Johnny Gone Down – Karan Bajaj

Johnny Gone Down – Karan Bajaj

Nikhil Arya has fallen.

Once, he was an Ivy League scholar with a promising future at NASA; now, at forty, he is broke, homeless,and minutes away from blowing his brains out in a diabolical modern-day joust.

It wasnt meant to be this way. An innocent vacation turned into an epic intercontinental journey that saw Nikhil become first a genocidesurvivor, then a Buddhist monk, a drug lord, a homeless accountant, a software mogul and a deadly gamefighter. Now, twenty years later, Nikhil aka Johnny is tired of running. With the Colombian mafia on his trailand his abandoned wife and son ten thousand miles away, he prepares for his final act, aware that he will have lost even if he wins.

Or will he? Is there any greater victory than living a life that knows no limits, a world that has seen no boundaries?

From the bestselling author of Keep Off the Grass comes the once-in-a-lifetime story of an ordinary manfighting an extraordinary destiny. Can he pick up the pieces one last time or will Nikhil, now Johnny, go down for good?

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The Mahabharata by R K Narayan

“The Mahabharata is the world’s longest poem, eight times longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.”

The Mahabharata by R.K.Narayan is a authentic translation of Mahabharata as a poem to prose.His prose takes the same turn as the original story but with the taste of Narayan’s writing.In the Mahabharata the five Pandava brothers (Yudhistira, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula, and Sahadeva) struggle to obtain their inheritance, culminating in the great battle of Kurukshetra.

The Mahabharata pervade south and southeast Asian religion, art, literature, and popular culture; they are a central part of the world’s literary heritage and should be better known in the West. To this end, Narayan’s versions could be used in schools and read by (or to) children, along with the stories of biblical and Greek mythology. To help those unfamiliar with the setting and context, he includes with each volume a brief introduction, a list of characters, and a glossary of Indian words.

Narayan’s style has made this book as beautiful and the age-old Mahabharata.

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Fasting Feasting by Anita Desai

“Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose! The more things change the more they remain the same”

Neither in excess, nor in deprivation or denial, is there happiness or peace of mind.That’s how you will feel after this book,in one half of book,the story revolves around an Indian family where denial and deprivation are two ornament.And in the later half of book ruth-less life in urban US.

A partly successful, proud father, who goes through life, with set patterns and no passion. A mother who goes along with her husband, doing what is supposedly right and expected of her, curbing and killing all her innate desires. Three children. The eldest, Uma, clumsy and “Forrest Gumpish”. The middle daughter Aruna, pretty, ambitious and smart, but eventually also a victim of her choices. The last, a son, Arun, on whom the parents put all their dreams and energies. All of them along with members of their extended family go through some form of deprivation – of will, of fun, of passion and of love.

The second half deals with Arun, who finds his way to the US, on a scholarship, having being forced by his father to “mug” his way through school and college. There, he finds solitude to be his best friend. Quirkily, even this desire to be alone, does not get fulfilled to the extent he wants. Unlike life in India, in the US he finds a world of excesses – of food, of body and of non-interference, both parental and otherwise. Through his eyes we see the Patton family – a “barbecuing”, disappointed father, a nervous, uncertain, wannabe vegetarian mother, a body-obsessed, jock son and a bulimic, neurotic daughter. All of them go through some form of corruption – of will, of fun, of passion and of love.

The book has a dry taste of trouble all around it,but worth to give a glimpse of life of denial and excess.

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Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

Monica Ali’s “Brick Lane” is an excellent debut novel that captures the struggles, the cultural clash, and the frustrations of a family caught between two worlds.

From the day of her birth, Nazneen is reminded how she is a puppet of fate. She dutifully leaves her small Bangladeshi village and goes to live in Brick Lane, the Bengali enclave of London, after her arranged marriage to Chanu, an educated but pompous and ineffectual man twice her age.

She acts as a traditional, dutiful, and useful wife. After accepting whatever cards fate deals her, however, she casts a critical eye at the actions of her friends, her sister and her mother. She questions whether she can actually control her life. She starts to break free, first with small subtle acts of rebellion and then an affair.

Finally, with the interests of her children in mind, she takes a giant step toward becoming her own woman. Interspersed throughout the story line are letters to Nazneen from her sister Hasina, who strikes out on her own in Bangladesh and, through good times and bad, forges a life of her own.

The writing style is colorful and descriptive, this book is a seamless blend of the Old Country and the New, and it brings new insights to the immigrant experience.

My Friend Sancho by Amit Varma

Amit Varma’s debut novel is pop-fiction.It’s a great read.

The story revolves around Abir Ganguly who is working on a news story of a murder of innocent Muslim man in Mumbai.Muneeza, the daughter of the deceased. Muneeza’s nickname was ‘Sancho‘, which explains the title of the book. Amit’s writing and his status has a blogger can be easily seen by the one punch liners delivered by Abir.The narrative is quite interesting and humors as well.one can read whole book in a single sitting.

The culture references and class-divide are clearly shown in book but what is lacking is proper character shade of Sancho,Amit was more concentrated on Abir rather than Sancho.The darkness on the book is not as deep as one can by the feel of cover but over all novel is a good read.Enjoy this book for a quick read.

Deep River – Shusaku Endo

Deep River – Shusaku Endo

Reading this novel by Shusaku Endo was a great experience, a spiritual experience to be precise. It is like a pilgrimage to the holy river Ganges which Christians should consider pagan and unchristian. Besides, the filth, pollution and the unhygienic surroundings are all there. But there is a surrounding aura of love, peace and regeneration. Ganges, the Mother of India despite all filth, is a mother with plenitude and gentleness. This novel is the story of a group of Japanese tourists to India. The various characters are brought to light in the background of the teeming life and activity around Ganges in the city of Varanasi. Each character has a past that is heavy on the person. The river Ganges called ‘the river of humanity’ and ‘the river of love’ has a great depth of meaning for each one of them. It is indeed a deep river from which they all gain consolation, liberation and a new birth. The characters like Isobe, Kiguchi, Numanda, Mitsuko and Otsu vary in their backgrounds and interests. Most of them do not have much in common except for Mitsuko and Otsu. Each of them has a story and their lives do not cross much. The plot of the novel in this respect is most unusual. All of them converge on the banks of river Ganges in pursuit of rejuvenation.

A trip to India becomes a journey of discovery for a group of Japanese tourists playing out their “individual dramas of the soul.” Isobe searches for his reincarnated wife, while Kiguchi relives the wartime horror that ultimately saved his life. Alienated by middle age, Mitsuko follows Otsu, a failed priest, to the holy city of Varanas, hoping that the murky Ganges holds the secret to the “difference between being alive and truly living.” Looking for absolutes, each character confronts instead the moral ambiguity of India’s complex culture, in which good and evil are seen as a whole as indifferent to distinction as the Ganges River, which washes the living and transports the dead.

This novel is a fascinating study of cultural truths revealed through a rich and varied cast. Endo, one of Japan’s leading writers, skillfully depicts the small details of life, investing them with universal significance. Highly recommended.

MIRZA GHALIB:A Biographical Scenario by Gulzar

Hain Aur bhi duniya mein, sukhanwar bahut achchey
Kehtey hain ki Ghalib ka hai, andaz-e-bayan aur..

Gulzar Saab has a great affection towards Shayari of Ghalib but he is also very influenced by the Ghalib as a man,That’s why he first created a TV serial about Ghalib but this book provides a more elaborate view on life of Ghalib.

Ghalib never worked for a livelihood and he was very clear not to borrow any money from any one and Gulzar provides very remarkable comment about this fact,Ghalib said this to his friend Bansidhar,”There are so many money lenders in the city, why put them out of business? ”.He lived on either state patronage, credit or the generosity of his friends.

This book provides intresting insight into the charater of Ghalib.He was very unlucky and his family life was very painful.His wife Umrao Begum gave birth to seven children but no child had survived and his pain can be felt in his shayaris.He was fond of gambling and jailed two times,but his humorous side always remain with him.Some of his friend asked about his jail stay than see what he replied,”I had to take 5 lashes daily!” When queried further, he smiled and revealed that,”I had to hear 5 couplets of the hawaldaar daily as he wanted to be a poet too!”

Ghalib used to tie a knot in a cloth whenever he came out with a couplet and when he reached home, he used to pen his couplets while untying them.He was always opposed by royal poet”Zauq” in dilli darbar.Zauq commented on him with this sher.

Hoga Koi Aisa Bhi , Ki Ghalib Ko Na Jaane
Shair Tau Woh Achaa Hai , Par Badnaam Bahut Hai

His words and life is penned by Gulzar very beautifully and Gulzar’s writing makes Ghalib’s life like waking in a dream with Ghalib as Ghalib himself said,”sau kos se ba-zaban-e-qalam baatein kiya karo aur hijr mein visaal ke maze liya karo” ( from hundred of miles talk with the tongue of the pen and enjoy the joy of meeting even when you are separated)”

English August by Upamanyu Chatterjee

“I’ve a feeling, August, you’re going to get hazaar fucked in Madna.”

English August is a novel published in 1988.The story of a young civil servant posted to a fictional rural town.The main protagonist name is Agastya Sen,Named after an obscure character from the Ramayana but he liked to be called ‘August’,it is the tone and theme of the novel,a young man not sure about his identity and future.His confusion and self identification builds the novel into a master piece of all time about Indian youths.

Having joined the Indian Administrative Service, August leaves his friends and the comforts of New Delhi for six months training in the central Indian town of Madna, reputed to be the hottest place in India. He survives by keeping his distance from his job, finding new friends, and spending a good deal of his time stoned.He smokes pot — “often against his will“. He masturbates. He does what he has to do at his job, but that really isn’t all that much. He goes through the motions — travelling, dealing with officials and visitors — but most of what he does still seems to baffle him.

Chatterjee’s take on westernization is really fun and relevant to ‘modern India’, a friend of Agastya’s exclaims while struggling to open a cylinder of cooking gas that has a new kind of seal. One character strolls around with a Walkman, and likes to call rupees “bucks” and himself Mandy. “He’s the sort who’d love to get AIDS just because it’s raging in America,”

Today India is more mature in it’s approach towards westernization but English August is still relevant and it’s a classic.

Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai

Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai

This is a very warming, touching book about family interactions, moments of happiness and moments of sadness all intertwined together to become what life is, a series of events, sometimes good, sometimes bad, what comes, comes. What is gone is gone just like the snail mentioned in the book that was found by the characters at times but only to lose the pearl again where the cycle repeats itself. This is a story that informs us about the ups and downs in life and how everyone faces it differently. To do so, the author cleverly uses true realistic characters to portray this

Set in India’s Old Delhi, CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY is Anita Desai’s tender, warm, and compassionate novel about family scars, the ability to forgive and forget, and the trials and tribulations of familial love. At the novel’s heart are the moving relationships between the members of the Das family, who have grown apart from each other. Bimla is a dissatisfied but ambitious teacher at a women’s college who lives in her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally challenged brother, Baba. Tara is her younger, unambitious, estranged sister, married and with children of her own. Raja is their popular, brilliant, and successful brother.

When Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba, old memories and tensions resurface and blend into a domestic drama that is intensely beautiful and leads to profound self-understanding.

Untouchable – Mulk Raj Anand

Untouchable – Mulk Raj Anand

Mulk Raj Anand is a great writer with lots of write-ups in his name. In 1930s and 1940s, Anand divided his time between London and India. He joined the struggle for independence, but also fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, he worked as a broadcaster and scriptwriter in the film division of the BBC in London.

This is a great novel.Its an eye opener on how indian’s treated their own people.

Bakha is a young man, proud and even attractive, yet none the less he is an outcast in India’s caste system: an Untouchable. In deceptively simple prose this groundbreaking novel describes a day in the life of Bakha, sweeper and toilet-cleaner, as he searches for a meaning to the tragic existence he has been born into – and comes to an unexpected conclusion.

Mulk Raj Anand poured a vitality, fire and richness of detail into his controversial work, which led him to be acclaimed as his country’s Charles Dickens and one of the twentieth century’s most important Indian writers.

The Humble Administrator’s Garden – Vikram Seth

The Humble Administrator’s Garden – Vikram Seth

The Yangtse flows on like brown tape.
The research forms take final shape,
Each figure like a laden boat
With white or madder sails afloat.

Float on, float on, O facts and facts,
Distilled compendia of past acts,
Reveal the Grand Design to me,
Flotilla of my PhD.

In this collection, Vikram Seth has poetry and imagery from China, India and America. The poetry is heartfelt and marked by Vikram Seth’s penchant for using simple words to recreate truth, beauty and magic!

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Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed Earth – Jhumpa Lahiri

From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.

In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.

Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

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Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Navigating between the Indian traditions they’ve inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

In “A Temporary Matter,” published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession.

Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice.

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How to Play Guitar – Roger Evans

How to Play Guitar – Roger Evans

This is for all those people who have passion for music, be it listening or playing, one should definitely try this experience, its amazing!!

In How to Play Guitar guitar players of all levels will find a wealth of instruction and inspiration. Whether you want to play pop, folk, country, rock, blues, jazz, classical, or any other style of music, you will pick up the basic techniques without tedious drills and exercises. Using real music and a step-by-step approach, How to Play Guitar will teach you about:

· Choosing and buying a guitar

· Tuning your instrument correctly

· guitar music, and tablature

· Playing melodies with chords

· Fingerpicking

· Sliding and bending notes

· Transposing melodies from one key to another and much more.

Give it a shot guys!!

Fashion Photography: A Complete Guide to the Tools and Techniques of the Trade

Fashion Photography: A Complete Guide to the Tools and Techniques of the Trade

Fashion photography is glamorous. Fashion photography is hot. Fashion photography pays well!

Now is the time to get into fashion photography, and there’s no better way to learn all the tricks and tips of this trade than Fashion Photography. Insider Bruce Smith explores every aspect of fashion photography, from high-end couture and beauty for both editorial and commercial clients, to runway, swimwear, lingerie, and more, with full information on how to break into the business. Topics include equipment, styling, backgrounds, hair and makeup, locations, lighting, composition, directing models, Photoshop, prepping images for press, marketing, and much, much more.

Interviews with Nigel Barker, Dirk Franke, Barry Lategan, and other top names give insight into succeeding in the field. Fast-track your career with Fashion Photography!

This is a treasure guide for all fashion photography enthusiasts.

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A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman – Joseph Rosa

A Constructed View: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman – Joseph Rosa

I have always loved architecture. From Mughal to European architecture, from classic to modern architecture, from buildings to streets, from shape to size. it is just so amazing and fascinating.

Julius Shulman, one of the great master of architectural photography, is the preeminent recoreder of early California modernism.

By 1927, when he was sixteen, Shulman was already using the family Brownie box camera to document his Southern Californis surroundings and experiences; in 1936, his professional career was launched when he sent Richard Neutra some uncommissioned photographs of the architect’s Kun House. Shulman went on to document the famous Case Study House Program (architects included Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, and Eero Saarinen) and also the architecure of the 1930s through the 1980s, especially that of Southern California, but also country and worldwide.

His subjects included the buildings of R.M. Schindler, John Lautner, Raphael Soriano, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Oscar Niemeyer, among many others.

Through his work, Shulman defined the image of Los Angeles and framed the architecture of the time for a global audience. In addition to an overview of Shulman’s career and photographic oevre, this book emphasizes Shulman’s method of “constructing” photographic views. These contructions, which complemented his innate ability to compose striking photographs, often transcends reality to capture the spirit, time and place of a work of architecture. An analysis of architecture’s visual presentation examines not only the media of the era–John Entenza’s Arts & Architecture, for instance–but also the work of Shulman’s photographic contemporaries.

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When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down – Robert Cooley

When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down – Robert Cooley

This book is not just about Chicago, or even just about the Mob, but about how each of us is drawn into the patterns of insider privilege in life, and about the results of that when taken to its extreme.

Every section of this book is compelling, from the stories of Cooley’s childhood and early career as fixer and Mob lawyer, to the drama of the historic mole operation and trials. Only Cooley could have shared all of this in all of the specifics that make the book so rich. Levin cleans up the narrative and puts it out there straight and simple. You end up reading between the lines and thinking about Cooley’s perspective, which makes you think about your own perspective.

Should be read by anyone thinking about group dynamics, community behavior, or social change movements. I couldn’t put it down.

Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk – Maureen Dowd

Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk – Maureen Dowd

If metaphors were cigarettes, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd would be a chain smoker.

Through many years and countless columns spent chronicling the fall of George H.W. Bush and the ascension of George W. Bush, Dowd has employed analogies to feudalism, The Godfather, Mini-Me, traditional “mommy” and “daddy” roles, and scores more. In this, her first book, Dowd compiles well over a hundred columns and summarizes the Bush dynasty under a single comprehensive analogy: an alternate universe called Bushworld.

From Washington to Kennebunkport to Texas to old Europe and new Europe, during the past two decades Maureen Dowd has trained her binoculars on the Bush dynasty, putting them, as both 41 and 43 have complained to her, “on the couch.” Here she wittily dissects the Oedipal loop-de-loop between father and son and the Orwellian logic of the rush to war in Iraq. It’s a turbulent odyssey charting how a Shakespearean cast of regents, courtiers, and neo-con Cabalists-all with their own subterranean agendas-hijack King George II’s war on terror and upend the senior Bush’s cherished internationalist foreign policy and Persian Gulf coalition.

As she’s written about Bushworld, “It’s their reality. We just live and die in it.’”

The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies, and My Life with Styx

The Grand Illusion: Love, Lies, and My Life with Styx – Chuck PanozzoMichele Skettino

They are still one of the biggest rock bands of the last three decades. With four consecutive triple-platinum albums and 54 million records sold, their tours continue to sell out and classic songs like “Lady,” “Renegade,” “Come Sail Away,” and “The Grand Illusion” have earned them a whole new generation of fans.

At the height of their fame, they were living the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll fantasy — an odyssey of groupies, drugs, and music that most musicians only dream of. As a band, Styx seemed invincible.

But their founding member and bass player, Chuck Panozzo, was about to hit rock bottom. His seemingly debauched life as the ultimate rocker was a lie — and the truth was about to catch up with him, amazing story of a courageous man fighting for his life against HIV and AIDS while still being in one of the biggest rock band.

The Grand Illusion is a no-holds-barred, backstage pass to the journey of one of the world’s most revered bands, and the true story of Chuck Panozzo’s 50-year struggle to reconcile his public life as a rock star with his private life as a gay man. Beginning with the birth of Styx in Chicago and their meteoric rise, The Grand Illusion is a revealing look at the triumphs and tragedies that surrounded Panozzo’s life. He chronicles life on the road, the break-up of the band, his struggle to help his twin brother and bandmate John Panozzo battle addiction, as well as his split with Dennis De Young, and finally coming to terms with his HIV positive status. Illuminating and unflinching

The Grand Illusion will captivate the band’s legions of devoted fans, as well as music lovers everywhere.

If God Was a Banker – Ravi Subramanian

If God Was a Banker – Ravi Subramanian

Well, this book takes you into the world of Multi-national banks.The story focuses on two characters who are completely different from each other,and are in a rat race for success.

This is a story peppered with ambition and frustration, deceit and malevolence, love and lust, and the desperate struggle for status and power. And, above all, there is a top-notch banker who plays the benevolent God whenever crises loom over the young guns… An insider’s fictionalised account of how Indian professionals experience the world of foreign banks

You can really feel the competition and pressure in today’s banking by reading thru this book.You get to know the damage that is caused by managers “looking for Performance at any cost” & the stability and benefits of teams under system driven managers.

Worth a bed time read for people who can relate to it!!

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