A Pack of Lies by Urmila Deshpande

Latest book that has joined my shelf is "A Pack of Lies by Urmila Deshpande". The book has nearly 300 odd pages which should have ideally taken max of 3 days to complete but instead took nearly 3 weeks. The question is, why so? The answer is simple – A Pack of Lies is nothing but a bundle of balderdash!

The book is written in first person and highlights a journey of a girl who yearns for her mother’s attention. She wins it eventually when she becomes heavy with a fatherless child.

There is an overdose of sex, smoke and booze, and if coming of age is all about these activities, I rather not grow up! There is not a single instance in the book that caught my attention.

Ms Deshpande, truth is bitter, no wonder you came up with a pack of lies! I would be lying if I suggest A Pack of Lies as a good read to other fellow readers.

Do you want to enjoy true lies?

Books by Anita Nair

A lady traveling in "Ladies coupe" from Bangalore to Kanyakumari, gets to hear about the lives of her co-passengers. Their "Lessons in forgetting" cognizes her real purpose of life to such an extent that she does not shy away from trying "Satyr of the subway"!


Well, that’s Anita Nair! Her stories are complex and contemporary centered around women of all ages, concentrating hard on the trials and tribulations they encounter during the span of their lives.


After reading her novels, various thoughts clog my mind:-Are most women nymphomaniac? Do they always want to be desired and drooled over? Do they feel lonely and lifeless even in their marriage? Or are these just the fits of imagination of the author?

Any thoughts?

The Immortals Of Meluha by Amish

The current trend is that people who have graduated from prestigious institutions like IIT, IIM etc to flaunt their creativity. The latest to join this bandwagon is Amish, surprisingly, his work can be termed as fresh and fascinating!

He just published the first part of his trilogy series called the “The Immortals of Meluha” – distinctive fictional take on the Hindu mythology about Lord Shiva. In the book, Shiva is not a Lord but a leader, whose valor and vision make him the Mahadev, the God of Gods!



The book starts with Shiva, a tribal leader from Kailash in Tibet, along with his folks, immigrates to land of Meluha, a perfect empire created centuries back by Lord Ram. The peaceful existence of Meluhans, the Suryavamshis are in jeopardy due to the freedom- loving, law-breaking, corrupt Chandravamshis. To make the matters worse, Chandravamshis have joined hands with Nagas, ominous race known for their exemplary martial skills, to overpower the Meluhans. The onus lies on Shiva, the “Neelakanth” to protect the Meluhans and whether he will succeed, forms the rest of the story.

The writer deserves kudos for doing an extensive, intensive research on Lord Shiva. The flow of the book is quite mellifluous, the most striking being the way the writer interpreted “OM”.

Like any work of art, this book has some loopholes too, the primary ones being some dragging war and marriage sequences. Even the ending is quite abrupt but can be overlooked!

Verdict – Quite enjoyed the book, in fact waiting for the next part which would be hopefully out next year!

Video preview to enthuse you!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I have been reading couple of books recently, thanks to the book club that I am a part of! The one book that really caught my attention is “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by “Mark Haddon”.



The story revolves around an autistic boy, Christopher who decides to investigate the death of the dog in his neighborhood and in this process unravels a lot about himself and his family. Though he is quite detached and doesn’t understand human emotions, he is a genius when it comes to Mathematics. He tries to handle the situations quite logically and programmatically.

The chapter numbers in this book are prime numbers, unique concept to illustrate the mathematical inclination of the main character. The book also brings out the reasoning power and inquisitiveness in a child marvelously. The author’s deep insight of autism is clearly visible for the entire book is written in first person.

Some of the quotes that was quite impressive

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.

A quite delightful read and must say, it revived and relived the moments of child within me!

Anything For You Ma'am by Tushar Raheja

Last weekend was a long one and I had actually made some brilliant plans, but Varun Dev was not in good mood and he foiled it all.

I ended up reading a book called “Anything for you ma’am” by Tushar Raheja. It was marketed as “an IITian love story”, and the strategy tricked the poor souls like me. I went ahead and purchased the book expecting it to be on the similar lines of “Five Point Someone”. Not that I am a great fan of Chetan Bhagat, but his initial work was a good read. Every author gives their best shot in the first novel and seems to take the readers for granted in the next one!

Coming back to “Anything for you ma’am”, love story is passé, too cinematic, an archetypal script for YRF Bollywood masala! “Too many cooks spoil the broth”, similarly too many happenstances in a write can take away the pleasure and the punch of a narrative.


On the positive side, I liked the few lyrics that the author had penned. For a first timer, Tushar has done a good job. Also, getting his work printed at such a young age is an astounding accomplishment too!

Now that you have couple of long weekends ahead and if the rain plays spoilt sport, you can grab a copy (100 bucks for 250 pages) and get engrossed in this tale of coincidental incidents.

Do let me know your take on this IITian “love”ly fiction!

The Biggest Mistake Of My Life

I just completed reading the book “the 3 mistakes of my life” by Chetan Bhagat only to realize that I have done the biggest blunder of my life.



The 3 mistakes of my life would be recapitulated as

1) Buying the book
2) Reading it
3) Now, reviewing it

People who have already read and appreciated the book, I salute you. People who have already read and share the same feelings as mine, I sympathize with you. People who are planning to read, my sincere advice is to stay away from it.

To the author of “Five point someone”, I am totally dejected and disappointed reading your last two books.

Mr Agnihotri, are you listening? There is a scope for yet another “Hello”!!! Mr Bhagat, I guess its time for you pen your thoughts for some scrap Bollywood movies.

To Sir With Love by E.R Braithwaite

It’s a good read and I must say few sections really caught my attention.

“Don’t fall into the habit of bringing work home. It indicates a lack of planning, and you would eventually find yourself stuck indoors every night”.

It hit the nail on the head. I bring work home and find myself stuck indoors most of the times. I am now trying to break that shackle and explore the world outside.

The next appealing snippet is dedicated to all the populace who is or will be teacher.

“Teaching is like having a bank account. You can happily draw on it while it is well supplied with new funds; otherwise you’re in difficulties.

Every teacher should have a fund of ready information on which to draw; he should keep the fund supplied regularly by new experiences, new thoughts and discoveries, by reading and moving around among people from whom he can acquire such things.”

I need to watch the movie, provided I get the CD. Hope it does full justice to the book.

The ShawShank Redemption

The ShawShank Redemption has been one of my favorite movies. The movie was based on a novel by Stephen King. I have been searching the novel for a while, but all my efforts proved futile. Today luck seems to have favored me. I got a link to the E-book. Thought of sharing the same with all the fellow netizens who got inspired and entertained by this critically acclaimed movie.

Rita Hayworth And The ShawShank Redemption

It’s really worth reading!!!

Unforgivable Sin!!!

Khaled Hosseini in his book "The Kite Runner" mentions theft as the most unforgivable sin. He perfectly penned it as below:-

"When you kill a man, you steal a life. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing."

Paulo Coelho - A Philosopher & A Guide

I have been reading a lot of books by Paulo Coelho nowadays: - Eleven minutes, Veronika decides to die, Fifth mountain and Brida. Some thoughts that I found interesting in these works:-

Sometimes you get no second chance and that it’s best to accept the gifts the world offers you.
[Eleven Minutes]

The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility.
[Eleven Minutes]

The great problem with poisoning by bitterness was that the passions - hatred, love, despair, enthusiasm, curiosity - also ceased to manifest themselves. After a while, the embittered person felt no desire at all. They lacked the will either to live or to die, that was the problem.
[Veronika Decides To Die]

What we hold now the name is the one which was given by our parents when we born. We need to find out our own name dealing with the circumstances we live in. Using the light we received, the knowledge we accumulated and situations we face we have to find out our name. In another words, our names should reflect our goals.
[Fifth Mountain]

When we put off the harvest, the fruit rots,
But when we put off our problems, they keep on growing.
[Fifth Mountain]

Life is about making mistakes. Cells went on reproducing themselves in exactly the same way for millions of years until one of them made a mistake, and introduced change into that endless cycle of repetition.
[Brida]

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Recently I went through this book: - The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It’s just a simple fable highlighting one main point: - Follow your dreams. It has full of inspiring thoughts which suggests how one can learn new things from whatever one has got. Learning is an ongoing process and at every juncture, one gets to learn something new.

** Some excerpt from the book that’s pretty thought provoking **
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should leave their lives, but none about his or her own

That at a certain pointy in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.

Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny.

If you start out by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

It's called the principle of favorability. When you play cards the first time, you are almost sure to win. Beginner's luck.

Because there is a force that wants you to realize your destiny; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.

The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Both you and I needed to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts.

I don't want to change anything, because I don't know how to deal with change. I'm used to the way I am.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

Imagine if everyone went around transforming lead into gold. Gold would lose its value.

Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man.
Life will be a party for you, a grand festival; because life is the moment we're living right now.

When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke - the language that everyone on the earth was capable to understanding in their heart. It was love.

When you are in love, things make ever more sense, he thought.

Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you learned along that way can make sense.

You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it was true love ... the love that speaks the Language of the World.

Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?
Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world.

Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor’s is severely tested.

When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

Men have never understood the words of the wise. So gold, instead of being seen as a symbol of evolution, became the basis for conflict.

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

No project is completed until its objective has been achieved.

It's true; life is generous to those who pursue their destiny.

Grab a copy today. Get enthused and enlightened!!!