An act of love goes a long way

I have a lot of friends my age who haven't known what it is like to have a grandparent's love, or who have lost all their grandparents over the years. Till a little over three years ago, I could say with pride that both sets of my grandparents were alive and well. I have been fortunate enough to have lived with my paternal grandparents for the first twenty years of my life and was a very frequent visitor to my maternal grandparents' place as well. It is an entirely different feeling to grow up having the love and care of grandparents and their blessings aplenty. Unfortunately, my nanaji crossed over to the other world in the June of 2010. Even though everyone had known it was coming, yet it was a big blow to the family, more exceedingly to me, as I had always been extra pampered and loved by him. During his last years he was little more than a vegetable, hardly even recognizing us anymore. I wish we had had more time to spend with him. Yet, I cherish the limited memories we have - of his stories, of the orange candies, saunf and other little goodies he always had ready for us when we invaded his room. He once admonished me for having contracted myopia so early on in life, and devised ways to get rid of it. I never followed up on his advice *sigh* but I remember every word of it. Will probably pass it on in the future to my kids as their great grandfather's precious words.

The reason why I'm reminiscing about him today is a dream I had last night. I saw my nanaji, hale and hearty, feeding a large gathering of unfortunate and destitute people outside a temple. There was a look of utter contentment and fulfillment on his face. He was serving food single-handedly, and suddenly turned back and smiled. That's only as far as I can recall. It may have only been a dream but it had a profound effect on me. It felt as if he was trying to send across a message to me. And then it suddenly dawned upon me. He, or probably my conscience, wants me to do what he was doing in the dream. Now it may only be a foolhardy belief that someone can visit you in your dream, or a dream can serve as a sign, but I took it rather as a motivation to perform an act of kindness that we often skip out on doing in our busy lives.

I'm therefore cooking a complete meal all by myself today. No help from anyone. I'll be taking it to the Vinayak temple near my place in the afternoon and feed the devotees, rich and poor alike, urging them to bless my grandfather's soul, wherever it might be. I've never paid homage to him till date - perhaps this is my chance.

I do not know how to cook a lot of Indian food though. I can cook good Italian cuisine and exotic beverages, but that's not the kind of foodstuff you'd serve at a temple. So Kitchens of India has come to my rescue. I'm cooking paneer makhani and vegetable biryani using their mixes, adding however a unique touch of my own. I'll also prepare dahi raita and salad and make hazoori petha halwa for prasaad. I must admit I have never done anything like this before. I'm trying to keep the fare simple but sumptuous, in keeping with the purpose and my intention.

It is an act of love on my part for every fellow human being and homage to those who've passed away. The fact that it coincides with my grandpa's death anniversary was perhaps destined. I hope I'll be able to do justice to my cause and bring smiles to the faces of as many people as I can.

[This post is my second entry for the My Weekend Party with Gourmet Food contest.]

The Perfect Indian Homecoming Experience

It has been a trying week. Too much of writing to do; too much of traveling around as well. No wonder a severe back ache has been my constant companion for the last three days. To make things even more taxing, my much-talked-about-but-rarely-seen NRI uncle and aunt from the US announced their long-awaited arrival to India yesterday. And now my grandparents are hoping to host them for lunch, first at their own place, then at ours. As if one extravagant show of Indian hospitality wasn't nearly enough, there's gonna be twice as much effort now to woo them, for God only knows what. Last I checked they were just coming down for a relaxing holiday, and maybe to get a good tan. What's with all the show and hype? They're Indians at heart after all. They know our ways, our food, and our culture very well. Why parade it in front of them every time they decide to fly down to their country? Beats me. But grandparents' logic - can't surpass it. So they want to host the perfect homecoming lunch for the guests this weekend.

But the fun part begins only after. Because they've entrusted the responsibility of deciding on the entire menu and party preparations, to who else but yours truly! The only catch being that the majority of the fare needs to be authentic Indian, although I could play around with the finer details here and there. So no one's complaining.

Being a blogger has its many perks, like I often iterate, and one of these is the exclusive access to immense information and opportunities laid out there for us bloggers. As if to turn my thoughts into reality, IndiBlogger recently came up with an amazing contest in association with Kitchens of India. It was only through them that I came to know of the vast variety of ready-to-eat exotic Indian foods, conserves, chutneys and mixes that Kitchens of India have on offer at unbeatably low prices. And they're available for easy ordering online, above all. It has made my party planning easier than ever, no kidding.

So now a lunch has to be hosted on Sunday at our place for the foreign-returned entourage, comprising of a typically rich pot-bellied uncle, his wife, their two teenage boys and their American household help. We've decided to go with an all-vegetarian theme, in keeping with the fact that we, the hosts, are vegetarians. In any case the extent of my knowledge about non-vegetarian food starts from Tandoori Chicken and ends with Seekh Kebabs, with nothing significant in between. So the responsibility of treating the guests to authentic Indian non-vegetarian food has been taken up by my illustrious grandmother at her place on Saturday.

I chose our lawn as the ideal venue for a laidback afternoon of catching up over sumptuous food, good music and amazing weather that has been pleasing us Delhi-wallahs for a week now. No amounts of air conditioning in the confines of a room could ever compare with a cool breeze, ever so little drizzling, a canopy of trees all around and eating under the shed outside in nature's midst. Words aren't enough - you have to be there to soak it all in and realize the true beauty of what I speak. As for seating, I have decided on having a number of padded chairs and cushioned mattresses with pillows strewn all around the floor, to make for a comfortable space to lounge around. Music is my biggest forte and I've also heard one of my NRI cousins is a pro guitarist, so there's going to be no dearth of entertainment either. What remains to be seen to is - well - the food.

Given the ongoing Mango season and every Indian's undying love for mangoes, they have been kept as the theme of the meal. [The entire lawn is covered by a dense canopy of mango trees, so the ambiance and food compliment each other only too well].

 Here's a glimpse of the menu I've prepared:

~ Welcome drink: A refreshingly cool Mango Panna drink to welcome the guests

~ Starters: My all-time favorite Nachos (Tortilla Chips) as well as crispy potato fries with a choice of two dips: a tangy Tamarind and Date Chutney, and a sweet Shredded Mango Chutney.

~ Main course: Vegetable Biryani (Using the Vegetable Biryani Mix), an exotic Mughlai Paneer replete with cashew nuts, Mirch ka Salan (a signature dish made from chillies, symbolic of the Indian love for spicy food), Peeli Dal Tadka made by mom, Lachha Paranthas, along with traditional Punjabi accompaniments including Lassi (spiced buttermilk), Sirke wale pyaaz (onions marinated in vinegar), Green salad and a spicy Hot Mango Chutney instead of the usual mango pickle.

~ Dessert: (This one's the course everyone in India actually waits for throughout a meal!) Moong Dal Halwa is like heaven on a plate, literally. No other delicacy surpasses it in its royality, at least for me. But keeping in mind the possibility of varying preferences, I'll also keep various flavors of ice cream and topping syrups on the menu.

~ Conclusion: A traditional Indian meal, a la the ancient maharajas' style, is seldom complete without a meetha paan in the end. So that's how I'll sum up the yummilicious, lip-smacking gastronomical experience I've put together.

I am hoping the guests feel as tempted, and salivate in the mouth as much at the sight of the meal, as I have while putting the whole thing together. Keeping my fingers crossed until then!


[This post is my entry for the My Weekend Party with Gourmet Food contest.]

The importance of finding yourself

I have always been a closet philosopher. But like I said, only in a closet. Most people do not know the philosophy that I live my life on. They only see me as a fiery comet, a rolling stone that goes her own way and does what she likes, and fortunately gets lucky every time. It isn't however like that. I have made more mistakes in my life than a lot of people manage to make in over 40 years. But I have worked to get what I have, and striven to be who I am. It isn't after all luck that bides by you in tough times, but your own courage and perseverance. Those who have led an ideal life - graduation, post graduation, stable job, marriage, two kids, a car and an insurance - would look down upon me today for my choices. They might even think the same of me ten years down the line. Because I have, so far, built a less than ideal life for myself that may look crazy from the outside but is much more fulfilling than the so-called ideal life is on the inside.

I have often been considered the only rebel in the family. From an early age, they knew I was different from the other cousins and the aunts and the uncles. I was industrious and creative but aloof to most conventional practices. I was courageous and stood my ground when others buckled. They time and again relate this anecdote from when I was only two years old. Our uncle told my elder sister (who was four) that our father was a daku (robber) and that he went to the forest and hunted lions with his big gun. She, a simpleton, believed him and went and repeated the same to the family only to be told that it was all a joke. She was left confused and disillusioned. Such occurrences were fairly common and they shaped her personality in such a way that has bearings on the way she deals with people even now. I, on the contrary, when my turn came, smiled and maintained that my father was a doctor who treated patients and saved lives. No amount of coaxing, cajoling or charm could induce me into believing otherwise, because I knew what was right. And to this day I haven't let go of this aspect of my personality. I have been bold, and yet stayed reasonable and real enough to survive in all kinds of surroundings. And it has never failed me in these twenty one odd years.

A majority of Indian people's mindsets are still a bit conventional, to say the least, when it comes to the ideal way of living life. But there are little seeds of change that are coming up everywhere, and I believe in being a part of the movement - in bringing change into myself and my surroundings, so it can slowly permeate to a larger audience. I have the courage to live my life a certain way and the perseverance to stand up every time I fall. And I have fallen numerous times. I have given my parents reasons to believe the worst in me. I remember a time, around when I was in high school, when my parents thought I was a promiscuous Hussie. [Emphasis on 'thought'.] They had brought me up a certain way, fed me with a comprehensive list from an early age of what is wrong and not to be done, and what is right and to be done at all costs. Study, score centuries, build a gleaming career were the do's. Have romantic alliances, hang out with friends, watch too much of TV or movies were some of the don'ts. Understandably so, from an Indian parent's viewpoint. I had slightly different beliefs. So I took the middle path. I became a brilliant student, much respected and admired by everyone at school and home, but I never held myself back from experimenting wherever I felt I wasn't out of line. I received flak a number of times for my so-called 'misdemeanor' but that could not bog me down. I knew, somewhere down the line those were the kind of exposure and experiences that would help me later on in life. And they did, and do even now. Those were trying times but I held on to my belief in the Almighty and in myself. My family was all that mattered to me and with determination and some hard work, I eventually won their trust and admiration back.

By the time I passed out of school, I had mixed opinions on what I wanted to do in life. So I took a practical decision. I went with what my mother (herself educated and well-aware) expected me to do - engineering. It wasn't for lack of choice that I took it up though. I had taken up admission in University of Delhi's best department in Chemistry, the subject I loved. Yet I was more convinced by my mother's argument than my own, so I took a decision. And I have not regretted it till today. I believe it was bold of me, and not meek as some would have it, to go by someone else's belief in me rather than my own conviction. Not that I ever liked what I was doing. But I knew it was the right call, and I persevered throughout those four years, making each moment count towards building for myself a life worth being happy about. 

Everybody was satisfied that an engineer was coming up in the family. But not for long. Along the way I discovered my hidden flair for writing. It had been there ever since I was a kid - I used to write poetry and essays and all my teachers would tell my parents about how good I was. But it did not occur to me till I was 20, to make a career out of it. And when it finally did, people freaked out. Writers are unconventional, especially in the middle class society that I live in. They told me to concentrate on my engineering, and to get a conventional job in the industry. I said okay. I did not wish to let my parents down, for they are the reason I am. So I studied hard, gave the exams of their choice, cleared them as also clinched a job. But then lightning struck again and I realized I want to be a civil servant. Now in India, IAS is the ultimate thing. Nothing beats the tag of being a bureaucrat. Being a writer along with a bureaucrat would only be what they call 'sone pe suhaga' (akin to 'cherry on the cake'). But it is believed to be ridden with corruption and extreme exploitation, so I was discouraged from even thinking about it. That was earlier this year; I have graduated now. Everybody keeps telling me to go for a stable engineering career. I hold onto my faith nevertheless. I have given much thought to my decision, and I know it is where my calling lies. I have slowly but thoroughly convinced everyone who matters, that it isn't just a passing fad and that I have it in me to be better than just another engineer. Moreover, even if I failed, I'd have the satisfaction of having pursued my dream and  in the process gained a vast amount of knowledge and built my own opinion on matters of importance. It is what I want, and I shall not stop till I have it. 

So with infinite amounts of patience and determination, I have carved a different niche for myself in the small world I live in. It has been a slow process, taken years and years, but I look back sometimes and feel proud of all that I have done and gone through till now. I have been bold enough to follow my heart but reasonable enough to stay real and not get carried away with anything. And it motivates me to stay the same, rather improve, and achieve everything that I believe I am capable of.

I am only but a single instance of personal strength and courage. I am not old or accomplished enough to put down my life and my choices as an example of anything. There are a lot of instances of bold, real people out there who are living fulfilling lives despite all odds being against them, and whose lives inspire me to no end. We live in a world where physically impaired people are competing in the Olympics in all the sports. Innumerable social workers and non-profit organizations have been coming up in the last few years to work for causes ranging from illiteracy and poverty to women's rights and bonded labor. People today are increasingly taking a stand for human rights or the society's rights in general, as has lately been seen in the cases of Jessica Lal, Arushi Talwar, the 16th December gang-rape victim, the Lokpal Bill issue and so many others. There are bravehearts posted at Kargil and the Siachen glacier, protecting the country from infiltration as best as they can, while silently convincing their hearts that they'll return safe and sound to serve their mothers and love their wives and children.

Every great achievement is a sign of boldness within the achiever's heart, perseverance in their efforts and realness in their purpose. With even one of those elements missing, an achievement isn't half as praise-worthy. And that is why, mothers must teach their children, not to be 'ideal' but rather to be bold and fearless, at the same time remembering who they are and what ideals they stand for. Because ultimately it's all about finding yourself and having the requisite courage within to live up to your own ideals. To put it in even fewer words: BE BOLD, STAY REAL.

[I am writing on Be Bold Stay Real at BlogAdda.]

Diagnostics from across the seven seas - made easy with WeChat

I have been a fan of the medical drama House MD for as long as I can remember. It was a phenomenal show, defying all network TV conventions and setting a unique example of an entirely different kind of entertainment. So potent has its effect been that even now whenever I watch an episode I often dream of it at night. Last night brought into my sleep another such dream, only, this time spruced up with a most unexpected twist.

So here I am, one of the esteemed members of Gregory House's team of diagnosticians that help him solve, from the easiest of cases to the most myriad and twisted ones. We're the best diagnostics team in the world - Dr. Gregory House (Head of Diagnostic Medicine), Dr. James Wilson (Head of Oncology), Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Dean of Medicine), Dr. Robert Chase (an intensivist), Dr. Allison Cameron (an immunologist) and I - a neurologist. We follow a differential diagnosis strategy, writing down symptoms and possible causes on a white board and then we brainstorm together, bounce ideas and prospective diagnoses off each other, and reel under House's sardonic passes all the while. He spares no one.

The dream sees us faced with a weird case of an 85-year old lady who says she's been in a too good mood for the past many days. She admits to suddenly beginning to have sexual fantasies about younger men, especially about Ashton Kutcher (I watched an Ashton Kutcher movie a week ago. The effect seems to be manifesting in my dreams..sigh!). She says she has started writing poetry and feels like falling in love all of a sudden. The lady seems to be happy, but her middle aged son thinks it insane and has brought her in for a checkup.

The problem however is that I am on a week's leave in India for an important family engagement. But the team cannot carry out a diagnosis without my insights on such a strange case (It's my dream. I get to be all important here). Everybody's in a fix. Long distance diagnoses are usually carried out on speaker phone when one member is out while the others are together in the department. But House is on clinic duty, while Cuddy is as usual busy running from pillar to post, managing the entire hospital and staff in her tight skirts and 5-inch heels. Chase and Cameron are out searching the lady's house for possible drug abuse (yes, we go against the law and search patients' homes, because - Everybody lies.)

House is getting crankier and more sarcastic in his assaults by the minute. Right when he is about to tell the lady and her worried son to bugger off (yes, he can do that, and much more), I come up with the perfect solution. WeChat! It is an amazing app compatible with everybody's smartphones. Using WeChat, I hurriedly create a group, add all the members of our team to it and start a live chat session using the 'Live Chat' option in the WeChat window.

Since it allows for only one person to speak at a time, each one of us gets to put our ideas across without interruption (something that is hard to do otherwise when House is around. He is always interrupting and cutting everybody off, the jerk!). Aha! So finally we have a tool that helps us snub House. Life really doesn't get any better than this.

The differential diagnosis starts. Wilson is in the office and as everyone chips in with their inputs verbally, he keeps jotting it down on the whiteboard. Once the list of symptoms is made, he uses the 'Moments' option on WeChat, clicks a picture of the list on the whiteboard and forwards it to everyone for ready reference. Chase and Cameron also report that the lady's house is clean. So reportedly no drug use.

It's getting sort of confusing after a point, with Wilson having to read through the long list again and again and sending a picture repeatedly. But WeChat comes to the rescue again. Chase (the hottie wrongly believed to be a beauty without brains!!) however discovers the 'Video Call' option in the app. But since all of us cannot simultaneously access the video call, House decides to call me up instead and take my opinion on the lady's sudden personality change.

What greets me on the video call is a hilarious sight. The elderly lady is flirting with House, trying all her charms on him while he has his sulkiest face on, impatiently asking her son to keep his mother in control. The son seems to be irked himself. After all, who wants his widowed mother to dream of men younger and smarter than him, and be happy about it too? I somehow control my amusement and ask House if he has had her checked for STDs. It seems to hit him like a bullet (how did the genius not think of it himself?) He abruptly ends the call, probably ordering the lady to be tested immediately. Meanwhile all of us (except House of course) get back on the group and take digs at him. The wide range of emoticons available in the app make it all the more hilarious and we're all in splits, only until he returns with the test results, that is.

He returns with significant news. The lady has tested positive for Syphilis. Now the question is, how can she contract the disease when she swears not to have had any sexual activity for almost a decade now? And then it strikes me! The disease was dormant in her body all these years, only starting to attack her brain now. The idea appeals to House and he orders Wilson to have her brain mapping done. What the tests show is dismal. The lady has permanent brain damage for which there is no treatment. But there are ways to stop any further damage, Wilson says. The lady, however, admits she doesn't want to be treated. She feels happier now than she has in a long time, and she wishes to remain that way for as long as she lives. I can almost hear House smirk into the phone. But Cuddy, ever practical and respectful of patients' rights, lets the lady leave in peace. House taunts Cuddy on her brain being caught beneath her high heels. She ignores him and leaves the group chat, followed by all of us.

WeChat thus served as an easy and fast way of carrying out a diagnosis simultaneously from different locations. No need of a laptop, no slow desktop video chatting and absolutely easy to use when on the move. I think my brainwave might just have saved the day at the hospital. Or was it WeChat that did it?

Anyhow, it was only a dream. Where else could I be lucky enough to be an indispensable part of House's team of doctors? Sigh. If only reality was as beautiful as dreams. Nevertheless, one part of the surreal dream is for real - WeChat. And I guess one could always make do with that, if not to chat with big shot doctors in medical emergencies, then at least to keep in touch with friends night and day.


[This post is my entry for the "WeChat with Anyone, Anywhere!" contest by IndiBlogger. You can check out the WeChat YouTube Channel here.]

Book Review: The Homing Pigeons - Sid Bahri

A book that comes with a personal handwritten note by the author is almost always a pleasure to read and review. In the present case, luckily, the content greatly complements the author's note too. Because the book definitely made me happy.

Wading through the bottomless ocean of contemporary Indian writers churning out books revolving around common subjects like recession, life in engineering colleges, love affairs and separation, one fine day I came across an email offering me to read Sid Bahri's debut novel, The Homing Pigeons. I won't deny it came as a breath of fresh air, for the very fact that its story is not borrowed or tried and tested. The characters are greatly flawed, yet the reader can relate to their thoughts and situations as they brave the biggest lows and commit mistakes to emerge wiser (or not).

The book follows the lives of Aditya and Radhika, separately at the outset so one can establish any relationship between the two initially. Aditya, along with his family, is a childhood victim of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Radhika is torn, from her very early years between two sets of parents both of which fail to completely provide her with everything a child is entitled to in her growing up years. With time, it is revealed that they're best friends from high school, with hidden feelings for each other ever since then. And yet, they were never really together. Now Aditya is jobless and in an unhappy, love-less marriage, somehow battling out the recession, while Radhika is marrying off her young stepdaughter from her dead, rich husband. Both are at a stage in life they had never imagined they would land up in. And in all of this, they reminisce about the time that was, when they were in love and kept bumping into each other over the years.

Saying anything more would be a spoiler, so I shall refrain from giving out more. It would however suffice to say that the book is the right combination of emotion and a reality take on the imperfection that is life nowadays. Both the characters start out as any other youngsters with a decent upbringing and certain dreams and aspirations. However, life plays out its games in such a way as to give a totally different turn to each of their dreams and land them in a soup. But the soup brings them back together, so there, a happy ending is in tow. No one's complaining.

The novel is very nicely written, with negligible grammatical errors (yeah, I do pay attention to those) and simple yet elegant language. I have always found the art of writing dialogue largely missing in contemporary Indian writers. Siddharth (or does he prefer Sid?) Bahri succeeds at it exceptionally, and thus gets extra brownie points from Yours Truly. The book is conveniently priced at 150 rupees and I'd say it is worthy of each penny. If that isn't convincing enough, I'd say buy it for the The Homing Pigeons Original Soundtrack CD that comes along with it. The songs have been created by Rishikesh - The Band, and have a beautiful feel to them. I especially loved the song 'Banjaara Dil Ka'. The songs are also available for free download here.

I would give the book 3.5 stars out of 5.

Book Review: The Secrets of the Dark - Arka Chakrabarti

They say not every man that eats can make a good cook. Likewise, not every man that watches mythology can make an epic writer. And I learnt it the hard way.

I'd say the worst part about being a reader and a book reviewer is that you are sometimes forced to read stuff you'd never otherwise have spent any effort or time on. Also given my propensity not to put down a book halfway, once I've picked it up, causes me a lot of torment at times. I completed reading one such book tonight.

Now my regular readers would know I am never really hard upon any book. There's always something new or unique about each piece of writing and I appreciate the pros as much as I highlight the cons (usually fewer). But The Secrets of the Dark by newbie writer Arka Chakrabarti, all of 25 years, has left me disappointed on many levels. I received the book about a month and a half ago, and I like to believe that I am professional enough not to take too long in reading a book I have received from a kind publisher. The title and a reading of a few initial pages, however, made me put it down and consciously keep stalling reading it till I possibly could. But I couldn't go on like that forever - so I read it over the last two weeks and here I am, reviewing it immediately after putting it down.

The plot: Agni, a prince, is forced to be taken away from his kingdom in the face of impending death, and is brought up as the ward of the King of Himadri with the king's son and his own foster family. He grows up not knowing to where he belongs or what his real destiny is. But the merciless killing of his lady love and her father throws him into a whirlwind of unexpected events that slowly guide him towards his true identity and exacting revenge upon those responsible for his loved ones' deaths. At the heart of all these events are three ancient prophecies that bind together the East and the West and form the foundation of the beliefs of the world. How Agni unravels the third prophecy and assumes his true role in the larger scheme of things is the central theme of book.

For a first, the very title of the book has been poorly selected. It is slightly childish. The tagline even more so (which goes like: '...the debt of blood is never repaid'). For any average or above-average reader, the title and the tagline would be hard to connect with the actual plot. Even uncannier is the fact that the book is apparently the first in a series of books titled 'The Saga of Agni'. I find that too much of an assuming nature on part of the writer, publisher and the book itself. I mean, to be able to write the first part of a series, one must be clear on his vision for the entire series, especially how the first book would introduce the story and the characters and then seamlessly merge into the next and even further. I found that approach lacking here. The book ends very abruptly, leaving the reader confused as to what really happened and what to expect in the next part. The ending of a book is just like the last course of a meal - if you screw it up, the entire meal risks having been for nothing. I felt the ending should have been clearer. After all, what's the point of creating so much of a mystery around your story and characters that the reader loses their mind AND their interest? The turn of events and the way parallelism has been achieved between two so far unconnected stories, is also confusing and hard to follow at times.

Another lesser, but equally vexing, flaw in the book is its language and editing. I agree, simple language is the order of the day when it comes to young newbie writers of our generation, and understandably so. But there is absolutely no excuse for such bad editing. I was faced with so many outrightly visible grammatical and printing errors throughout the book, that it made me feel I can be a much better editor if these publishing houses ever gave me a chance at it. Whoever uses the pronoun 'her' for a man, in a published novel, and that too, at more places than one? I even discovered the writer's favorite word - curt. I'd like to make a note here, for the writer's perusal if he ever comes across this review - the words 'curt' and 'curtly' may have been used in ancient or classic literature with some other, non-negative connotations, but in modern English language, these words are associated with quite negative connotations, such as rude, short and terse. The frequency and the manner in which the word has been used throughout the book forced me to make a mention here. It was nauseating, almost.

I guess not everyone can write great mythology. Amish Tripathi is a genius for having succeeded at it so beautifully, and I am all praise and respect for him. But the amounts of experience, research and hard work that must have gone into creating the Shiva series are unimaginable. Merely watching The Lord of the Rings, Kingdom of Heaven and The Chronicles of Narnia does not endow one with enough ammo to write down an entire fantasy novel, let alone a saga. I hope the writer's listening. A reviewer's job is to judge a book on all levels. No hard feelings - you have a way with words, put it to better use and I'm sure your next book shall find an applauding review on my humble blog.


Disclaimer:
The views expressed in my book reviews are solely my personal opinion, and I wish not to influence the readers' judgement in finally deciding whether to read a book or not. My review is one of the many available on the WWW. The readers know better, whether to take my advice seriously or to throw it out the window. I shall leave it to their discretion, therefore, to be the final judge.

Keep coming back for more, though. Who doesn't like followers? ;)