Turning Pages !!!

The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan It’s the second book in the trilogy. The first one was ‘The twentieth wife’ which focussed upon how Jahangir (aka Salim) became the emperor and Nurjahan(aka Mehrunissa) became his twentieth and last wife. Though it’s a trilogy, the way books are written they have their existence. It’s not a mandate to read ‘The Twentieth Wife’ before reading ‘Feast of Roses’. You won’t feel any disconnection or lost while reading ‘Feast of Roses’. Even I read ‘Feast of Roses’ two years later after reading ‘The Twentieth Wife’. Being a lover of history, this book is no less than a gift as it has served the dish of history with the right quantity of fiction. Feast of Roses is about Mehrunissa, how she ruled the heart of Jahangir and thus ruled the empire behind the veil for 16 years which no other Empress could do. She was envied not only by other wives and concubines in Jahangir’s harem but by the men of Jahangir’s court. Mehrunissa was a woman of substance,...

Calling Sehmat by Harinder Sikka ‘Calling Sehmat’ was gifted to me by a friend who doubted whether I am going to like this book or not. But let me tell you I liked this book a lot so keep gifting me books like these :) Most of you may not be aware, ‘Calling Sehmat’ is based on a true story and a Bollywood movie ‘Raazi’ is an adaptation of this book. This book gave me goosebumps at several points. This story instilled more respect and gratitude in me for all those men and women (be it spies; navy, army or air personnel) who sacrifice not only comforts of their homes but leave behind their families, their loved ones to serve their country. It made me realized where we civilians are worried over petty issues be like family disputes, tensions with the boss, relationship issues, these men and women are striving and sacrificing their lives for our safety without expecting anything in return from us. And what we are giving them in return is the country where there is corrupti...

Rani Padmavati – The Burning Queen By Anuja Chandramouli When there was so much going in India over the release of the Bollywood movie Padmavat, it made me curious to read the history of Queen Padmavati and then when I searched for fictional books written on Queen Padmavati, I found this one. Being a lover of historical fiction books, this book didn’t give me a feel-good factor after I finished reading it. It was not a page turner book for me. The keenness to know why Rani Padmavati committed Jauhar was the only reason which made me withstand this book till the end. Other than this, the style of writing failed to hold my interest in reading the book.   Until now every historical fiction book which I have read contains either a family tree chart or a reference page having the list of characters depicting who is whom and how they are related to the lead characters. Major drawback of this book is missing any such mapping or reference, as a result while reading the book,...

The Great Indian Novel By Shashi Tharoor Writing a book review for ‘The Great Indian Novel’ has been the toughest of all the book reviews, I have written so far. I have heard and read a lot about Shashi Tharoor as an acclaimed writer. And here, I finally read one of his finest writings. Forget about writing the book, hats off to this very thought of retelling and recasting the Mahabharata, the ancient epic of India, in the context of Indian independence movement and three decades post-independence. ‘The Great Indian Novel’ is a satirical novel but to understand this satire, the reader should be well versed with all the events of Mahabharata along with the history of India during independence and post-independence. As a reader, I wholeheartedly accept that I did lose the track at times while reading as I couldn’t recall all historic movements especially post-Independence. As per my understanding, I have tried my best to map the Mahabharata characters with that of I...