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

Finders Keepers by Russ Colchamiro My rating: 3 of 5 stars Finders Keepers is the book one of this trilogy. What if the Gods also have systems like humans? This book is a sci-fi and has this interesting premise. In some far off galaxy Eternitarians live who have the job of populating planets. They build eath like stystems on new planets. The story starts with an eternitarian couple Donald and Danielle. They are work crew and given a single jar of cosmic building matrial or CBM, which is universe DNA. A single drop can wipe out several star systems. They lose it and it falls on earth. It is reterievd by two tourists. They come to earth to reterieve it and then what happens makes the whole story. To give you an idea of the premise this passage is reproduced: Eternitarians impudently denied even the slightest similarity between themselves and the Earth cretins, physical appearance being the only exception. The people trudging along the Earth were said to evolve painfully slow and pos...

A Symphony of Chance Encounters by Sayujya Sankar My rating: 4 of 5 stars An anthology of twenty poems and stories is covering many human emotions. Love, craziness, hate, desperation etc. the range is varied. Story 16 “A Dragon Fire and Cuckoo Song” is about weaving stories. Nisha writes larger than life stories. She creates Minotours (a monster in Greek mythology) and Naagins (female personified snakes of Hindu mythology). She meets Thangjam who reads Kafka. They weave stories that are fantastic. Story 8 “An Incomplete Building” of Viskaha who frequents a construction site. The temporary nature of construction and some incomplete stories are similar. Story 2 “A Sane Insanity” is about dissociative personality disorder. Is it genes or due to conditions that people have split personality? Vani and her alter ego Shnathi is a metaphor of rebellion of a oppressed woman. As Nietzshe said “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.” Th...

Broken Crayons Can Still Colour: A Soldier and a Fighter by Captain Rakesh Walia My rating: 5 of 5 stars Life is harsh and not everyone is born with a silver spoon in mouth. Most people end up surrendering to the circumstances and keep living the pathetic life. Some brave hearts rise above all challenges and come out at top. This is the autobiography of one such brave heart, Captain Rakesh Walia. Rakesh loses his parents in an accident at a very young age. Then after spending his childhood with indifferent relatives he starts working in factories. But he has a dream of becoming and officer in Indian Army. He keeps studying along with his day jobs, worked on his English and eventually joined Indian army as an officer. The story is inspiring, motivating and gives hope to the less fortunate. The story is testimony to the fact that there is no hurdle in the world which can not be overcome with sheer will and hard work. Human will can move mountains and took humankind to the moon and b...

Messed Up! But All for Love by Arvind Parashar My rating: 4 of 5 stars People fall in love. Then marry. After the initial honeymoon period the spark starts to die down. It is more prevalent in urban upper middle class couples who are financially well off. They get stuck in a rut and rat race to make money. The relationship becomes boring and one or both starts to stray. This is the basis of this novel. Neil and Gauri is one such couple. Neil is a senior executive and Gauri is a dentist. They are a loving couple and Gauri is very possessive of Neil. Gauri is caring, beautiful, sexy, romantic and dedicated to her work. First sign of trouble starts when a svelte gym trainer Srinya enters his life. This sows the first seeds of doubt in Guari’s mind and first crack in their ideal marriage. The other couple Som, a DCP and Drishti, TV anchor is having trouble in their marriage already. Som is a known arrogant philanderer and Drishti is not happy. When Neil and Drishti come into contact ...

The Highway Man: Short Stories by J. Alchem My rating: 4 of 5 stars Is love an obsession, togetherness or a sad memory? The book is an attempt to show these three different facets of love. 1. Catherine: This story is love in the form of obsession. A very successful romantic novelist Nicholas Sieum is obsessed with a woman named Catherine. A very seasoned doctor is called by Nicholas’s father to cure him. Can the doctor cure Nicholas? 2. Sidzy; for a day: Love as in togetherness. A very sweet love story of a couple Sidzy and Jihan. On women’s day Jihan works like Sidzy and do household chores. Hence the name. 3. The Highway Man: Love as a sad memory and grief. A husband loses wife and a son loses mother in an accident. They forget how to be happy and a mysterious Highway man again teaches them how to be happy. Story 2 and 3 are connected I guess. I liked the tone of book. 1st and 2nd are good but the best one is 3rd. I liked this passage from it: “There are two phases of life; hap...

Demons in My Mind: When Mind Becomes Your Biggest Enemy by Aashish Gupta My rating: 3 of 5 stars Human mind is one of the most complex machine ever built. It is more complex than any super computer. Does we rule the mind or the mind rules us? The title gives us the idea. Dakshesh is an old man who is on the verge of a painful death. He ask his fellows to take him to mysterious three monks. The three monks Rizwan (Muslim), Murli (Hindu) and Joseph (Christian) all have dark past. They start telling him their stories. The first monk, Rizwan is from a poor family who is in debt of local priest. He has his friends Ayeda and mysterious young boy. He end up doing heinous crimes. The second monk, Murli is a celebrity painter who have become so successful in short span of time that he has surpassed his guru. He is inspired by body of women and they are her muse. But success gets to his head and he loses grip of his faculty. The third monk, Joseph is in love with Ira. Ira want to do social...

The Krishna-Christ Connexion by Oswald Pereira My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book has an interesting premise. Is GOD (or his incarnation Krishna or son Jesus) limited by geographical boundaries. Is GOD not universal, omnipresent, omniscient and all pervasive. Are The religions man-made or not? So the story starts in heaven where Christ and Krishna are together (isn’t that obvious as is no distinction there). They are sent to earth by GOD and they change destinations. Chris (as Krishna lovingly call Christ) comes to India and Kris (nickname of Krishna) goes to America. Here they spread the message of love and brotherhood and we find that Hinduism and Christianity (though as author explains there is no such religion names as per holy scriptures) are more alike than we imagine. Chris quote from Geeta “I am the source of all spiritual and material world. Everything emanates from me.” Kris tells Chris that sometimes violence is required as in war against terrorism. “When President BO in...