a fabulous job with this book. This is with no doubt a bold and honest portrayal of corporate sleaze. For his brilliant narration and plot I would rate this book with 3.5 stars out of 5. Strongly recommended book for those who work and who are likely to work in corporate world. 

Happy Reading :-)

Book review: The Mountain of Light

I had always thought writing books under the genre fiction is far easier than writing a non-fiction book. But this very book proves me wrong. A brilliant historical fiction which took my breath with the author’s power of creativity. Though this is my first book of the author’s, I have already become a fan of her writing.

As empires rose and fell and mighty kings jostled for power, its glittering radiance never dimmed. It is the “Mountain of Light”—the Kohinoor diamond—and its facets reflect a sweeping story of love, adventure, conquest and betrayal. Its origins are the stuff of myth, but for centuries this spectacular gem changes hands from one ruler to another in India, Persia, and Afghanistan. In 1850, the ancient stone is sent halfway around the world where it will play a pivotal role in the intertwined destinies of a boy-king of India and a young queen of England—a queen who claims the Mountain of Light and India itself for her own burgeoning empire, the most brilliant jewels in her imperial crown. 

The Mountain of Light is a magnificent story of loss and recovery, sweeping change and enduring truth, wrapped around the glowing heart of one of the world’s most famous diamonds.

The review:

“The Mountain of Light” is the story of Kohinoor diamond for which people were once fighting the world to own it. The book travels along the way the diamond moves from hand to hand say from India to England. This 186 carat diamond drives people crazy with its glittering beauty. Though the Kohinoor is the main protagonist in this book, the characters around the diamond are well portrayed with very rich setting which seems to be beyond one’s imagination.

The story starts with the emperor of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja, who turns to the ruler of the Punjab, Maharajah Ranjit Singh, when he is dethroned by his brother. Maharajah helps him to regain his throne and gets the Kohinoor diamond from Shah Shuja. When Ranjit Singh disagrees to help British embassy in invading Afghanistan, it turns into a war where he dies. Soon his four sons are killed in wars of succession, leaving his last six year old son Dalip Singh to heir the throne and the precious diamond. Though Dalip Singh was considered as Maharajah, the title was empty with no meaning. Eventually he loses Punjab and the Kohinoor soon to British which travel to London to decorate the arms of Queen Victoria. Dalip Singh follows the path of Kohinoor and reaches London only to realize that nothing can replace the diamond.

This book helps to explore the history and know more about the Kohinoor diamond which had once been the treasure of the world. It also talks about the richness of Indian emperors. The best part of the book was the writing style which mesmerizes the readers. Though the story was little complex to follow the settings and the background makes it clear. This book is going to be awesome read for those who love historic stories. With her words, the author takes us back to the past and live that majestic life along with the book.  

To conclude my review, I would say Mrs. Indu Sundaresan has done an appreciable work with this splendid historical fiction. This plot will surely impress film directors to make movie about the Kohinoor diamond. I very strongly recommend this book for all book lovers and would rate 4/5. 

Author’s Note:

Indu Sundaresan was born in India and came to the US for graduate school at 
the University of Delaware. She is the author of two acclaimed novels, The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses.

You can buy the book from Amazon and Homeshop18.

Happy Reading :-)