Crisp Reviews of Books On My Nightstand

Human life is marked with a process of continuous learning through our surroundings. But there is a little difference in the way we learn things as we grow up. When we are young we tend to believe in whatever is taught to us by the closed ones who look after us but as we grow older, we learn to synthesize the information gathered and make our own beliefs.  Here is a tale of an Indian boy from   Pondicherry with wondrous story of how he got his name ‘Pi’, who explores issues of   spirituality   and practicality from an early age. His curiosity about various religions and their followers leads him to meet preachers of various religions. Being a non-orthodox family, his family appreciates his gesture and allows him to pursue his faith in all religions. His family-owned zoo in Pondicherry also has been a learning source for him. They decide to move to Canada with all the animals but unfortunately their ship meets with an accident on the way. Only survivors of...

India has a wide cultural diversity with its population of 1.24 billion across its 21 states and 7 union territories, with its 21 major spoken languages, eight major religions, hundreds of regional festivals and thousands of flavours of local cuisine and arts. With this much load of diversity in one nation, it is very likely that one being an Indian is not aware of everything around the nation. But it is really hard to believe that how much little we know about the north eastern states of our own country. Beyond knowing their capitals (because teachers made you remember it), I doubt if any one of us knows about their culture, their beliefs, their traditions, or their political struggle.  Recently a north-eastern friend recommended me a book called ‘The Gurkha’s Daughter’ by Prajwal Parajuly which according to her was an eye-opening picture of the experiences faced by the people whose culture and language is Nepalese but who are dispersed to Bhutan, India and beyond. T...

If you believe in magic, not the one with tricks and illusions by magicians, but the one that life brings in for us, then you will definitely love the novel called Brida by a Brazilian   author   Paulo Coelho . It is the story of a beautiful young   Irish   girl and her quest for self-discovery, to the world far beyond our world and the one where magic is the truth of life. She knows she is different and she has to look for the answers to her questions. On her journey, she meets a wise man who teaches her to overcome her fears and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the hidden music of the world. She also discovers her soul mate and learns that love is the most divine emotion to be recognized and valued on the path to true wisdom and knowledge. The story is neatly woven around the ancient belief of witchcraft and is related to the present world in an interesting way. This magical treat by Paulo Coelho treasures the enthralling tale of love, passion...

          Well, everyone knows that if you ask an Indian about his three most favorite sports then the obvious first choice is Cricket and (not surprisingly) the second and third choices are highlights of cricket and repeat of cricket matches. Jokes apart, but it’s a known fact that Indian sports enthusiast is highly inclined towards just one sports and that’s cricket, even more than the national game hockey. Like any other girl, I too had a very little liking towards sports, and that means any kind of sports. But a book by Shyam Balasubramanian and Vijay Santhanam titled “The business of Cricket: The story of Sports Marketing in India” caught my attention. The book opens up with the Inception of sports marketing in India through cricket, and follows through Indian cricketer’s contribution towards nurturing the sports marketing, Companies involved in Sports marketing and Rise of Cola wars, The fall of Hockey and the Rise of cricket, IPL and T...