Magic Moments

  ·         Publisher ‏ : ‎  Penguin (6 February 2023); Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd. ·         Language ‏ : ‎  English ·         Hardcover ‏ : ‎  296 pages ·         Buy At         : Amazon   Book Blurb: Old Basar Mal remembers his love and homeland that he lost in Sindh, Pakistan during the Partition. A young graduate gets into an imaginary relationship with a girl at a yellow window. The Mumbai land mafia is after Basar Mal and his library. A chatty book cover relates the plight of books. A silent Mangan's ma washes and feeds a plastic doll she thinks is her son. Poignantly written by Geet Chaturvedi, a major Hindi writer, and beautifully translated by Anita Gopalan, Simsim is a struggle between memory, imagination, and reality- an exquisitely crafted book that fuses...

  The Yogi Witch By Zorian Cross   Publisher - ‎   HarperCollins India (20 June 2023) Language - ‎   English Paperback -   352 pages Genre – Fantasy Buy At - Amazon   Book Blurb: GoodReads: Raised by a trio of witches, Jai Gill invites us on a journey of magic, mystery, and mayhem - all while teaching yoga during the day and slaying demons at night. As Jai begins the journey of not only embracing his magical legacy, but also making peace with his sexuality, his magical life is shattered when he falls in love with the boy next door; the man who's destined for a life steeped in evil. Love is, after all, a curse for all witches! Myths become real and the mundane becomes enchanting, as Jai and his witchy family remove the veil that separates reality and fantasy, all enjoying endless cups of lavender tea and sinfully delicious goodies that are magically removed of all guilt. Amazon: By day, Jai Gill teaches yoga, reads tarot and, like m...

Early this year I think I discovered The Storygraph – a website, quite a competitor of GoodReads, for logging books read, shelfing them, and jotting down private thoughts and reviews. It has this amazing feature of stats, that calculates not just books read, but rather pages finished, from books we somehow ‘Did Not Finish’. The data scientist in me loves these stats. Sharing a few here. I love fiction. So, most of my reads this year have been fiction. And I love print, but boresome household tasks demand audiobooks. So Storytel and Audible are my go-to apps for listening to audiobooks while morning walks, cooking in the kitchen, arranging things around the house or just lazing around on the couch. I am loving this chart for Genres. Quite an eclectic mix. Makes me so happy. The one thing that I wanted to do this year for my reading goals, was to read several new authors. I wish that feature was also there in The StoryGraph. I read for the first time this year Balli Kaur Jaswal , Arefa T...

    Author: Balli Kaur Jaswal Publisher: HarperCollins India Price: 366 INR Pages: 344 Genre: Mystery Buy At: Amazon   About the Book: Hidden lives. Buried secrets... It's time to shine a spotlight on it all. Corazon, Angel and Donita have all come to Singapore to work for a living. The thing that unites them? Their labour must remain unseen. Then an explosive news story shatters Singapore's tranquility, and sends a chill down the spine of every domestic worker. Flordeliza Martinez, a Filipina maid, has been arrested for murdering her female employer. The three women don't know the accused well, but she could be any of them; every worker knows stories of women who were scapegoated for crimes they didn't commit. Shocked into action, Donita, Corazon and Angel must gather every ounce of bravery and gumption to piece together the mystery of what really happened on that fateful day. After all, no one knows the secrets of Singapore's families like ...

  Author : Areefa Tehsin Publisher: Harper Collins Price: 399 INR Pages: 327 Genre: Period Drama/ Historical Fiction/ Murder Mystery Buy At: Amazon About the Book: It is Makar Sankranti,1950, when sixteen-year-old Sanaz's body is discovered in her father Dada Bhai's house in Bohrawadi, Udaipur. A few of those in and around the house that day are the cruel zamindar Rao sahib of Singhgarh, the devout degenerate Hariharan, the young Bhil Nathu, visiting from a remote tribal village to inform Dada Bhai of a leopard kill, the attractive night soil worker Parijat, and the acerbic widow Sugra, who rolls a rosary and wishes for the jeevti dakkan -the living witch in the peepul tree-to be her secret ally. As the shadows grow long, it becomes clear that something sinister walks the halls of this grand old house. What unfolds is a genre-bending tale of suspense, intrigue and something so much darker. Review: The story is set in 1950s, in a newly independent India, al...

I have just finished reading this book "I'll Give You The Sun" by Jandy Nelson and I can't stop thinking about it over and over and over again. I am smiling like Noah, or like Oscar, a smile that starts in my eyes but doesn't seem to end anywhere in the face. And I want to write the most awesomeness personified  review here, to urge you enough to get yourself reading this book, but I don't know how and where to even begin. I have witnessed Noah paint and paint like there's no tomorrow; discover a whole new color palette and paint Brian like the freaking Northern Lights; sneak into art classes to sketch live models on blank canvasses and experience magic happen when he became the charcoal himself.  He thinks art, breathes art, dreams art. Every narrative by him has a self portrait interjected every few paragraphs, every few scenes, so much so that it makes me want to see them for once.  Noah sees people's souls. Paints them. Jude's...

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”  ―  Pablo Picasso I once read an interview article of Ottessa Moshfegh, the author of the short story collection “Homesick For Another World”. The title of the article was “Finding Meaning in Going Nowhere” . Writing helped the author find a purpose in life, give meaning to her very existence and also connect with something transcendent. She also talks about a singer, a prodigy, LenaZavaroni , who channeled all her turmoil and complicated emotions into her voice. Her life was short and end was tragic but her spirit was always true to her art, her voice made her immortal. “Earth is the wrong place for me, always was and will be until I die.”- A child narrator in one of Moshfegh’s short stories. Sometimes we feel our existence is absurd. We need something to live for- a meaning in what we do perhaps, when the question of our very existence seems pointless. Why were we ev...

Doors fascinate me a lot. It is the first thing I notice whenever I visit anyone's home. Doors of temples, forts and palaces are pieces of art in themselves- from the intricate architecture, wooden and stone carvings, to the beautiful door knobs, bells, motifs, garlands and other embellishments. Even the metal supports, hinges and locking systems fascinate me to no end. In most Hindu households in towns one can find a kalash - an urn with mango leaves and a coconut on top- painted on the doors or near the entrances. A marigold garland too is most probable. In the north and east, one can find  jhotis or temporary white colored designs made by the wives during auspicious occasions. Sometimes mini palm leaf brooms or lemon and chilli bound with a thread can also be sighted on the doors. These are said to ward off evil. Down south a demon mask does the task. Wherever you may travel to, every door tells a different story.  This picture tells how women in the...

There are questions in my mind. They have been there for quite some time. What does it actually take to make a living out of the art that you create? What does it really take to earn from your writings, paintings, illustrations, videos, podcasts, etc? What does art really demand? Love and Dedication? Working your days and nights off? Yes. But we have been doing that. Haven’t we? We have tried and tried and tried. We have failed and tried and failed. We have persisted. We have begun again and again. Sometimes beginning was easy, continuing was tough. We have cultivated patience. We have been consistent. But it hasn’t really paid off. Now, has it? We wanted to be an overnight success story with thousand followers. But we have learnt the hard way that big things most often take big time. But what more does it take apart from patience and perseverance. The Elusive Artistic Mojo Not every day is a good day for channeling our creative juices. There have been da...

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”  ―  Edgar Degas 1. Andretta, Himachal Pradesh-      Andretta Pottery and Crafts Society is the meeting place for artists and hobbyists who sign up for courses, spend their holidays amidst art and make sure to return every year. The place has home-stays, hotels and rent-ins for visitors. Today 3-week long residential courses are organised there to teach world-class pottery to serious students. Andretta came into existence when a young Irish woman named Norah Richards arrived there on horseback sometime in 1920s, made herself a mud house, and invited Punjabi Theatre amateurs and professionals to perform plays there. Despite its remote location, it saw a steadily growing influx of serious theatre artists, painters, ceramists and potters over the years. Norah established a school of drama too. Famous sculptors and poets settled there for the artistic environment that it offered. The...