Wise or Otherwise - Sudha Murthi

Sudha Murty is an Indian social worker and an accomplished writer. She runs the Infosys foundation, which focuses on taking health care and primary education to the disadvantaged and underprivileged sections of the society.

Sudha Murty is doubtlessly one of the biggest feminist icons for the country and her experiences indicate the disparities between freedom and privileges given to women across the country.

She is not an extremely talented writer, but her writing is just like her – Simple, intelligent and straight from the heart. This book shows the power of real life stories to move you deeply even if they don’t come clothed in beautiful words.

Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

I saw the movie Namesake and felt what was so special in it? Now when I read the book ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri I understood how the book Namesake must have been. Jhumpa has an amazing writing style. Very simple and very touching.

Unaccustomed Earth has some very interesting short stories which end abruptly…
You just start getting to know the characters, understand the surroundings and the story ends.

You might want to read the book for its simplicity… for its writing style…

The Argumentative Indian - Amartya Sen

The title is interesting enough to make people want to read the book. This book is about the importance of dilogue in India. The author talks about the arguments from the period of Mahabharata to current politics, arguments between genders; castes, arguments between sceptics, agnostics, atheists; between Hindus and Muslims. After 2-3 chapters it feels like the book is not about argumentative Indians but is about just one argumentative Indian and that is Amartya Sen, trying to prove some facts.
Suddenly out of nowhere he starts talking about Tagore and then keeps mentioning about some random Bengali people from writers to actors. It doesn't make any sense.

Amartya has succumbed to pompous diction and acute prolixity. He has used language that creates distance between him and the readers and the language does not feel natural. Lot of stories in the book are repeated lot many times. This book would have been far interesting if Amartya had chosen simple words and sentences rather than creating complicated sentence structures.

If you are of the types who take up something and then do not like to leave it until you finish even if it gets boring then you might want to read it till the end and PLEASE do so because it starts getting interesting in the end (in Part 4).

I just realized that from my reviews on books and movies even I am an Argumentative Indian!

Sham Benegal

This month I watched films by Sham Benegal. Who says meaningful hindi movies are not made? They are… it is just that we like to watch gana bajana :D. No wonder he received national award for almost all his films.
Few of his films I watched and liked:

Ankur - The plot is based on a true story. The story revolves around two characters – Surya and Laxmi. What I found interesting in the plot is: Surya hates his father all his life for a certain reason but he does the same mistakes in his life. This fact is not been shown explicitly or even mentioned in the film or any of reviews of the film…

Nishant - This film’s focus is the power of the rural elite and the sexual exploitation of women. Story is written by Vijay Tendulkar. One of the best movies I have seen so far.

Bhumika - This film is broadly based on a Marathi screen actress of 1940s, 'Hansa Wadkar' who led a flamboyant and unconventional life and focus at an individual's search for identity and self-fulfillment. Very well made movie.

Suraj ka satawa ghoda – I just loved the end of this film…

Mammo – The story revolves around 3 characters – Mammo, Riyaz and Fayyazi. I am at loss of words to explain the beauty of this film.

Zubeidaa - It is the concluding chapter in a trilogy that began with Mammo(1994) and continued with Sardari Begum(1996). (I haven’t seen Sardari Begum yet)

Welcome to Sajjanpur – The story revolves around Mahadev Kushwaha, who is a letter writer in a small village who has an ambition to be a novel writer… this is a light comedy film.

Mandi - The film is a satirical comedy on politics and prostitution. Well made movie… not one of the best of Sham’s movies. Gets boring after an hour but again picks up at the end.

Hari Bhari – Story of 5 muslim females. Very well directed movie.

Kondura – Complete disappointment…

Trikaal – Story of a family in Goa. Well directed movie.

Savor the delicious cuisines

Cooking – what I always found time consuming and boring has been a remarkable experience for me in the last couple of months.
Since the time I started making various dishes I realized I was missing so many tastes and flavors in the world.
What made cooking easy for me -
1. Planning – I take 10 minutes during the week to decide which recipes I want to try and what ingredients are needed. And then take that list with me when I go for my routine grocery shopping.
2. Follow the recipe exactly.
Also some equipments like measuring cups and spoons, pasta cooker (http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=112034) , all types of baking dishes are essential. It is one time investment.
I am posting some recipes that I tried and loved at www.rasikarecipes.blogspot.comIf you try even one of them and like it please drop a line (even if you have modified it a bit :D)
Give a treat to your palate. Enjoy!

The Goal

I recommend this book because...
This book opens the eyes of anyone interested in management to the fundamentals of running a business. It is wrapped inside a very interesting (and yes, even thrilling!) "real-life" story which is written so well that this book could be a best-seller just because of it.


The Goal is a fictional story about Alex, a manufacturing plant manager, struggling with the success of his plant as well as his marriage. His plant has undergone a serious downturn despite various improvements with new technology and higher efficiencies. He’s been given an ultimatum to turn the plant around or it will be shut down and the story is about his struggle and realizations of trying to recover the plant. His work centric lifestyle drives his wife to question their marriage and she moves out on him during this time so Alex is in a real bind and has to find ways to save both his plant and marriage!

Give it a try and you will know reading management novels is sometimes interesting too.

Eat Pray and Love

I just finished Elizabeth Gilbert's much-celebrated travelogue memoir, Eat Pray and Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. I must say I have mixed feelings about the book.
I read this book because it was showcased in Oprah's book club and also I was curious to know what the author had to say about India.

Here is what I think:

1. Before leaving for her journey Elizabeth had received an offer from a publication to write a book on her travel. So I think she started her journey with one of the intent of writing a book. It felt as if she was experiencing everything from the point of view of writing a book.
2.She has not mentioned in the book how exactly she managed the money part for 1 year of her travel. If anyone who has money to travel for an year without worrying about the financial aspects would have written a similar kind of a travelogue (probably better!)
3.Lizy goes to Italy - eats, eats, eats and learns Italian. There is nothing special about the people she meets or the incidences she has mentioned.
4. Next she goes to India. She is a separated and a depressed woman who at one point thinks that she is schizophrenic - meditation changes her state of mind completely.
6. Then she goes to Indonesia. Learns medicine from a medicine man. Elizabeth is going through problems in her marriage. She decides not to be in romantic relationship again. And guess what? There she falls in love with another man.
7. There are problems in every relationship. How does changing the partner made a difference in her life? That is not mentioned in the book...
8. She had no big epiphanies, there were no enlightening experiences shared with readers that would let us know that she has a different outlook/ perspective towards the world.
9. The readers will probably know what was different in the new relationship and how her changed state of mind helped the relationship (hopefully) to survive in her next book.
10. This book is worth reading only for the author's meditation experiences. Everything else in the book is blasé.

Pune - India

Poverty, richness, slums, huge buildings, garbage, cleanliness, temples, traffic, natural beauty, pollution, population – you name it and India has it. I visited India after three long years. Same old Pune looked new to me, it didn’t feel artificial like the western world. In one word I found it REAL…
I bring to you this video with real places, real people and real animals on the roads :)

Don’t forget to put your headphones on.

‘UNITY IN DIVERSITY’

The Bucket List

This movie is about two people (stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) who have cancer and are going to die in 6 months time. They both make a list of things that they want to do before they die.They call it the Bucket List. It is a very well made, light comedy movie.

Every Sunday evening I make a list of things that I want to finish in the coming week. I try my best to finish everything on the list. But still at the end of the week I feel I could have done more. Will I feel the same when I am dying... 'I could have done more'?

After watching this film I felt will I ever feel satisfied with the things I have done in life?
How am I supposed to feel satisfied when there is so much to read, paint, travel? There is never enough of it!

Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found (by Suketu Mehta)

This book is about everything in Mumbai from slums, dance bars, movie stars, gangsters, locals, riots, muslims in Mumbai, Balasaheb Thakray, Mumbai police...

Suketu has written too lengthy descriptions of people and events. His thoughts do not seem to be cohesive.
He has made too many derogatory remarks on Maharashtrians and Marathi Language, that coming from a Gujju is ridiculous. He himself does not speak a great language like Sanskrit either.

This book is full of complaints about Mumbai.75% things mentioned in the book are not 'Mumbaiyaa'. There are stories about Vidhu Vinod Chopra (film director) which are refuted by Vidhu himself so this takes away the credibility of the other stories mentioned in the book.

Suketu, if you are aware of so many problems about Mumbai and you have so many contacts (as you have mentioned it repeatedly in the book) then why don't you come up with solutions and start acting on it?

Out of 500 pages in the book 50 pages have really some substance.
What is really good about the book:
Suketu's immense research, he has interviewed people from slums, movie stars, gangsters, politicians to bar dancers.

The book is worth a read for those 50 pages.

The Binding Vine

Winner of Sahitya Akademy Award

What would be your reaction if you find your grandmother’s diary…Diary that narrates everything from her childhood to married life?

I would certainly have loved to read about my grandmother’s life, her happy and sad moments, her thoughts and feelings and how she raised 8 children single handedly.

I think the most exciting part of this book is its basic plot. Urmi finds out her mother-in-law’s (Mira’s) diary. This diary tells the tale of Mira’s life in the form of poems. So the book’s story is about Urmi and how certain incidences in her life unfold the meaning of those poems and in turn makes her aware of the shocking life of Mira.

Shashi Deshpande’s characters' struggles are those of ordinary women fighting to be themselves rather than conform to stereotypes - to a fixed idea of how women should be.