Brajesh's Review : Bhutan - Through the Lens of the King

I spotted this photo book by His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, at a wild life resort in Gujarat. As I am scheduled to visit the Shangrila Country of Bhutan next month, the coincidence was great, or may be given my impending visit, the country was top of mind and hence I spotted this book amongst the collection.

"Bhutan Through the Lens of the King" is a beautiful collection of photos by the current King (5th), taken during his visits across the country. He is known to travel across Bhutan regularly to connect with his people. Often these visits are difficult treks of 4-5 days in hilly terrain, which he undertakes while sleeping in make shift tents.

This book hence not only gives us a peek into this breathtakingly beautiful country, it tells us a lot about the commitment and selfless approach of the Bhutanese Kings. It is the father (4th King) of the current King who invented the now famous concept of Gross Domestic Happiness Index. GHI is now widely regarded as a more wholistic tool of progress. GHI adds the dimensions of Good Governance, Environmental Harmony and Preservation of Cultural Heritage to the traditional economic measure of GDP.

The commentaries by Pavan Varma and Malvika Singh helped my uninformed mind get a context on this neighbouring country. A monarch who willingly renounced his throne at 50 without any compulsions of health or political issues. Then along with his son he dismantled the monarchy to usher in democracy in a peaceful transition.

A society which has this great ability to balance the demands of modern technological advances and economical growth measures perfectly, alongside the preservation of their cultural and environmental heritage.

Clearly this youngest democracy of the world in a tiny nation has lots of offer to its big brothers across the globe. I only hope that the big brothers are paying attention to the case study.

Once the country context is understood and the reader understands that the king is positioned not as a ruler but as a servant of the people, the photographs attain a different meaning. Rather than talk about the photos, I am attaching a collage to give you a sample. This book has now given me reasons to visit Bhutan with the respect of a student and not the lens of a tourist.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Kim's Review : Aisle Be Damned

"Aisle Be Damned - Swinging Hips, Praying Lips and Flying Tips" is the First Book published by Rishi Piparaiya. Rishi is currently the Director of Marketing and Direct Sales at Aviva and has earlier held positions with Citibank in New York and Mumbai, the reason I mention this is because it is extremely relevant to the genesis of this book.

While most of us who have to frequently travel on work, are content with grumbling to friends and family or anyone who will listen, how terrible our last flying experience was, Rishi has used all this material to actually come out with an extremely funny and relevant book. It is possible to empathise with almost every situation that he writes about related to the "flying" experience.

What started out as "Aisle Be Damned" has now graduated to "Window or Aisle" - a Monthly column for the Hindu Business Line.

"Aisle Be Damned" is a very easy read, each sub-section in each chapter, is about a page or less, so its perfect to read when traveling, or when you have time to just read one page before you go to bed, anytime when you know that you don't have the time to read a book cover-to-cover, but can read something in short bursts with multiple breaks in between.

This book is a great gift for frequent travelers and also for those who envy "frequent flyers" :), it captures the agony of flying very well, but while also keeping it light and funny.

Right from check in to catching a taxi at the other end, there are funny stories and tips for every situation, as a Reader, it is your responsibility to recognise which is a genuine tip and which tips are firmly tongue-in-cheek.

My husband who gets on (and off) an average of 4 flights each week, LOVED the book and I'm sure most people who find the premise of this book interesting, will love it too.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Kim's Review : Cutting Chai and Maska Pao

"Cutting Chai and Maska Pao" is a slim volume, a text-plus-photo cultural lexicon of  Mumbai, (covering 65 terms from aila to zunka bhakar) - the result of a college project of three young girls - Digantika Mitra, Priya Sheth and Mithila Mehta.

There's plenty of interest for a foodie, even if he/she is just visiting Mumbai. Amul pav bhaji, Ayubs, baida (eggs), bhel puri, Bombay sandwich, cutting chai, Energee, Irani cafes, khau gallis, Leopold Cafe, masala, maska pao, Mewad kulfi, paan patti, ragda pattice, tapri, Udipi, vada pav and zunka bhakar.

Terms related to Travel & Sightseeing : Banganga, Best bus, Bollywood, chawls, chor bazaar, Dalal Street, Dhobhi Ghat, Fashion Street, Gateway, Joggers Park, Juhu Beach, Kala Ghoda, local, Nana-Nani parks, Oval Maidan, Queens Necklace, Sea link, talkies, Taj and Victoria.

Lingo : aila, bhai, dhinchak, dimaag ka dahi, Horn-OK-Please, jhakkas, oye!, Page 3, Pandu, rapchik, rokda, stick no bills, tapori, town and waat.

And a couple of others : Boot polishwala, check your weight, dabbawala, Dharavi, galli cricket, Italian barbers, kabootar khana, Kolis, Lovers rocks, nimbu mirchi, yacht,

As you can see from these terms, they are either unique to Mumbai (as in the lingo and travel/sightseeing) or an essential part of Mumbai (Irani Cafes and Udipi restaurants for example)

Any Mumbaikar will love it, for the collection of terms and the beautiful illustrations. It also makes a lovely souvenier for visitors to this maximum city.

Having lived in Mumbai in 2 stints spanning 2 years, the terms weren't new to me and Ayubs was the only food place in this list that I haven't visited. But I still loved this little booklet. It brings back lovely memories of the city and I often flip through it and randomly read a page from it, whenever I miss living in Bombay.

The pictures have been taken by girls themselves with a few taken by their friends and these pictures do convey more than the words used with them. They are extremely evocative, even the cartoons used to depict some of the lingo.

To compare it to a food analogy - "Cutting Chai and Maska Pao" isn't cordon bleu cooking, its ghar ka khaana made by mom and grandmom, that you yearn for when they aren't around and enjoy when available.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Also see Brajesh's Review of "Cutting Chai and Maska Pao"

Kim's Review : If it's Monday, it must be Madurai - A Conducted Tour of India

In, "If it's Monday, it must be Madurai - A Conducted Tour of India", Srinath Perur takes the reader on an interesting jaunt across the globe with various tour groups. Some groups comprise only of Indians and in others he is the only Indian.

Srinath Perur's introduction to the book is candid "Serious travelers and certainly travel writers look upon the conducted tour as the lowliest form of travel. According to Paul Theroux - In the best travel books the word alone is implied on every exciting page"

However, "A conducted tour, by definition offers something that solitary travel cannot: other people and the opportunity to know them"

The book is filled with accurate descriptions and insights: When traveling in a conducted tour abroad, Indians pop out of the bus, take a picture, tick the place off their itinerary and return to the mobile India group on board (eating Indian food, watching Hindi movies enroute, playing antakshari etc). Why travel at all? He attributes this to middle class aspiration. Perur says that "Travel as a symbol of leisure and economic sufficiency and the conducted tour is now a rite of passage among the middle class." It is the new vanaprasthashrama stage of life.

Srinath Perur worked at Outlook Traveler and undertook 2 of the conducted tours written about in this book on assignment with them. He had meticulously stayed away from conducted tours until 2011, when an assignment took him on a week long bus tour of Tamil Nadu and this is where the book begins.

The second chapter is about a 15 day trip from London to Milan through Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The insight that really struck me in this chapter was : "It is the iconic monuments - the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum - that give us the greatest joy since they offer the mos compelling evidence of where we have been. We go not so much to see them as to confirm their existence, to reassure ourselves that we are after all in the place we aspired to be. We see nothing in Europe. We come here with pictures in our heads and we leave with our heads in those pictures"

I was quite surprised to read that most of the tours did not take them inside any of the monuments, the bus just stopped at a spot from where the travelers could take the best pictures of themselves with the monument in the frame. This is a complete antithesis to the way Brajesh and I travel, so from our perspective, this seems like such a waste of travel (in terms of time and money spent). However we have encountered people who prefer exactly this kind of "travel"

Once on the Nile Cruise in Egypt, we had a tour group from Delhi on our same cruise ship. The first half day they spent seeing the Luxor temple and a little shopping in Luxor. When the guide met the group at tea in the evening, he said that the next days program was to visit Karnak temple and Hatchepsuts Temple. The general consensus in the group was that if you had seen one temple, you had seen them all. Less than 5% of the group joined the guide the next morning and the rest of the group, did not get off the ship for the next 4 days unless it was to browse the local markets!

Subsequent chapters of "If it's Monday, it must be Madurai" cover an overnight camel safari in Jaisalmer, a backwaters cruise in Kerala (where he is the only Indian in the group), an all Indian Men tour to Uzbekistan (for sex tourism), a slum tour around Mumbai, a more free-form tour of Assam and Meghalaya, Rajasthan Kabir Yatra - travel in the company of Folk Musicians from across India around Bikaner with other music afficionados, Shodh Yatra - a week long walking tour in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh in search of traditional knowledge and local innovations and a walking pilgrimage with a dindi (group of devotees) from Pune to Pandharpur.

Its a beautifully written book. It makes you laugh and smile, it forces you to introspect on what travel means to you and how different members of your family and friends circle approach traveling.

This book isn't meant just for travelers, its an interesting look at the sociology and psychology behind travel too. Its an introspective look into Indian society, especially its Middle Class, in a not-so-serious manner.

Even if you have never been on a conducted tour in your life, you ill still be able to identify with a lot of the characters in these pages - it may be a distant relative or a teacher from your school years or a tour group that you bumped into while traveling solo.

Its an easy read with each chapter being complete in itself, so you can read a chapter a night when traveling.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Brajesh's Review : Aisle Be Damned

Aisle Be Damned by Rishi Piparaiya, is a book that I would recommend to every person who takes more than 6 flights a year.

Genuinely insightful and refreshingly funny. A page turner which is just the right length for a domestic flight, even if it is as short a flight as Ahmedabad - Mumbai, as it was for me.

I was always a window seat, front of the craft man, now I know why. I am surely gonna try the upgrade tricks on my next flight. This is modern situational humor at its best. I burst-out laughing loud (much to the amusement of my fellow travelers) at every 3rd page. That's over 70 laughs for a mere 3.5/- per laugh ... If that's not value for money what is?

Pick up this book by Rishi Piparaiya, on your next flight.

Rating : 4 / 5

Kim's Review : Savour Mumbai - A Culinary Journey Through India's Melting Pot

In "Savour Mumbai - A Culinary Journey Through India's Melting Pot" Michelin Chef Vikas Khanna takes the reader on a journey across Mumbai to some of his favourite restaurants and eateries. He selects some of their signature dishes and modifies them for a home cook.

Its also his attempt to show the wider world, that Indian food is not all about Punjabi food.

The reason I picked up this book, is that a lot of the restaurants covered are favourites of mine too and I jumped at the chance to get insider dope on their recipes. Restaurants covered are Bademiyas, Bagdadi, Banana Leaf, Dakshin, Diva Maharashtracha, Goa Portuguesa, Good Luck, Govinda's, Ideal Corner, Kangan, Kebab Korner, Kebabs & Kurries, Khyber, Lucky, Mahesh Lunch Home, Nawab Saheb, Noor Mohammadi, Oh! Calcutta, Raj Bhog, Saffron, Soam, Soma, Soul Fry Casa, Temple Flower, Trishna and Vrindavan.

So, how many of these are your favourites?

As you can see from the restaurants covered, there's plenty of cuisines represented in this book: Parsi, Goan, South India, Gujarati, Malvani, Maharashtrian, Konkani, Manglorean, Malyali, Irani, Mughlai,


Multiple 'Biryani' recipes from Lucky, Good Luck, Govinda's, Ideal Corner and I'm itching to try out each of them, even though they all look sinfully rich, especially the Chicken Rashida with biryani.

There's a short section on Mumbai's iconic street food too with recipes too for the Bombay sandwich, vada pav, golas and many other items anyone who has lived in Bombay will have fond memories about.

Savour Mumbai is a full-colour book filled with beautiful pictures that capture the spirit of Mumbai. Each recipe has a accompanying picture too, to show you what the ideal finished product should look like. Even if you never attempt to cook from this, its a beautiful coffee table souvenir - an ode to Mumbai's thriving food culture.

I can't wait to get cooking from this book, so much to try, so little time.

Rating : 4.5 / 5

Kim's Review : Rome. . . Past and Present

I first saw this book, when Michael, the owner of the beautiful guest house that we stayed in, in Rome - Pensione Barrett gave us his book to browse through and immediately, I fell in love with the USP of this series.

While R A Staccioli's book - Rome. . . Past and Present - does cover a lot of history and detail, the best part of it are the photographs. So while it has the standard photograph of what the site looks like at present, it aslo has a transparent sheet on top which has details printed on it that superimposes on the picture of the present, to give you an idea of how it could have looked like in the past.

The idea is simply brilliant and I wonder how long it will take to get similar books made for India. Given that we still don't have decent quality representative souvenirs available at our major monuments (magnetic stickers, keyrings, etc), I guess these books will take a long time too and I'm sure a 100 people across the country will jump up and find something in the imagined reconstruction that will "hurt their sentiments"

The monuments covered in this book are mostly from Ancient Rome, except for the last few pages which cover St Peters Basilica and Christian Rome.

There is also a beautiful CD which comes with the book that provides even more rich detailing of the period and the buildings.

Kids of all ages would love this book, for the pictures and the information.

It comes in multiple languages. What I bought in Italy is published by "Vision", but I see that flipkart sells a version by "Frommers" that looks very similar.

Rating : 4 / 5

Kim's Review : Lonely Planet - Italy for the Indian Traveller

As I mentioned in my previous reviews for the DK Eyewitness books, a few years back we stopped buying Lonely Planet guidebooks and completely migrated to the DK Eyewitness series.

However, on a trip to a local bookstore, I saw the "Lonely Planet - Italy for the Indian Traveller" and took a quick look through it. I quite liked what I saw and so I picked up the book.

While the original Lonely Planet books are high on text and full of detail, heavy in weight and small print, this new series is quite different.

The paper is not as glossy as the DK Eyewitness books, but they are much better quality than the thin material of the original LP books. The font is large, there are lots of accompanying pictures and what I really liked about this book is that it covers the highlights and gives you an itinerary for half day, 1 day, 2 days etc. grouping together the main sights based on location.

So this really helped simplify a large step for me in our planning, which is to sit down with googlemaps and figure out how best to group together monuments and sights while traveling to a new location.

This to me was the biggest advantage of this book. The second big advantage for me was the side boxes with tips and facts. Most Indians would love the tips which give you tricks to save money - city cards, discount outlet shopping etc. And a huge plus for a lot of Indians would be the listing of Indian restaurants in the city and the veggie restaurant section. since we scrupulously avoid Indian food and stick to local specialties when traveling out of India, we didn't use these sections at all, but I'm sure it would be a huge boon to a lot of Indian travelers.

The other great thing about this book, is that they have given the website for the restaurant/ outlet/ location, right with the details (rather than at the back of the book) so its easy to look up online as you are reading the book.

They also have a short list of recommended venues to eat at or sleep in, but to cover every budget and this is given at the end of each city rather than at the end of the book (which is what the DK books do), so its easy to plan your visit to each city just by scanning a few pages at a time.

There are sections on highlights written by Indians who have either lived in that location or spent a substantial amount of time there, that are filled with loads of tips.

So this series looks like it will really simplify the planning process for a lot of travelers. It isn't available on amazon yet, but you can find it on flipkart and in most Indian bookstores.

If you are a gung-ho DIY person, you will prefer the DK books, but if you want the pleasure of planning a trip yourself, but yet have someone to help with a basic framework, then you will love this series.

For me, I think I see myself buying both :)

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Kim's Review : DK Eyewitness Italian Phrase Book

This was the first time I actually bought a Language phrase book, before visiting a country, but then this was also the first time we were visiting a country where we planned to walk extensively and wander on our own, but where English isn't widely spoken. (USA, Canada, UK, Lebanon, Kenya etc weren't a problem at all) and when we visited Morocco and Turkey, we had a guide/translator with us to help navigate the non touristy parts of the country.

But, the real reason I was convinced to buy this book was because it came with an audio CD and I believe that, THAT is the most important part of a phrase book. Its one thing to read a word or a phrase, its quite another to hear it spoken with a native accent.

I skimmed through this book. Underlined phrases I thought I would most need : drinking water, where is the restroom, I'm allergic to prawns, which way to . . . , etc.

And then I just played the CD while I was busy with some other work. I listened to it twice, but I honestly believe it really helped. It gave me a feel for the accent, so I did not have as much trouble with mispronunciation as I did when we first arrived in Egypt.

People in Italy are really helpful and when they see that you are trying to speak in Italian, they do their best to help you. In fact, I wandered across a Russian church in Milan, when I was searching for the Church of bones. I asked the lady inside if she knew where that church was, when she didn't she came out and asked a couple of senior gentlemen who were eating their lunch at a table in the garden if they knew where it was. They tried to give me directions, but it was a bit complicated. So they asked me to hold on for a minute, finished their lunch extra quick and accompanied me through a couple of twists and turns until the church came into my view and only then did they wish me Ciao!

I do pick up the basics of a language easily, so my husband was pretty amazed that by day 4, on the train from Rome to Florence, I was having a conversation with 2 Italian couples opposite us on the train who only spoke a bit of English and I was using my extremely basic Italian, but we understood each other almost 90-95%.

That's also because the Italians use a lot of hand gestures when speaking and since body language is just one of the many topics that I've conducted umpteen number of training sessions on, I found it quite easy to catch the gist of a conversation, since I knew a few basic words.

So, if you are planning to do any exploring on your own in Italy, that is outside of the tourist circuit of hotels, airports, train stations and large museums, I would highly recommend picking up a few phrases and this book with its CD is an ideal way to do so.

Its also less than a 100 grams (3 ounces) in weight, so its easy to slip into a bag when walking around and its also small and square, making it easy to slip into a pocket too.

Rating. 4.5 / 5

Kim's Review : DK Eyewitness Top 10 Tuscany

A couple of years ago, we shifted from using Lonely Planet guides to the country we were visiting, to the DK Eyewitness Guides.

What we really love about the DK Eyewitness guides are their colour photographs, 3D type maps of monuments and the lovely details. The details of each monument or place of interest in these books, makes it easier to take a decision on whether to visit it or not.

The glossy pages and pictures and maps, make the books a lovely souvenir of our holiday too. Just skimming through the book brings back beautiful memories of our holiday. So its really practical to use before and after a holiday.

Again, this is a book I bought way back in 2007, when we were planning a group trip to Tuscany with my husbands friends from BITS. In those days, the book was called "Top 10 Tuscany", but later editions are named "Top 10 Florence & Tuscany"

What is really great about this series (Top 10) is that it really helps you prioritise what to see, when the sheer amount of information overwhelms you.

So while the book starts with what are the top 10 highlights of the entire Tuscan region:
1. Uffizi, Florence
2. Duomo Group, Forence
3. Pitti Palce, Florence
4. San Gimignano
5. Campo di Miracoli, Pisa

it also goes into further detail as to the top 10 collections, and top 10 paintings to see at the Uffizi, top 10 vineyards in Chianti, top 10 Etruscan sights in Cortona, top 10 Tuscan artists, top 10 winehouses, villas, churches and spas.

There's also plenty of useful information at the back.

Personally, I used the information in the "DK Eyewitness Top 10 Tuscany" to make notes at the side of my "DK Eyewitness Italy", to help me pay attention to certain things and mark a view "must visits".

There is so much to see and do in Italy and we have so many interests, that we like to be as well prepared as we can before we even leave for our destination. However, while I had an extremely detailed and tight schedule for Rome, once we reached Florence, I just made a general note of the things I wanted to see and do while there, and then let ourselves flow at a more relaxed pace.

The sheer size of the art collections at the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace are overwhelming, so the top 10 guide to these locations really helped ensure that we didn't miss any of the "best" stuff.

Rating : 5 / 5

Kim's Review : DK Eyewitness Florence & Tuscany

A couple of years ago, we shifted from using Lonely Planet guides to the country we were visiting, to the DK Eyewitness Guides.

What we really love about the DK Eyewitness guides are their colour photographs, 3D type maps of monuments and the lovely details. The details of each monument or place of interest in these books, makes it easier to take a decision on whether to visit it or not.

The glossy pages and pictures and maps, make the books a lovely souvenir of our holiday too. Just skimming through the book brings back beautiful memories of our holiday. So its really practical to use before and after a holiday.

I actually bought the "DK Eyewitness Florence & Tuscany" ages ago, so mine is a 2003 edition. That's how long I've been planning a trip to Italy. The food and culture of this region has always fascinated me. However, given that this was our first trip to Italy, we decided to cover Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan (this was for work)

Our initial plan was to spend 3 days in Florence proper and then spend 2 days driving around the Tuscany region. San Gimignano, Pisa, Sienna, Chianti, Lucca and Cortona were the areas we were considering. However, given that we are both art, history, culture and architecture buffs, once we landed in Florence, we found that there was so much that we wanted to see in Florence itself, that we cancelled the driving plan.

However, if you do wish to drive around the region - which a lot of our friends have done and loved and recommended heavily - this is a beautiful book to buy, because it has so much more detail and depth about the area compared to the DK Eyewitness Italy book. However, if you are spending just a couple of days in Florence, you will find enough in the Italy book to keep you busy.

Rating : 4.8 / 5

Kim's Review : DK Eyewitness Italy

A couple of years ago, we shifted from using Lonely Planet guides to the country we were visiting, to the DK Eyewitness Guides.

What we really love about the DK Eyewitness guides are their colour photographs, 3D type maps of monuments and the lovely details. The details of each monument or place of interest in these books, makes it easier to take a decision on whether to visit it or not.

The glossy pages and pictures and maps, make the books a lovely souvenir of our holiday too. Just skimming through the book brings back beautiful memories of our holiday. So its really practical to use before and after a holiday.

The DK Eyewitness Guide to Italy is quite comprehensive with details on every region of Italy. The best part of this particular guidebook was the street by street maps of the heart of the Historic cities. These really helped us get our bearing when we were walking around.

The other feature I really loved was the pictures of the most famous paintings in museums along with a key to the room numbers in which to find them. The pictures often helped us identify or pay closer attention to masterpieces that other tourists just walked past.

The combination of this guide and the free Rick Steeves audio guides really helped us maximise our visits to the bigger museums in Rome and Florence.

There's a lot of helpful information at the back of the book, lists of hotels to stay at and places to eat at. However, personally for stay arrangements, we prefer to use a combination of tripadvisor.com(for reviews, ranking and rating) and booking.com to make the bookings themselves. For eating, we normally stop at a place that's most conveniently located en route our sight seeing path that my nose leads us to or go with a recommendation by a local.But the books also suggests what to eat in which regions.

What we have is the 2012 edition, but the new 2013 edition has come out in September. I always recommend buying the newest edition of guidebooks, because they are the most updated - especially when visiting a new country where you aren't fluent with the local language. If you just want the highlights of what to visit, then you can go ahead and pick up an older edition.


If you are only planning on visiting 1 or 2 cities in Italy, then go for the region/city specific guidebooks.

Rating : 4.8 / 5

Note: Pictures are from dk.co.uk

Brajesh's Review: Cutting Chai and Maska Pao

"Cutting Chai and Maska Pao" is a cute small book, which is sure to bring a smile to every reader. The quirky text-plus-picture take on Mumbai's vocabulary is the result of a college project of three young girls.

Even for a person familiar with Mumbai, I found a few nuances in pages dedicated to - Baida, Italian Barber, Mewad Kulfi and Zunka Bhakar. The book has arranged the Mumbai vocabulary alphabetically including typical Mumbaiyaa words like Aila, Tapri, Rapchik, Rokda, Dhinchaks, Jhakaas, Waat

Rating : 3 / 5

Brajesh's Review : Amreekan Desi - Masters of America

Kim received Amreekan Desi for review from The Readers Cosmos along with Good Reads, so since it was at home, I picked it up, but with really low expectations (given the title and cover you can't blame me).

But once again Amreekan Desi, proved my "judgement by cover" erroneous. The story of a young Indian professional starting his life in US (Amreeka) is explored to death. But Atulya Mahajan brings a freshness and sincerity to his humour which I think is rooted in is his autobiographical experiences.

The characters are stereotypes but keep you engaged, situations are standard but keep you turning the pages and climax is cliched but brings a smile. A light read for anyone, but a MUST read for all engineers who are buried under Baron's guide to GRE.

Rating : 3 / 5

Also Read Kim's Review of Amreekan Desi - Masters of America

Kim's Review : Inferno

Brajesh read Dan Brown's "Inferno", when it first came out and felt it was a "tourism advertisement" for Florence, Venice and Istanbul. I read the Inferno as soon as we returned from a 2 week holiday in Italy and absolutely LOVED the book.

It helped refresh my memory of some of the wonderful places that we visited, it brought new insights to some of the masterpieces that we had the privilege of viewing. But this is just the technical and factual parts of the book.

There is a story line in the book, but I do admit, its a little thin. The focus is more on the locale, settings, history, mythology, symbology - mostly centered around Dante Aligheri and his masterpiece -"The Divine Comedy". The Transhumanist Movement, overpopulation, and Genetic Engineering form the rest of the story line.

The book is long and exhausting in its detail, but if you love art and symbology, you will love the book


Rating : 4 / 5

Kim's Review : Amreekan Desi - Masters of America

Obviously with a title like "Amreekan desi" and a glance through the contents, the comparison with "the Inscrutable Americans" would be inevitable. However, Atulya Mahajan's - Amreekan Desi, does manage to hold its own, quite easily.

Atulya is next in the line of well followed bloggers and twitterers to be able to get his book published by a large house and out in circulation. So it isn't a complete surprise to learn from credits that Sidin and Arnab helped him with the publishing process.

The Readers Cosmos along with Good Reads, sent me this book to be reviewed. I wasn't expecting to love the book, I thought it would be a good distraction, a light humorous book after the heavy reading about the War of the Roses.

The Amreekan Desi - Masters of America did tick these boxes for me, but it was also a very well researched, nuanced book with a keen understanding of people and their perspectives formed through experiences. Atulya Mahajan has delved behind personalities and given a depth to his characters through these insights.

Having lived in the US for awhile, I did come across plenty of Akhil Aroras and Jassis in various degrees. So I know that these characters aren't caricatures, nor are they figments of the authors imagination. A large percentage of Indians, visiting the US for further studies (mostly MS) fall somewhere on the scale between Akhil Arora and Jassi.

Its not just these 2 characters, but also the rest of the cast who are quite well fleshed out for a short novel. Mr Arora, Priyank, Goyal Uncle, Dilpreet, Nandita, Kedar, Anil, Priya, Sundar, Suresh and the others. Not all of them have backstories attached, but with just a few lines of presence, its quite easy to identify the character behind the person.

The language is simple and easy to comprehend and the story is a human story. Its not high brow literature but its not bus station book stall fodder either.

Amreekan Desi is in essence a tale of discovery and an adventure. Akhil and Jassi start at 2 different ends of the spectrum in their attitude towards going to America and what they want to accomplish by this move. Yet situations and perspectives change and while Akhils life seems all sorted out by the end of the book, the reader can believe that Jassi's life will also have a happy ending of its own.

The part of the book I loved best was Akhils interation with the janitor and his conversation with his mother over Diwali rituals. I almost snorted out the coffee I was drinking when I read that bit.

Its a well written book and anyone who has been to the US or plans to visit the US for studies will absolutely love the book and the characters. Even if you do not even have a passport of your own, you can still enjoy the book, because at the end of the day its an interesting story inhabited by characters that any Indian can identify with. Americans who wonder why Indians in America behave the way they do could also glean a glimmer of insight by reading American Desi.

Rating : 3.75 / 5

This Review is a part of "The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program". To get free books visit thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com

Kim's Review : Geronimo Stilton

The Geronimo Stilton series is a lovely collection of graphic novels for children. Given the depth of information in the stories, I would not classify these as comics, but more of illustrated stories - hence graphic novels for kids.

Geronimo Stilton is a mouse and he, his friends and assorted relatives undertake time travel to save the world's history from the machinations of the cat pirates.

The issues that I skimmed through were all relating to ancient civilisations like the ice age, the Chinese empire at the time of Marco Polo's visit there, the Egyptian empire during the reign of Khufu.

While the stories are entertaining and  I have gotten past the fact that cats are the villains and mice are the heroes in this series, what makes this series special is the amount of history and facts that are slipped into the story line. Facts are marked differently, so its easy for kids to differentiate between fiction and facts while reading, yet they don't disturb the story line flow.

Rating : 4 / 5 (for young readers)

Brajesh's Review : Inferno

If a fan of Dan Brown, myth, mythology, symbology & history gives this book a 3.5 you should know that something isn't quite right. I was let down by Inferno with respect to the Dan Brown genre.

I felt the book actually is a tourist advertisement for Florence, Venice and Istanbul. Not that any of these beautiful locations (and Venice in particular being among the most visited tourist destinations) needed any more publicity.

The basic issue of solving population explosion through a violent intervention is stretched a little too far in the narrative. While Dante and his Divine Comedy holds some amount of mystique and forced me to read more about the poet. Rest of the chase along with Robert Langdon and his mysterious partner through 3 architecturally rich cities doesn't hold much. Would recommend only to tourists who are returning or planing a trip to these 3 cities.


Rating : 3.5 / 5

Brajesh's Review : Ranthambore : 10 Days in the Tiger Fortress

I speed read this part journal - part photo book at a dhabha cum bookshop between Jaipur and Ranthambore . The book chronicles a 9 day holiday of Valmik along with his family and some friends.

Disappointed by the situation around Tiger conservation, Valmik a grass root warrior for the tiger cause for 3 decades had decided never to write another book on tigers (post 1998). He vowed that he would only break this promise if he saw some dramatic turnaround in the situation.

In his own words, during this 10 day holiday in April 2008, he observed just such a miracle at Ranthambore. The book has many rare photos of tigers - posing in the beautiful settings of Ranthambore Fort and Jogi Palace, a full sequence of a fawn kill, 2 cubs on hind legs playing, around the famous banyan tree etc. etc.

The narrative isn't half as fast paced as the photos are and could have had more insights, but as I said before - this book is part journal and part photo book.

I would not advise this photo-book to people on their way to Ranthambore as this will raise your expectations sky high and totally unreasonable. I doubt any normal person (without the clout of Valmik Thapar) can have such a range of exciting and rare sightings within 10 days at any game park in India.

BUT I must say (having interacted with him last year) that nothing short of dramatic and magical would have made Valmik break his vow, and pictures in this book are testimony of the same. So enjoy the book but keep your expectations rooted.

Rating : 3.5 / 5

Also See my review on Valmik Thapar's - Secret Life of Tigers

Brajesh's Review : In Search of King Solomon's Mines

The quote on the cover of Tahir Shah's "In Search of King Solomon's Mines" says "A splendidly entertaining book .... Inspired" and I think these words best summarise this book.

Tahir Shah is the best travel writer I have ever read. After reading each of his books I feel that, that one is the best and the feeling came back with "In Search of King Solomon's Mines".

I wish I could live the life Tahir Shah does, going in search of legends, traversing countries, hopping continents, while constantly adding to his unending treasure of stories, human nuances and insights. Gosh it is overwhelming!

In this book he breaks all the stereotypes of a famine ridden Ethiopia that I held and I am sure most people I know, hold as well. Now Ethiopia has a completely new portrait for me, the source of Solomon's Gold, Kingdom of Queen Sheeba, Country of Haile Selasie, Arena of Frank Hayter's Adventures, Mythical location for Garden of Eden & Hiding place of the Ark of Covenant.

Above all Ethiopia turns out to be a rainbow country filled with contraindications not very different from India, and I am so happy my monochromatic view on the country has been destroyed with this book.

Rating : 4.5 / 5