New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) The bookshelf is diverse this weekend. Browse along.
1. ‘Lucknow Boy’; Written by Vinod Mehta; Published by Penguin-India; Priced at Rs.499.
The writer, one of India’s leading editors, tells his own story in ‘Lucknow Boy’. And, by any reckoning, it is an extraordinary story. Mehta grew up as an army brat from a Punjabi refugee family in the syncretic culture of Lucknow of the 1950s – an experience that turned him into an unflagging ‘pseudo secularist’.
Leaving home with a BA third class degree, he experimented with a string of jobs, including that of a factory hand in suburban Britain, before accepting an offer to edit Debonair. The next three decades saw Mehta becoming one of India’s most widely-read and influential editors. This remarkably candid memoir, with its ringside view of many of the major events of our times, brims over with wit, wisdom, scandal and gossip.
2. ‘Candle the Light’; Poetry anthology by Abhay K.; Published by Sahitya Akademi; Priced at Rs.350
This anthology of poetry was written by the poet, who is a diplomat, between 2005 to 2007 when he was posted in Moscow. Universal in nature, the poems promise simple answers to the complex and intricate problems of modern living in a world of progress and innovation.
The anthology is divided into three sections — Meditation, Reflections and
Reminiscences. Meditation explores existential themes like immortality, hell, the dark side of human life and man. Reminiscences resurrect memories of his grandmother, his tenure in Moscow and the Russian way of life — and reflections are the essence of the poet’s beliefs.
3. ‘Sorry’; Written by Zoran Drvenkar; Published by Harper Collins India; Priced at Rs.299
The book is a tale of four childhood friends, leaving their 20s and out of luck. They’re a disaffected bunch of losers, going nowhere. Then during one reckless drunken evening, they come up with a joke of an idea: everyone in the world – large corporations, businessmen, lovers – behaves badly with someone, and rarely do they apologise. They set up an agency that, for a fat fee, does the apologising and makes things right.
The agency, SORRY, becomes a runaway success. But all of this comes to a screeching halt when one day, the agency owner finds a woman hanging from a wall, with a nail driven through her hands and one through her forehead. What follows is a sequence of events – kidnapping, torture, more deaths that gradually declare themselves as a bewildering and intensifying cat-and-mouse psychological game that makes one wish one never said ‘sorry’.
4. ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Hindi)’; Translated in Hindi by Puneet Gupta; Published by Om Books International; Priced at Rs.195
‘The Adventures of Tintin’ is finally reaching out to the wide sections of Hindi readers, bred on indigenous comic books. ‘Unicorn Jahaz Ka Rahasya’ or ‘The Secret of the Unicorn’ takes young reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy on a journey of high adventure to locate a hidden treasure in a sunken 17th century ship Unicorn.
The book is part of a series of four Tintin volumes in Hindi – which together is the plot of the movie, ‘The Adventures of Tintin’, by Steven Spielberg releasing Nov 11 in India.
5. ‘The Quest of Sparrows’; Written by Ravi ‘Nirmal’ Sharma; Published by Rupa & Co; Priced at Rs.195
A seemingly ordinary young man forced to become a guru takes a leap of faith. Inspired by the carefree life of a sparrow, reluctant guru Partibhan takes off on a 600-km expedition on foot to test his theory of practical spirituality. He believes that human beings can become powerful creators but the desire to secure the future makes them mere
survivors.
However, survival isn’t the only goal of life. A much bigger role, a higher calling awaits us. Will Guru Partibhan and his disciples complete the journey? Will they discover their true potential and find everlasting joy?
