Book Review : The Honest Season

Blurb View:

Sikander Bansi, an unlikely political heir in Delhi, secretly records politicians in Parliament as they haggle to become cabinet ministers, bag defense contracts, dodge criminal charges and collect corporate largesse. Among them is a rising leader of the People’s Party, Nalan Malik, whose success has come through unscrupulous means. When Sikander suddenly disappears, Mira Mouli, a newspaper journalist with an unusual gift of knowing people’s thoughts, receives the controversial Parliament tapes along with clues to find him. She is attracted to Sikander’s principles and is wary of Nalan’s deceit. But her powers of knowing tell her a different story, one that she can unravel only at the cost of her life. From the bestselling author of Shoes of the Dead, this is disturbing political fiction that reveals why Parliament functions behind gates closed to the public.

Review:

It gives me immense pleasure to let you know that I’ve read one of the finest books by an Indian writer in 2016. Yes, it’s a political fiction and I’m quite wary of politics in India. Yet it is the apprehension that egged me to pick up this book. A Twitter chat with the author prior to start reading the book confirmed that her novel is worth every minute. In this month of Assembly elections in four crucial Indian states, the book comes as a necessity. It aims at exposing what happens inside the ominous white Assembly buildings – the shady dealings, the breach of trust, the whispers that never escape those marble pillars into commonality.

The story begins with a glimpse of the protagonist Mira’s super powers. She can read thoughts while listening to a person and knows what they’re thinking. So she’s a know-journalist. The book is based on utilizing her powers, but never misusing them. Mira is involved into a dangerous game of hide and seek by politician Sikander Bansi that spills the secrets of the Parliament. She can’t escape without solving the clues and in the process only gets hurt. The author has made great efforts to build the character of Mira, word by word, and we are let into her dark and gloomy world. There are other politicians like Nalan Malik who is hard to gauge, Sikander Bansi in his various avatars, Mira’s boss and editor Bidur Munshi, her colleague Salat Vasudev, and the rain. I think it’s the rain that drives the story forward and gives it such a poetic aura.

Continue reading →

IndiPR – New Kid On the Block

Image Courtesy: IndiPR

I have never published a Press Release before as most of them turn out to be boring. What would you do with dry information and specifications about a new product launch? Thousands of businesses, products and services are launched everyday across the world. When these products go live, a Press Release is usually the first order of business. These are sent to media professionals, PR agencies, bloggers, influencers and a sundry lot. Most of them have nothing to do with the product/business being launched. They are bored, go ahead and delete the invitation via mail. There are a few influencer platforms that target specific bloggers for different kind of products. IndiPR has arrived with the idea of making Press Releases cool and connecting businesses to influencers seamlessly.

Businesses of various sizes, including start-ups, can now have their Press Releases published by relevant influencers in less than 72 hours. Isn’t that great?

The Process

IndiPR.com was built to make it extremely simple for a business to get their Press Releases published by top bloggers. All a business has to do is upload their Press Release and the ‘Automated Influencer Targeting Engine’, or ‘AITE’ for short, proceeds to accept applications and automatically shortlists bloggers based on various factors including internal ratings and rankings. Once shortlisted, the influencers do their research and publish their articles.

Anoop Johnson, Co-founder & Director of Marketing at IndiBlogger, adds, “With a starting budget of just USD 150, a business of any size will be able to get their press releases published by influential bloggers with a few clicks.”

Continue reading →

Book Review : That Woman You See

Image Courtesy: Amazon

Blurb View:

The book attempts to explore the heart and mind of the modern Indian woman; who is tired of suppressing her true nature, dreams and desires (in the largely patriarchal society) and wishes to express herself and do her own thing even at the cost of appearing odd and unconventional in front of her family and society at large. The flavour of each story is different. And the author has experimented with narrative style and form. The themes in the book include: humour, pathos, love, infidelity, arranged marriage, colour bias, hope and joy. Giving it a whole new twist, the collection ends with a poem titled – ‘That woman you see,’ which is also the title of the book and gives out a brief description of the collection.

Review:

Women-centric books are flavour of the season, with March hosting International Women’s Day on 8th. Keeping aside the debate on futility of celebrating womanhood annually and not everyday, let’s just concentrate on this book. It is a themed one, an anthology of nine stories, each about a strong woman. They are symbols of love, courage, strength and everything that we overlook in a woman we see around. The protagonists of this book are not superwomen, but those entrapped in each of us. Sujata Parashar is an exceptional woman and a writer who has always presented stories that touch our hearts. This is another such attempt by her.

Each story has a different flavour, a different perspective, but all of them united into the common theme of womanhood and its celebration. Written in simple, lucid language and quite engaging plots, each of them has their own appeal. But, of course there are ones better than the others. I particularly liked a few and would mention them here.

Ganga: She Who Is Pure – The book begins with this one, and it’s a strong yet subtle story. Ganga has a past and an equally difficult present life of a call girl. Her pride and the haplessness of the male protagonist are contrast to each other and create a painful story. It is well written, though slightly distraught at places.

Continue reading →