Book Review: The War Ministry

Bharat News Ticker: Prime Minister Azim Khan takes office, becomes first Muslim to lead India ...

Assuming power in the messy aftermath of a war with Pakistan, and mounting hostility with a belligerent China, Azim Khan inherits an India in crisis. Heading a shaky coalition, his leadership is questioned at every turn - most visibly by Deputy PM Karan Nehru, his once-best friend and, more insidiously, by other scheming detractors hidden within his government. India's first Muslim PM must earn the trust of the Indian people in his leadership and prove he is the man with the ability to heal the wounds of the past and chart a path to a united and bold future for the nation. Buffeted by history, conflicted by ideology, and curbed by his own limitations, Azim and his team of idealists face the ultimate test. Will they succeed?

Krishan Partap Singh's The War Ministry is the third and concluding volume of the Raisina Series. It is an interesting and gripping political thriller written with the background of an alternate political possibility and around fictitious political figures who resemble very much their real like counterparts. The characters are full and strong with their individual faults and individual motivations. The book is fast paced and riveting with multiple sub plots that make the book more interesting to read. The only minor annoyance I observed were few instances of dialogues using very rich language.


Book Information

Author: Krishan Partap Singh ISBN: 9789350095133 Binding: Paperback Publisher: Hachette India Year of Publication: 2012 Number of Pages: Approx 440 with cover

A gripping book for political thriller lovers. I had received the review copy from Hachette India. Thank you Hachette India for giving me this opportunity. You can buy this book at amazon or at Flipkart in case you live in India.

Read More

Book Review: Macaulay - Pioneer of India's Modernization

There he remains, buried near the west wall of the South Transept, among many of the other authors and poets whom he had so avidly read and admired.

If you're an Indian reading this review in English, it's probably because of Thomas Macaulay. Thomas Macaulay is most famous for having introduced the English language as a medium for learning in India, creating a class of westernized Indians who are sometimes derisively referred to as 'Macaulay's children'. Was this as act of cultural imperialism or a modernizing move far before its time? Macaulay has always inspired both admiration and hostility in India. Ever since he served on the Supreme Council of India in the 1830s, his thinking and policies have had a profound, transformative impact on the subcontinent. Today, some activists even celebrate him as their liberator from caste tyranny.

Macaulay - Pioneer of India's Modernization is a biography of this influential figure, in which Zareer Masani traces Macaulay's journey from a child prodigy, historian and parliamentary orator in London to imperial administrator in India, and then revered elder statesman back in Britain, giving a vivid sense of a brilliant, eccentric, contradictory man and his complex times at the early days of Raj. Judging beyond Macaulay's Minutes, Zareer Masani presents the biography of the human Macaulay with his own faults and fallacies, who is much ahead of his time in framing policies and patronizing ideas that would have impacts in years to come.

Written in simple prose, this book is a thoroughly researched biography and may not suit you if you are keen to have a cursory glance of the life. On the other hand, if you are serious reader ready to devote attention, Zareer Masani's Macaulay will be definitely an elegant read.

Book Information

Author: Zareer Masani ISBN: 9788184003031 Binding: Hardcover Publisher: Random House India Year of Publication: 2012 Number of Pages: Approx 270 with cover

An impressive biography of an influential figure. I had received the review copy from Random House India. Thank you Rukun for giving me this opportunity. You can buy this book at amazon or at Flipkart in case you live in India.

Read More

Book Review: Lost Men by Rajorshi Chakraborti

I might as well begin here, because this story is about nothing else.

With an extraordinary cover, Lost Men is a collection of ten stories including a novella. Each of the stories in this collection encounters its characters at moments when they are floundering, some in the wake of crisis, others on the verge of major discovery. Each one asks in a different situation - what do people find when they are utterly lost? The fast and fluid narrative of the introductory story Knock, Knock itself sets the mood of the entire collection that also contains stories like The Good Boy and Lost Men. In Knock, Knock and almost all subsequent stories in this collection, Rajorshi Chakraborti guides the reader through the bizarre and dream like experiences of the protagonists and leaves him there to ponder about what next.

But despite the unhappy nature of this particular dream, I said to Sharmistha, I love the nights when I fall asleep and Jane shows up, saying or doing stuff that I haven't seen before. Surprisingly, autonomously.

Strangely, I added, it doesn't happen that often.

The prose in this collection is consistently lucid and elegant but to the casual reader, individual stories might seem to have an abrupt ending. The collection requires well deserved concentration from the reader until they get themselves swallowed into this powerful world, in which, the characters face the weird and the worrisome, the guilt and the loss, and the anxiety of misplaced lives that have shifted from the controlled trajectory. These stories are clever, dark, humorous and often absurd but nevertheless, they succeed in creating unforgettable impressions of uncontrollable situations.

Book Information

Author: Rajorshi Chakraborti ISBN: 9789350096284 Binding: Paperback Publisher: Hachette India Year of Publication: 2013 Number of Pages: Approx 260 with cover

Good Read. I had received the review copy from Hachette India. Thank you Hachette India for giving me this opportunity. You can buy this book at Flipkart in case you live in India.

Read More