And The Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini

Rating: 8/10

Khaled Hosseini is turning out to be my favourite all-time author, thanks to his innovative storytelling style and the honesty in his stories. I have been a big fan of his first two books – The Kite Runnerand A Thousand Splendid Suns – and I was excited when I first knew that his third book was about to release. And I must say it was a great experience reading this book and I was very happy that I picked this book over others in my To-Read list.

This story does not have a lead character like I would have expected, but it’s even more exciting because of the multiple lead characters that it has. This is a story about a family whose three children have been separated by the conditions in Afghanistan and have lived completely different lives in the different parts of the world. While the eldest brother – Abdullah – has moved outside of Afghanistan and grown up with his daughter and wife, the sister – Pari – grew up in Paris with a lady whom she always thought to be her mother. The youngest stepbrother, Iqbal, got lost trying to make his living shuttling between the refugee camps of Pakistan and his parental village of Shadbagh in Afghanistan.

Khaled has told the same story from various perspectives – the perspective of every character in the story. This new style makes sure that you never lose the plot of the story and are always engaged to the story-line across the book. The story transports you very close to the Afghanistan that was marred by the constant fighting, attacks and destruction over decades; to the Afghanistan where the families were separated my miles, dollars and diseases.

I would completely recommend this book to anyone who is looking to read an honest take on the Afghanistan after years of war.

-Arun Sharma

Originally published at http://whynothavefun.wordpress.com/

Click here to read my other book reviews.

Click here for my Goodreads account

The Immortals of Meluha: A Review

Aah! Just finished with just another book by just another IIM graduate. But the story this time was not just another story that we listen to or read every other day. This story was of none other than that of Lord Shiva who has been portrayed as not the God but a superhuman who earned that status of Lord Shiva through his righteous fight against the evil.

The story is of Shiva, the tribal leader of a Tibetan tribe who’s invited by Nandi to his kingdom of Meluha in the lands of Sapt Sindhu. The people of this land are blessed young-forever because of the treasure called somras that they drink. This civilization is an extremely advanced one where everything seems to be perfect and everyone seems to be rational. They have the most advanced scientific tools at disposal with most intelligent people to develop them further. Everything seems to be fine with them, except one thing. They are Suryavanshis – descendants of Lord Surya and followers of Lord Ram – and they are faced by continuous attacks from their ‘enemies’ – Chandravanshis, descendants of Lord Chandra. This is where the story begins, but it ends with the defeat of Chandravanshis by the Suryavanshis under the guidance of Lord Shiva. To know how and why, you have to read the novel.

The story has been greatly put together. The research has been fantastic. It doesn’t look like the debutant novel by Amish, I thought he’s written atleast half a dozen novels before penning this down. If you are interested in mythology and fiction, this is the best book that you can read where mythology meets fiction and creates a great story. I’m waiting for the next two novels in the Shiva trilogy by Amish.

-Arun Sharma

(Originally published at www.whynothavefun.wordpress.com by Arun Sharma)

The Lost Symbol: A Review

I know it’s been quite a while since the book was out, but I read it just now and thought it’ll be great to give you guys a head start on it, in case you plan to read it.

If I rate Dan Brown’s other fictions, namely The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons at 5, I’ll rate The Lost Symbol at 4, or maybe even 3.5 due to some reasons. The Lost Symbol is another Robert Langdon stunner with the usual Dan Brown beginning that he wakes up in the morning not knowing where he’s going to end up in the evening. This plot has been followed in all his novels without exception. And I think Dan Brown is obsessed with three things - Europe, America and Christianity.

The plot of the story rotates about a mad man trying to find a Masonic Pyramid which is believed to be hiding the secret of some secret Word that leads to apotheosis of the man. And obviously, there’s only one man on earth who can find and decipher this pyramid and this word – Dr Robert Langdon. And out of nowhere, he finds himself trying to save his mentor and his own life from this madman who’s also being followed by none other than the CIA chief. The end, of course, you’ll have to find it yourself.

Though the story is intriguing and the thought process has been great, but I think Dan Brown is getting caught into his own web. During most of the novel, it looks like he has written it just to show-off his intellect and knowledge. He has gone into so detail about the specification of events, even the ones that don’t have any impact on the story, that it starts getting boring and sometimes irritating. The description of Italian marble and 16^th century bible etc etc were some parts which were not at all required, but were there in the story. Such parts were enough to distract the attention away from the main plot.

Apart from this, I think the novel has been written very well and is a usual Dan Brown thriller with unexpected turns and twists. Though I’ve rated it below his other masterpieces, it’s definitely way above some of the other well-known authors.

Arun Sharma

(Originally published @ www.whynothavefun.wordpress.com by Arun Sharma)

2 States - The story of my marriage: Chetan Bhagat

Sometimes, I think Chetan Bhagat is writing specially for the generation that I belong to. His debut novel “Five Point Someone” came at a time when I was in the last leg of my engineering and that too in Mechanical Engineering. So, the novel was and still is very close to my heart. Then came “One Night @ Call Center” and “Three Mistakes of My Life” that were again very precisely timed to match the movements in my life. And now, when I’m pursuing my MBA, Chetan has come up with this new novel “2 States” about an IIMA passout who finds his love for life during MBA.

The story of the novel spins around the lives of a Punjabi boy Krish Malhotra and a Tamil girl Ananya Swaminathan. As was written in their Nakshatram, they met over the dining table in IIM-A and fell into love with each other, just because the Punjabi honcho couldn’t stay “just friends” any more. Subsequently, they had made to each other’s beds pretty fast and often during the course of the MBA. But again, as the legend has it, their parents had to disagree with this decision of their children. The refusal was partly due to North India – South India clash and partly due to the generational egos of parents when children select life partners for themselves. And then, it takes the Citibank Relationship Manager, Mr Malhotra and HLL Marketing Manager, Ms Swaminathan, quite a while to bring the two families together.

Chetan has spun the novel nicely around this story and maintained the seriousness of the North India-South India issue along with the fun of reading his novel. The description of intimacies by Chetan Bhagat has been as unmatched as ever before. And some anecdotes like “we don’t use spoons to measure alcohol” made me laugh at the conversation between a Punjabi boyfriend and his prospective Tamilian father-in-law. The description of Punjabi lifestyle and their way of looking at the Tamilians and vice-versa has been interestingly funny. Just like his previous novels, this one is also full of youth and unrealistic idealism at certain points, but that fits in perfectly well. Some twists here and there make it an irresistible read.

On a serious note, there’s one particular incident that left an impression on my mind from the novel. There is a conversation between Krish and a Guruji in Pondicherry’s Aurobindo Asharam where Guruji guides him that forgiving someone doesn’t make him/her right. All it does is to make the forgiver feel lighter and happier.

All-in-all, I found 2 States an interesting novel, worth spending some time to get yourself relaxed.

Arun Sharma

Visit http://am-i-possible.blogspot.com

Book Review: Of Course I Love You..!

Durjoy Dutta and Maanvi Ahuja have nicely presented the tale of the college life of a guy Deb who is an average performer in every field except getting girls to bed. The novel is all about the college life of a loser who doesn’t get to see good grades in his college life but still believes he was an IIT stuff, just dropped in DCE. The story has some characters like Vernita, Tanmay, Deb, Shrey and Avantika who made me feel a left-out from the world and doubt my physical (read sexual) prowess given the fact that I’m 25 year old virgin. Vernita is the only girl in Mechanical Engineering department and hence, pretty obviously scores good marks every time. Tanmay is Vernita’s boyfriend who’s hated by Deb and Shrey because he’s rich, handsome and intelligent. Deb is an average performing guy in studies but scores high on girlfriends and night outs. Shrey is this dream-guy who doesn’t give a shit to the studies and exams and still makes it to a start-up company in Germany. Avantika is the goddess, the most beautiful girl on the earth, the most gorgeous and the sexiest one too. She knows what to do, when to do and how to do, I hope you got it. After struggling hard in the college, when Deb doesn’t get placed in any company, he hooks up in BHEL and finds Amit, his to-be-best friend. He enjoys his life by shaping up a love life for Ami and Astha and hence getting all the office work done by Amit, the studious small-town boy.
The story ends in such a passionate love-making by Deb that I envied him for the same. It’s a nice book, Five Point Someone class. It’s a story about the youth, but it can be frustrating at times, especially when you do not have a girlfriend of your own.


Arun Sharma