MellowDrama

Yesterday was Mahalaya. I have been living in Kolkata for about 7 years now and have been in the city for every single Pujo since we moved in here.  I just like the vibe of the city, the aura of this place when it is time for the Devi to descend to her parental home from the heavens above. It is a different air that the city breathes in and out. It is different colour, sometimes sharp and sometime languid in its shade that dresses the city of Kolkata when the Durga Pujo approaches. Like a veteran of sorts I know this isn't the best time to be on the roads. I know better than to plan anything because beside eateries everything is going to come to a stand still. Nothing will move and no-one will budge their stomachs filled with Biryanis, Aalooer Dums, Jalepis and Chicken Kashas. But this year things have been different. it seems as if the Pujo has just crept quietly upon us. It seems as if Maa did not come down with the usual fervour. Maybe there is a reluctance in the air that...

It had happened so that in 2011 we had moved to Kolkata. Not knowing a single soul and unfamiliar with the language, the move was proving to be very difficult one for me. Gradually we settled down in the building we had moved in and got to know some people. It was the September 2012 , when I came across Pratham Books ' social campaign 'One Book One Day' to be held on World Literacy Day,  which is annually observed on September 8. What a fun day it turned out to be and we added more friends to our list then we already had! I vowed that I will be participating in the campaign every year. Unfortunately, in June next year, I lost my younger brother to a car accident. His birthday falls on September 7 and I could not ever again bring myself to participate in the activity since then. But things changed this year and I made up my mind to participate in One Day, One Book. Now, I was pushed into storytelling by my friends (Personally, I like to think that they just wanted to ge...

A complex ad intricate book, that will need your complete devotion to be able to solve the crime with the little hints that the author keeps throwing your way via the characters and their observations, some tangible others not so tangible. And no it is not a police procedural. ***************************** Drishyam may have been inspired by the book but is very different from the novel I became a Keigo Higashino fan in an instant. Via some friends in a Facebook group on reading I came to know about the fact that the film Drishyam starring Ajay Devgan is based on a book by the Japanese author. I had seen the film and had found it immensely good. Surprisingly the book was also not difficult to acquire and so I read it soon after this FB intervention.  Devotion of Suspect X was such a mind-blowing read which I had not come across till that time ( I have since then read No Time for Goodbye by Canadian author Linwood Barclay which was a brilliant mystery and It Ends wi...

I am a thrillers fan.  Alistair MacLean This obsession sort of started in my early teens when I would devour The Hardy Boys and the Nanacy Drews in the school library and went back asking for more. My father and mother, both avid readers, had the entire Sherlock Holmes' collection at home. Someone gave me a Sidney Sheldon as a birthday present and a few years later my uncle opened the doors of his home library to me (which washout of bounds till I was a certain age) and I was almost drowning in the worlds created by James Hadley Chase, Alistair MacLean, Leon Uris and the likes. If you have been a regular reader of my blog then you would know Hercule Poirot how after my daughter was born I completely lost touch with reading till a friend gifted me a Poirot ( It was the first one that Sophie Hannah had written resurrecting the little detective with an egg shaped head).  As I got more and more involved in the business of thrillers, mysteries and crime novels, I...

I am currently reading MT Vasudevan Nair's novel Bhima Lone Warrior. How I come to buy this book is a story in itself and I will get to it later but first I want to talk about what this book made me realise. I consider myself an avid mythology fan. I have grown up listening to stories of the fantastic beasts of our Indian mythology and the whole plethora of characters that feature our 'Mythos' (Thank you Stephen Fry!) I have been reading Bhima Lone Warrior by MT Vasudevan Nair and have been thinking about the unsung people we come across. The sidekicks and the people who came second. Remember the dialogue from the movie 3 Idiots? (No, go see the movie. Your life will change) Yes? Great! . There are stories about everyone in Mahabarat. Some are fascinating, some are humorous and some are huge lessons on conduct and living. . There is Yudhishtra, the first born who hogged the limelight in the #epic #Mahabharat and made some really poor decisions and there is Arjun...

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear is a historical mystery novel set in London. But don't just head out and get it if you prefer your mysteries or crimes a bit on the stronger, harder, more depraved side. This novel is set after the World War 1 and is a peek into the realities and harshness of a war. Maisie Dobbs starts as a househelpat the Belgravia Mansion which belongs to the Comptons. But thats not where the book starts. The book opens in the year 1929, with Maisie setting up her detective agency and a man approaching her to investigate if his wife is having an affair. Soon after solving the crime, the book takes us back to the beginnings of Dobbs as a private investigator. We learn about her dexterity at the Belgravia mansion and how the lady of the house Mrs Compton and her friend Maurie Blanche, discover her to be an intelligent girl and decide to mentor her. She goes as far as getting admission in the university but the war breaks out and she enlists as a nurse. Sent to ...

There has been a sort of a break in the momentum in my reading of thrillers where a DI (Detective Inspector) a PI (Police /Private Investigator) makes his/her first appearance. But like they say you can keep me away from my those firsts but you can't keep me away from thrillers, and so I am back with the review of the debut novel, a crime thriller, Your Truth or Mine? by Trisha Saklecha published by Pan Macmillan this year. I won this book in a giveaway contest held on twitter. Without much ado lets dive into why or why not should you read this novel. Your Truth or Mine? is the story of an Indian couple Roy and Mia who live in London. The narrative goes back and forth between Roy and Mia as a tale of infidelity, anxiety, depression, drug use and murder unfolds in roughly 500 pages. The book opens with  a couple of detectives visiting their home for asking some questions to Roy related  to the disappearance of a girl names Emily.  Roy and Mia are a happily married c...

You must have heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a kid. Well, as a mother of two, living in a nuclear family I can very much give it the certificate of being 100 per cent correct and on point. Raising kids is so much on so many levels that nobody can single handedly do it. Be it not knowing things about children and their wants or be it about coping with your own emotions when babies, kids are the only people you seem to be seeing and speaking to all the while. As parents we need all the help we can. My elder one who is going to be 12 in just a jiffy is soon going to be appearing for her Class 6 exams. We are channeling manis (maternal grandmothers) from every corner of the world to teach her whatever they can. My mother shoulders Science and Social Studies, while my mother's younger sister is doing Maths with her over video calls on WhatsApp. And yet another one is sending her some special supplements from afar to ensure that her health does not take a backseat. ...

This is a (hopefully uninhabited) rant nee review about a very shitty piece of cinema (that has apparently done hell of a business) called Saaho. I was circumstantially forced to watch this movie and since then I have been actively cursing the makers, actors and sellers of this movie as well as my own circumstances and lack of imagination at what I could have done /achieved differently. YOU can choose to read whichever of the subhead appeals to you the most. MY Circumstances: The movie I think came up into focus when a trailer was played during Bahubali 2. No prize for guessing they wanted to bank upon Prabhas' popularity as the very fine Bahubali, no? Well, i partly agreed to go see this movie for the same reason and also because I was in Varanasi and we had time in hand before our flight you know the rest, have been cursing the makers, actors and sellers of this movie as well as my own circumstances. . LADKE in the film: Prabhas acts throughout the movie as if he i...