Luwan of Brida by Sarang Mahajan

Have you read J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’? Have you read Christopher Paolini’s ‘Inheritance Cycle’? I have read them and liked them a great deal. Being a sucker for fantasy genre books, I had assumed that I have read most of the books under “fantasy” tag but a friend made me realize that I haven’t read much. There are George R. R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, Robert Jordan’s ‘The Wheel of Time’, Ursula Le Guin’s ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ and Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower Series’ that I am yet to read.

The stories of witches and wizards, dragons and other fantastic creatures, and perilous journeys taken by the protagonist of the book, while the villains across the globe chase him/her…even thinking about such things give me goosebumps. I declare again that I just love reading fantasy fictions.

The Devil

Image courtesy: desktopnexus

No, he hasn’t given up yet and he would never give up. How could he when she meant everything to him? But he also knew that he could never be with her, as she was too good for him. He was a devil, who punished the bad and she was an angel, who always gave love to everyone. He knew that even she liked him and she would bring sunshine into his life, if he gave himself a chance, but that would be asking for too much. In his opinion, he didn’t deserve a chance after everything that he had done until then. Or did he? He knew not. Nevertheless, he was ready to accept whatever came his way but only after he had finished what he had started.

The Perfect World

I haven’t read too many motivational or inspirational books or anything other than fictions and of course, my course books. To be honest, I hadn’t read any motivational book at all but thanks to Priya Kumar’s “The Perfect World”, now I can claim that I have read one such book too. 

“The perfect world” was not just a motivational book but Priya has taken help of a fiction to tell readers whatever she intended to tell them, and that’s what makes the book interesting.

Fablery!

Dear Readers & Writers,

I know that I haven’t been blogging these days and I am not even reading other blogs that I used to read regularly. I miss reading Blog, I rhyme without reason & A musing who update their blogs frequently and also, other bloggers whom I follow like Aura of Sleepless Dreams, The Unwise prevails over the Wise, Wandering thoughts, Nirvana, Shravan RN's, A rose is a rose is rose!…the list goes on. Note to self: I must visit their blogs soon.

Prevention is better than cure

Courtesy: spiderkerala.net

We, Indians, always complain about how dirty our country is compared to the developed nations like USA, Japan, etc but when it comes to doing our bit, we do nothing. We throw wastes anywhere and everywhere we feel like-be it bus-stops or on our neighbor’s doorsteps. And when somebody complains about our wrongdoings, we ignore them by saying that they are just trying to be righteous, instead we could ponder upon our actions.

Prey by the Ganges

Like every other Indian, I have watched the movie, Sholay, more than once. Not that I liked the movie so much that I wanted to watch it repeatedly but when we were still stuck in Doordarshan era, you wanted it or not, you had to watch the movies that they played during weekends on television because everyone watched it. I watched it too. It was a funny movie; the Thakur, the Gabbar and his Samba-everything about Sholay was funny.

The book “Prey by the Ganges” written by Hemant Kumar got two Thakur- one, who plays the Gabbar & another, his victim-in it. It also got a Thankurain, glamour, gore, men driven by emotions, lust and power.

Dear, I love you

Who doesn’t want to love and be loved? If you say that you don’t then you are just lying, not just to others but to yourself too. Have you read Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series? Initially, I found Edward to be very charming. I didn’t mind having a powerful boyfriend who had eyes only for me but Bella and Edward’s love overdose sickened me and my liking for him ended up as abhorrence. Alright, let’s talk about Arun Sabtharishi’s book named “Dear, I love you” now. To be honest, the protogonist Goutham and his love left even twilight series behind. The book had nothing but Goutham, his girlfriend Anu and their love.

The Ancient Book

I don’t remember my mother reading me to sleep but I read my niece to sleep sometimes. She likes stories of dragon, witches, monsters and what not. And “The Ancient Book” is one such book that I can read to her. The story of King Zius and his daughter Sara narrated by Parikshit Rane narrates the victory of good over evil. The pace of the book is good too. You remember the flashbacks in the movies where everything goes black and white or too colorful and the narrator starts sharing his story of the past? The writing style adopted by the Parikshit Rane is somewhat similar. At least, that is what I felt. Apart from few editorial and proofreading errors here and there, I should appreciate author’s narrative skills.

Making of a fantasy author

Dear readers & bloggers,

I won’t say that I always wanted to be an author. To be honest, I was dragged into this whole write-a-novel thing. Well, it’s a long story and I don’t intend to pen down another book explaining how I became an author and Blah! Blah! Blah! So, I shall keep it short and try to explain the entire journey in a few simple words.

I was a crazy blogger (but I hardly blog nowadays) and I’m an avid reader too. I love reading fantasy fictions and paranormals, and I also daydream a lot. Entrapped is just a product of those daydreams. I imagined a girl haunted by a dream and every-time she dreams, someone calls for her help, “We are trapped. Please, free us…” The idea intrigued me and I decided to spin a story around the same. I named the girl Myra Bose and penned down the prologue of Entrapped in no time. Few of my friends, who read it, encouraged me to continue. It took five months to finish the initial draft. After my exams, when I was waiting for the results, I got enough time to polish the initial draft. I prioritized Entrapped over other things and to be frank, at that moment, I didn’t have getting it published on my mind.

The Storyteller of Marrakesh

I did it again. I read another Indian author and I will never again tell anyone that I prefer reading only foreign authors because the author Joydeep Roy-Bhattachraya changed my perception about Indian authors and their writings. Well, I must accept that I was prejudiced but thanks to Joydeep, I am a changed person now. He had my attention from the first to the last page of the book “The Storyteller of Marrakesh”. And when it ended, I was left wanting more-so was the thirst that the story evoked in me. It was an open ended story. The story has an ending alright but I'm not sure whether I got what the author had in his mind when he wrote those last two pages or was it meant for the readers to interpret it the way that suited them. Whatever it was, however it ended, I wished it hadn’t ended so soon. I wished that the night at Marrakesh had never ended so that the storyteller of Marrakesh, Hassan, would continue narrating his brother’s story that he recounted every year at the square of Jemaa el fna on the day the two foreigners had disappeared.