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

Transit Lounge by Sunil Mishra My rating: 4 of 5 stars The world is a wonderful place. There are countless cultures, customs, dialects and ways of life. There is no one right or wrong way. This book gives as a glimpse of the diversity around the globe. This is a travelogue and written as a non fiction mode. Sunil Mishra is fortunate to be a software engineer, which allowed him to circumvent the globe for his work. Africa is amazing and so is Middle East. Iran I liked in in particular as they are so anti American and they have an equivalent of almost all American products. US of A has got the detailed mention. I liked the analysis of American way of life and Sunil’s theory about rise of Trump. The X=X+1 hypothesis is wonderful and funny for Indian immigrants as he keeps thinking to return to India next year. The horrible service at UK hotels is appalling. Eastern Europe is so dull and it seems time has frozen there. The book is written in simple Engli...

Prithviraj Chauhan: The Emperor of Hearts by Anuja Chandramouli My rating: 4 of 5 stars Prithviraj was the last Hindu ruler of India before Muhammad Ghori established the Muslim rule in India. There are many myths associated with him. Chanderbardai, the court poet wrote “Prithviraj Raso” which project him as a legend. This book is not a copy of Bardai’s work. The book does not start with Prithvi as a king. That comes much later maybe after half the book is done. This shows his father and uncle and how he grew up from a kid. There is palace intrigue, wars, assassinations and his training. His uncle Kanha is not ambitious and is happy to serve his brother. There are rumors that Prithvi is his son as he is very handsome unlike his ugly father. He saves a girl named Yogita from bandit like thugs and brings her to his palace. They fall in love only to grow apart. Then there is attacks from Shabuddin Ghori and famous battles. The book is pretty thick and c...

In India women is either a goddess or a doormat. We worship her as Goddess Durga and in the form of mother. But when it comes to real life ours is a patriarchal society. It is a paradox. We kill her in womb or treat her as a slave in our homes. During International Women's Year in 1975, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March. This is to affirm the principle of equality between women and men. Equality is all we need. She is neither worse nor better than men. She is equal to men and we have to ensure equality of opportunity for her.  But sometimes the second wave feminism takes things to extreme and that is also counterproductive for equality of sexes. There are a plethora of laws to protect women from Dowry, domestic violence and workplace sexual harassment. These all are necessary but sometimes these are misused. Somewhere the balance is missing. The law sometimes is misused and other times it does not reach the intended benefic...

Aayush was in 8 th standard. He was fond of toys like every kid. But he was from a lower middle class family so his father could not afford many fancy toys. His father felt necessary to spend on his education whatever limited means he had. Amit came to his house one day. “Aayush come I want to show you something” Amit said. Amit was friend of his and from a financially well off family. Aayush went with him and Amit showed him a brand new football. It was beautiful beyond words for him. “Can I hold it, Amit!” “Why not”. Aayush took it in his hands and he had no words to describe the feeling. He had no metaphor for it. But one fine day he will have it. Time passed and both of them went their separate ways. Aayush completed his MBA from IIMA and got a handsome package. He met Ramya during MBA and both of them married. Ramya was into books and one day she was reading Hindi novel “Sati Maiya ka Chaura”. “How can you read such thick books? I get head ache after fiv...

Vishnu Sharma told that once upon a time in the land of Mahilaropya there was a crusader of anti-corruption named Anant. He was an army veteran who commanded a lot of respect. People even called him second Mahatma Gandhi. His right hand was Amar who was very talented and disgruntled bureaucrat. There were 29 princely states under Mahilaropya and Vivek headed one of them in the western part. Shyam, the king of Mahilaropya ruled it from Indraprastha, the capital. Anyway Anant protests bore fruit and Shyam was overthrown. Vivek became king and Amar became head of Indraprastha. One fine day Mitesh, a crony of Anant fled Mahilaropya with   a lot of public money. There was a lot of hue and cry in public. To divert attention Mitesh sent his emissaries to Amar. Amar had a trick up his sleeve. He staged a drama where his ministers pretended to rough up a public servant. Now everyone forgot about Mitesh and all the media was busy talking about assault of democracy. Everyone ...