Starstruck
by Rajal Pitroda
Harper
Collins. Pages: 306. Price: Rs. 199/-
Sapna Shah is an intern with an entertainment magazine in New York. A
Bollywood fan, she often goes into trance while watching the dream-weaving
movies. One day, to her great joy, she is given an assignment – her first – to
do a story on Bollywood, for which she has to come to Mumbai where Nasha
Kapoor, a journalist, is supposed to put her in touch with movers and shakers
of the tinsel town. However, when she reaches Mumbai, she finds that she is on
her own but manages to break into the charmed circle of top stars, directors
and producers. Her American accent proves to be more than a passport to this
rarefied echelon of the Mumbai society; it becomes her talisman that fetches
her unexpected and lucrative job offers as well as protects her against perils
that are capable of destroying lesser mortals.
Happening Bollywood personalities like producers Gautam Gupta and
Imran Moody, and heartthrob Aradhana Roy, become Sapna’s friends as do many
others. Soon she is offered a job to market Gupta’s latest production in
America and the rest of the West. Just when she begins to think that life is a
beautiful dream intrigue, murder and the underworld unleash a nightmare...
This novel has several fascinating features. Firstly, although
Bollywood is its subject matter the usual elements like casting couch and
sexploitation etc have been avoided. Even where marital infidelity and adultery
is portrayed the author has successfully kept sleaze and smut out of the
narrative. Sapna’s heartbreak has been handled with finesse. The ending is kept
short. The narrative leaves quite a bit to the readers’ imagination even as it
keeps them involved till the end. This novel is truly different.
The
spell of the flying foxes by Sylvia Dyer
Penguin
Books. Pages: 254. Price: Rs. 299/-
Situated on the Indo-Nepal border, Dhang is a nondescript dwelling on
the foothills of Himalayas in Bihar’s Champaran district. Its soil is extremely
fertile thanks to the alluvial deposits from river Baghmati that flows through
it. This is where an Englishman, Alfred Augustus Tripe, decided to settle down and
take up indigo farming in the late nineteenth century. As a consequence, an
entire village cropped up near the farmland which housed domestics, farmhands
and others needed to do various chores. Tripe married an Indian and thus laid
the foundation of an Anglo-Indian family that spanned more than five
generations – from colonial to free India.
Structured as a novel, this autobiographical family saga gives us
glimpses of the social, economic and political scene of colonial India, viz.,
picnics and shikar etc. Casteism, untouchability and superstition feature in
the narrative with the same prominence as rebellion against the orthodoxy in
the person of a Brahmin dacoit; racism is hardly mentioned. Family intrigues
too keep the reader engrossed. After one has finished reading this book what
lingers on in the memory is the manner in which the family’s fortunes change
after 1942 when the anti-British sentiment grips the subcontinent. If you like
family sagas, this one is certainly for you.
Serendipity,
fate & karma by Anshu Pathak
Diamond
Books. Pages: pages: 158. Price: Rs. 100/-
Devansh Baruah from Dibrugarh, India, is an architect who meets a
stunning young woman in Cairo, Egypt. Her name is Natajsha Kristian from
Dalarna, Sweden. She is, basically, a free spirit who does painting, plays
piano or dances the Salsa – depending upon her whim. The two fall in love but
eventually go their separate ways. Devansh marries Runa, his childhood
sweetheart. However, decades later, Devansh and Natajsha meet again – she a spiritually
evolved person, and he an extremely dissatisfied and distressed husband. The
story meanders through the labyrinth of previous births, theory of karma etc.
Published in The Tribune dated October 30, 2011
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