Kabira khada bazar me mange sabki khair; Na kahu se dosti na kahu se bair.

The Coffee and the Cola: An Ordinary Narrative Built Around an Extraordinary Premise by A Novella by Kapil Muzumdar My rating: 3 of 5 stars I give 6/10 stars to “The Coffee and the Cola” a novella by Kapil Muzumdar published by Notion press. This is a simple love triangle. The author claims that it is “AN ORDINARY NARRATIVE BUILT AROUND AN EXTRAORDINARY PREMISE”. We will come to the premise later. The story starts with Kapil’s musings about a coffee and a café. He is mentor of his friends’ (Umakant and Rama) son Rahul. Umakant and Rama have separated. Kapil has special love for Rahul and he treats him as his own. Rahul meets Radha at the same café and insists on Kapil to be present. Rahul and Radha becomes friendly and soon fall in love. Radha is a traditional girl who wants to save his virginity till her wedding night. This drives them apart and Rahul meets Nora. Nora is exact opposite of Radha. She is bindaas and believe in free sex. She consorts Rahul and help him tide over his...

My Wife's Diary by Deepanshu Saini My rating: 3 of 5 stars I give 5/10 stars to “My Wife’s Diary” by Deepanshu Saini published by Omji publishing house. The book is about premarital affairs, gays, brief lesbian encounter and life before and after marriage. ‘I loved her and she married me. But it wasn’t that simple.” Or is it? This is the opening salvo of this book. What if you come across diary of your life partner? Will you read it or not? Here the husband starts reading the diary of his wife and the result is shocking. This is the story of a simple girl named Pournima. She keeps a diary, which she lovingly calls Sweety, and record her life and feelings in detail. She is reading to be a psychologist. She is in love with his batch mate Rahul. When Rahul tries to get physical with her she feels disgusted. She gets Ragahv Kalra a patient who doesn’t wants to get married, doesn’t like girls and don’t know the reason. The reason is obvious to me but somehow Pournima and Raghav can...

The Unpredictable Heart: You May Be a Victim by MoKSh My rating: 2 of 5 stars I give 4/ 10 stars to “The Unpredictable Heart” by Moksha published by Partridge. This is supposed to be a love story. Title says “YOU MAY BE A VICTIM” which is prophetic. Indeed the readers are victims here of bad writing. This is the story of Mrinav. In the beginning he sitting in front of his girlfriend Jiya waiting for his friend Jatin to come. Jatin has never been to a girls’ college and it is apparently a big deal for him to visit one. Then the story goes in flashback 7 years ago. Mrinav works in a call center and there are lots of friends. Many girls Neeti, Rati, Alka, Ankita etc come in his life. He is attracted to them but somehow never able to express himself. Thus he is forever alone. Finally he finds Jiya. What happens next and how he deals with heartbreaks is the story. These is nothing new or exciting in the book. In the beginning Moksh says that these are real stories with the pinch of som...

Always Be MINE by Neha Daraad by Neha Daraad My rating: 4 of 5 stars I give 8/ 10 stars to “Always Be MINE” by Neha Daraad published by Inspire India. This is a sweet, cute romantic story of Arjun and Akansha. It tugs at your heart and make you believe in love. Arjun is a spoilt brat of a rich father. He is totally irresponsible and emotionally unstable. His relation with his father is antagonistic amd his mother is not living with them. He doesn’t even talk to him. He is an alcoholic and one day he has a nasty fight with his father. He rushes out in his car and in a drunken fit tries to commit suicide. Fortunately Akanksha is also there and she stops him in time. She calls his friend Abhimanyu from his phone. Abhimanyu is his well-wisher and he is getting married soon to Payal. Abhimanyu picks him up and arranges Arjun’s meeting with Akansha. Arjun meets her and finds her attractive. They soon develop a friendship and Arjun starts healing emotionally. He describes this feeling as...

The Prince of Patliputra (Asoka trilogy, #1). by Shreyas Bhave My rating: 4 of 5 stars I give 7/ 10 stars to “The Prince of Patliputra” by Shreyas Bhave published by Leadstart Publishing. This is book one of “Asoka trilogy”. This is a fictionalized account of Mauryan rule’s first three rulers. This has used names of historical characters but it is far from true history as I have read. So I read it as historical fiction. I advise every reader to read it as fiction to enjoy fully, otherwise you will keep on comparing with history and will remain unsatisfied. In the beginning it refers to The Mudrarakshasa which is a historical play in Sanskrit by Vishakhadatta that narrates the ascent of the king Chandragupta Maurya ( 324 -297 BC), the founder of Mauryan Dynsaty, to power in India. Second is The Ashokavadana ("Narrative of Ashoka") is an Indian Sanskrit-language text that describes the birth and reign of the Maurya Emperor Ashoka. It contains legends as well as historical ...

Figmented Reality by Zuko My rating: 3 of 5 stars I give 6/ 10 stars to “Figmented Reality” by Zuko published by Frog Books. This is a psychological story having addictions, molestation, trauma cause psychosocial scars, romance and erotica. There is one main protagonist Siddharth who has whole lot of issues. He is sexually molested when he was very young by an elderly lady. This has left a very wrong impression on his young psyche and he becomes addicted to weed, alcohol and masturbation. After completing his engineering he gets a job in Cochin and thinks about sex all the time. He is a serial masturbator you can say, as he is a virgin. When he was 16 he has an attraction on her mother’s 32 year old friend Veena. They go their separate ways and then he enrolls in a Deaddiction center, he meets her again. She has become an alcoholic and her marriage is on the verge of divorce. Here he meets another addict Ananya and his old college friend Adithya who becomes his roommate. In flashb...

Finding Juliet by Toffee My rating: 2 of 5 stars I give 2 stars to “Finding Juliet” by Toffee published by Srishti. This is an erotic, romantic story. The story is divided in two parts. The story is divided in two parts. Arjun before meeting his guru Kartik, when all the girls fall for him but he doesn’t succeed. And Arjun 2.0 after meeting Kartik who turns him into some kind of Casanova overnight. Kartik gives gyan to Arjun about girls. Sample these: 1. So the first thing you need to know about girls is that they never directly say what they really want or how they truly feel. 2. You should never apply logic to judge a girl and instead understand her emotions. Also I want to reinforce the point that most of the time, girls don’t really mean what they say and don’t really say what she means. So you should always judge her by her action and not her words. 3. When you kiss a girl, you leave her with only two options – either she should leave you forever or she should stay with you. ...

The Soul Charmer by Richa Saxena My rating: 4 of 5 stars Four stars to “The soul Charmer” a collection of poetry by Richa Saxena published by HBB. These poems talk of utopian love, longing, silences, loneliness, pain, tribulations of an unquiet mind and the journey within. Some poems are of erotic love and to quote a part of “A Sinful Night” below: And the melody of their bodies croon- They bask in this love Amidst the gleam of the moon, Oh! A deep plunge A round of passion And the bodies curl up, Like the lost pieces, Of the puzzle, They smooch and snuggle And lay in each other's arms All bare- And complete The caged bird talk about the stifled ambitions and aspiration of freedom of any Indian girl. She feels suffocated by the atmosphere and it reminds me of Nirbhaya and Bangalore molestation. “I am Alright” reminded me of one of my favorite poems on pain is ‘Aansoo (teardrop)’ by Prasad: जो घनीभूत पीड़ा थी मस्तक में स्मृति-सी छायी दुर्दिन में आँसू बनकर जो आज बरसने आयी। ----प...

A Knotty Affair by Dhaval Birajdar Jinadatt My rating: 3 of 5 stars Three stars to “A Knotty Affair” by Dhaval Birajdar Jinadatt. Thanks to Nishant Joshi for providing a review copy. It is a story of Viraj Sargaokar (Gao to his friends though not many are there). He has low self-confidence due to his stammer. He is from a traditional middle class family and when he enters a college who has affluent family kids, he feels left out. He develops an inferiority complex. One of his classmates is Ruhi who is very beautiful and outgoing. He has secret crush on her but could not express his feelings. Meanwhile his father, who is also teaching in the same college, is alleged of corrupt practices and expelled from college. This incident has huge impact on him and his family. After many years he is working as software engineer in a big company. Fate again brings Ruhi in his life but she doesn’t recognize him. They develop a bond of friendship. At the same time he keeps fighting to prove innoc...