The White Tiger -- Aravind Adiga



Review of yet another booker winner from my stable but this is definitely one of the more deserving books to win the coveted prize. The simplicity of characters and narration of the story to Chinese ambassador kept me thoroughly interested thorough out the span of this read. It's a story about a rickshaw pullers son named Balram who carves his way out of Darkness to become a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore, transforming from a faithful servant of his master to his murderer. A must read.

Well I have a confession to make, I’ve been into too much of chick stuff lately, recently I saw Sex and the city and embarrassingly loved it. I followed it up by reading two chick Novel and am gonna review them for my exactly zero readers ;-)

You Were Here

Written by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan whose blog I follow has somehow managed to collate all the stuff on her blog (or we can say her life) and throw it at us in form of a book. I have nothing negative to say about the book but I expected more being a fan. Anyhow this is a story about a 25 year old girl Arushi whose “life is like a bra strap when you put your bra on wrong”, it’s also the tag line of the book. Nothing much in the story just usual stuff like cheating boyfriend, leach of a neighbor, alcohol, sex, drugs…stuff you can find on her blog anyways….read it if you are looking for something light to read.

A Girl like Me – Swati Kaushal

This is a story of a 16 year old Anisha Rai who is transported from suburbs of Minnesota to concrete jungle of Gurgaon with her Mom. She joins a school in Gurgaon and experiences the study load of students in India. Then there is usual crushes, jealousy, soul searching making it full masala stuff. I was amazed how common making out is in youngsters today compared to our times, may be its just exaggerated by authors/newspapers these days, but this one is definitely nicely written as I finished it in one sitting.

Now here's a man :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7547148.stm

Animal's People -- Indra Sinha

A book worthy of it’s bookers nomination, it will go into the core of your psyche and remind you the horrors of Bhopal Gas tragedy that happened in 1984 killing thousands when 40 tonnes of lethal gas was released from a pesticide plant, the traces of contaminants can be found till date. The narrator changed the name of the city to Kaufpur and called Union Carbide “Kampani”, to top it they have made a website www.khaufpur.com which is a must checkout.
The narrators name is Animal, 20 years old who lost his family in the tragedy, got his back bent and walks on all fours. His emotional growth during the story, and people around him taking him from the starting line “I used to be human once” to his “human self” make this an interesting read. An intensely social and sometimes humorous tale. A must READ!!!

****

Tragedy Strikes my life

On the stormy night of 30th July I went for an auto ride on Bangalore roads, ecstatic over clocking the best time on the final track of my NFS mobile edition I slipped my N73M into my pocket and got down to pay the auto wallah. Within seconds a realization struck that my pockets don’t have that usual bulge and I ran like a 100m sprinter after the black and yellow 3 tiered monster. Unfortunately the usually clogged Bangalore roads opened up like the legs of a Thai prostitute in front of the auto wallah and he just took off like a formula one car with me gasping for breath. All my contacts, world record scores of Bikini volleyball, Brian Lara cricket, FIFA n PES football, Boxing, Tennis, cheeky smses, mmses (specially husband caught red handed on Radio) went away without saying any final goodbyes .
Ladies and Gentlemen can you please send me your numbers all over again till I try and arrange for a handset? You can really make me forget my loss by throwing an iPhone my way ;-)

A word of advise…take a backup of your mobiles today.

PS: If anyone has a spare handset can they lend it to me for a week? The Vodafone iPhone launch is just a week away.

The 2008 Man Bookers Longlist for fiction is out, I guess the topmost desirable reads on my list is Sea of Poppies...

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1105

Rushdie's Midnight's Children crowned best of the Bookers

For the second time, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie has been judged the best ever winner of the Booker prize. The Best of Booker award, which has been announced at the London literature festival , marks the prize's 40th anniversary. A similar contest - the Booker of Bookers - was held in 1993 to coincide with its 25th birthday, and came to the same conclusion.