Trials and Tribulations by Fire

Kalyani stared hard at the envelope she was clutching in her hands. Her legs were going to give up soon, she knew. She was running as fast as she could. The postmaster’s house seemed light years away, though she had been running only for the past five minutes. Her mother, Bhairavi, had instructed her to get the contents of the letter read. The Postmaster had come by when her mother was bathing at the ghat . Kalyani had gleefully received the letter, forgetting to get it read. Bhairavi, on her return, had slapped Kalyani on her back chiding her for this miss. So, it was more like a penance for her slip. Kalyan, her brother older by a few years, had watched all this silently, munching on his akki roti , a glee pasted on his cherubic face.    Little Kalyani, all of seven, ran like the wind. After covering a few hundred metres she realized the futility of her exercise. The lure of the jaggery-dipped sweetmeat had pushed her into agreeing for this errand. If only she could ...

Name: Have a Safe Journey   Author: Various Authors Publisher: Amaryllis  Pages: 232  The blurb:  Have a Safe Journey is probably the first compilation of short stories on the topic of road safety to be published in India.  Guest Authors:  Anand Neelakantan, Ashwin Sanghi, Kiran Manral, Pankaj Dubey, Priyanka Sinha Jha, Shinie Antony, and Vikram Kapur  Authors from the #HaveaSafeJourney contest Ambalika, Anukriti Verma, Aritri Chatterjee, Arvind Passey, Barnali Ray Shukla, Dipali Taneja, Geetanjali Maria, Ketaki Patwardhan, Meera Rajagopalan, Ratnadip Acharya, Roshan Radhakrishnan, Roshni Chhabra, Sahar Fatima, Sanket Chaudhury, Taamra Segal, Thommen Jose, Veena Nagpal, and Vibha Lohani Review:  The book, again like the previous book I received from Manjul Publishing, is neatly bound and has absolutely no typos and no errors. The pages are nicely printed and the font size comfortable. It sits well in your palm and the co...

Name: I Quit! Now What?  Author: Zarreen Khan  Publisher: Amaryllis  Pages: 289 Have you ever come across a story that you can relate to so well, you wonder, why you didnt write it? Yes? Well, I just completed reading a story just like that. And I was nodding like mad. It felt so true and so close to the heart. There is thing about well-written stories. By well-written, I mean stories that are neatly packaged, have no typos or mistakes, and instantly reel you in. This story was like that. From the word go, I got hooked. To say that it is a great story would be a hype. It is not. It is a normal story, about a normal woman, about a very common occurrence. It happens to all of us, sometime or the other. Working people can relate to the story totally. The publisher sent me the book for an honest review. And here it is. A totally honest review. Initial thoughts: The moment I picked up the book I felt a smile creeping up. The cover was so simple yet power...

Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! is a science fiction novel written by American author Kurt Vonnegut. The book apparently was written in 1976 and depicts the author's views on loneliness. This science fiction novel brilliantly captures the nature of the closeness Vonnegut had with his sister Alice, who died of cancer in 1958. Apparently, her husband had died in a train accident two days before her death. Kurt Vonnegut raised her children. He wrote this book after the death of his uncle. In Slapstick, Vonnegut imagines himself and his sister as these giants Wilbur and Eliza. The Swains are Neanderthaloid dizygotic twins (giants). The twins live in a huge mansion on an asteroid with apple trees. They have servants and spend their time reading and discussing. Wilbur and Eliza's genius is unparalleled when their minds are combined but they become idiotic when separated. They return to saying 'Duh' and 'Buh' to prove their stupidity. The twins spend their time re...