The Trial of 2091 – Sarang Gupta – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: In the year 2091, a Perfect System ensures that no crime goes Unpunished. Then a Murder in a quiet town brings together four people with sinister motives and a troubled past. An officer in search of a lie, a killer in search of revenge, a genius in search of perfection, and a father in search of deception. They will stop at nothing to achieve what they have set out for, and a chain of events will trigger that will put the whole world on Trial. Welcome to the Trial of 2091!

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This book didn’t quite work for me at multiple levels. Read my detailed review of the same here [Link to review]

Bloodline Bandra – Godfrey Joseph Pereira – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: David Cabral is a journalist and also one of the original peepils: an East Indian from Pali Village, which is a viperpit, yes, but a happy, oblivious one. David manages to shake off the stupor of village life and heads to New York. There, he finds himself practically a slave, his drudgery leavened only by Japanese cello student Hatsumi Nakamura, whom he loves.

Bloodline Bandra is a riveting tale of love and loss, of home and homelessness. But you will remember it most for its portrait of life in the tight-knit community of Pali Village and a way of life that’s dying out.

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While the first part of this autobiographical book is quite entertaining and hilarious primarily because of the quirky and whimsical description of life in the village of Pali in Bandra, Mumbai, the second half is quite serious with the narrative arc and the fates of the characters taking on quite unexpected turns.

Read my detailed review of the book at The Tales Pensieve [Link to review]

Operation Jai Mata Di – Pratik Shah – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: In a daring midnight operation by armed men, over 10,000 pilgrims are taken hostage en route to the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi, a popular Himalayan religious-tourist destination in the troubled state of Jammu & Kashmir in Northern India. The hostage-takers threaten to shoot pilgrims every day, unless the incumbent Government accedes to their demands.

With the largest Hindu festival of Diwali just around the corner and elections less than six months away, the Government at the center is under immense pressure to act. What will the Government do? The army? The intelligence agencies? The common man?

No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Who are these men? Is there a larger plot? Faced with such unprecedented events, will the country descend into unimaginable anarchy or will it rise above the issues of collective apathy and greed that have plagued it since Independence?

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This is the second book that I reviewed for The Tales Pensieve, and a detailed review can be found at this link [Link to review].

“In a nutshell, Operation Jai Mata Di will surely be recommended by me as a good read for anybody who loves books in the political thriller genre, with the added bonus that it is set in India and speaks of people and events that all of us can easily relate to.”

The Other End of the Corridor – Sujata Rajpal – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: When your dreams are tainted with lies and deceit, you have no other choice but to walk to the other end of the corridor.

Leela has nothing extraordinary about her except the dream to become famous. Her desires take wings when she gets married to a handsome boy from a respectable family in Delhi. But her dreams are shattered even before they have a chance to take flight.

She happens to meet two friends from a long forgotten past, which infuses hope and opens new avenues to realize her dormant aspirations.

Leela delves into previously unexplored paths of deception and forbidden passions that only make her stronger.

In an attempt to rediscover herself, she falls in love with life and with herself but her life takes a sudden turn again…

No matter what, Leela will continue to chase her dreams.

Where does this journey take her?

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This book marks a new beginning for me as far as book reviewing is concerned. This was the first book that I have officially reviewed as a Tales Pensiever.

Please find the review of this book at http://thetalespensieve.com/2015/06/book-review-the-other-end-of-the-corridor/

My conclusion regarding this book – “The cons notwithstanding, this remains a decent attempt for a debut author especially given the choice of the powerful subject and theme. This is one book that mirrors societal realities in quite an easy to understand manner and while it may not provide answers to the same, it sure will make readers reflect on them.”

Lost In Pattaya – Kishore Modak – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: It is every dad’s nightmare – his little girl goes missing.

For Palash, the sorrow compounds from the incessant replaying of the critical minutes when his ‘Daddy-eye’ faltered, distracted by his own weakness, substance abuse. The loss and the ensuing search sends him spiraling into a divorce and the loss of a steady corporate job. Scouring for his little girl in the brothels of Pattaya he is ensnared in the web of mafia that runs the sex trade of Thailand. When he eventually finds her, will he be able to build back a wasted lifetime, or, is it too late for rescue, for him and his child?

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An extremely unconventional book to say the least, I mean any book which waits for 184 pages before someone addresses the protagonist by his name, Palash Mitra, can only be called that, right.

When Li Ya, Palash’s young daughter goes missing on a family holiday in Pattaya, when he was distracted purchasing drugs from a pusher, that begins an unending spiral of uncontrolled and unmitigated disaster with his fragile marriage breaking apart and him losing his job due to his refusal to play ‘ball’ and overlook some spurious practices. As if this wasn’t enough, his substance abuse problem leads him further and further down on the path to self-destruction and pretty soon he finds himself with no purpose in life.

He then takes it upon himself to hunt down his daughter in the brothels of Pattaya where he last saw her and this ends up being serendipitous in terms of the fact that it helps him uncover the truth about her disappearance in a completely unforeseen manner. Assisted by the mysterious Thuy Binh and her confidante Miho, Palash’s life then takes a completely different turn and he starts afresh.

However, one moment when he lets his guard down brings down this particular house of cards also tumbling down all around him. Whether he manages to get his life back together again, whether he manages to meet his daughter Li Ya again forms the crux of the rest of the narrative.

This book is very unconventional in the sense that the first third of the book almost entirely deals with the protagonist talking to himself in his mind. By playing on the substance abuse issue that Palash is grappling with, the author uses this to provide readers with an entirely different point of view of the events unfolding in the narrative. Far from being angry with Palash, I wouldn’t be surprised if most readers ended up sympathizing with his plight in this portion, more so by the end of the book when a whole lot of other things unravel themselves.

And I have to admit that the first third makes for some tough reading at times when I felt frustrated with what Palash was doing (or rather not doing right). In hindsight, I realize that this feeling contributed more than quite a bit to me rooting for him in the last third of the book. While the ending is a little contrived and seems inspired by Hollywood, it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is an enjoyable book.

An unconventional storyline which is as much of the protagonist losing himself in Pattaya as much as it is about him losing his daughter there, this book managed to strike the right chords with me with its gritty, unflinching portrayal of the sex trade and the plight of prostitutes in Thailand. It also manages to provide a small insight into what substance abuse addicts face when they are high, or when their high wears off as well. This to me, was a personal first, to read a book which managed to help me visualize addiction in an entirely new light.

A worthwhile read which can be purchased online at Flipkart [Link] or Amazon [Link].

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The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.