Book review: The Fire Ant’s Sting by Kamalini Natesan

From the back cover:

The road to perdition is paved with desires. An expat couple resort to illicit means to hoard wealth. A small-town author yearns for fame and laurels at the risk of alienating his family. A widowed woman is desperate to preserve her youthful looks and turn the clock back. An eager-to-please, do-gooder mother seeks respect and reciprocation of her efforts. The common thread weaving through these stories is a pulsating and addictive desire to attain what one craves for at any cost. In Fire-Ant’s Sting: Desire Diaries, Kamalini Natesan explores, through twelve varied characters, the different facets of desire—a primal human emotion—and how its pursuit blinds one to reason. Alternately wry and full of pathos, daring and evocative, this is a delectable diary of desires that will leave you asking for more.

Desire is one of the human emotions that is generally suppressed the most, and is yet the single-biggest driver of our actions. We are adept at suppressing desire, at painting it as “too much”, as taboo.

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Book review: A History of Objects by Carlo Pizzati

From the back cover:

“A candy box reveals a son’s true feelings for his mother. A fish sculpture creeps into a budding and healthy relationship. A splint on a music teacher’s finger threatens to expose a secret.

Objects can come to hold great power over life and the course it takes. This collection of short stories explores the nuances of the human experience as objects of sentimental value, nostalgic appeal or cultural significance bear witness and shed light on all that remains unsaid. A History of Objects expertly demonstrates the ways in which the inanimate are far from lifeless.”

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Ebook review: Got me for life by Chandni Moudgil

Women. Are they complex creatures or the simplest of beings? The answer is perhaps not as simple.

In a series of 26 short stories, explore the world of EveryDay Women with me. They aren’t the superheroes who claim to save the world. They are the ones who form a part of your world.

They can create magical moments, make or break people, manipulate relationships, slip in and out of roles or refuse to fit into one at all. They are the real women in our lives. But the common thread that binds these fascinating women is , they don’t need anyone to make their world better – they have themselves for life.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you find a bit of someone you know in each of them.

Let the stories begin?

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Book review: The Good Little Ceylonese Girl by Ashok Ferrey

Ashok Ferrey’s The Good Little Ceylonese Girl is a collection of short stories about Sri Lankans living in the country and abroad. This slim 193 page volume has 17 stories, all of them really quite short, presenting readers with little vignettes and fragments of his characters’ lives.

The poignant Dust is the story of Father Cruz and his fight with his parishioners, who want their donations used to beautify the church, whereas all he wants is to use the money to help the needy.

The toungue-in-check Maleeshya is a short account of how the editor of a high-flying society magazine arm twists those desperate for a mention in her magazine to conform to her vision of a marriage and even death.

Pig shows some of the similarities between Indian and Sri Lankan culture. It is the story of two childhood sweethearts Lalitha and Ruwan who grew up together but were married off to different people. They continued to meet clandestinely over the years. But when the time came for them to be able to get back together, Ruwan backed out because he realized, after 19 years of cheating on his wife, that Lalitha and he had changed:Continue reading→