Bhang Journeys (Book Review)

“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
― Carl Sagan

Perhaps very few people would know the full benefits of what a cannabis, hemp, marijuana, brown sugar or perhaps more specifically bhang and ganja would do to a person. What better than to understand the implications of this from a person who has seen both the positive and negative aspects of its usage for 10 years.

The book gives a specific account of why bhang is consumed but beyond that what we still don’t know

Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels is a book by Indian author Akshaya Bahibala , published by Speaking Tiger. It chronicles the author’s ten-year experience with bhang and ganja, from 1998 to 2008. The book also details the lives of people in Odisha whose lives are impacted by these substances.

The moment I picked up this book I really wondered what it would be. Would it interest me? How would a person who has never taken these drugs respond to the book? How would a person who actually has taken drugs also respond to the book?

It was only after completing the book that I could sum up my experience of reading it. When I started off reading how Akshaya spent those years on the Puri Beach, I thought it would be a very personal retelling of his life from addiction to de-addiction. I thought it would turn out to be a typical triumph over circumstances story, but then Akshaya did really surprise me!

The book just doesn’t chronicle Akshaya’s experience of addiction but also traverses through the jungles of Odissa, through the Government depots and the reasons of how livelihoods are getting dependent on this crop. I especially could imagine how Akshaya travelled and talked to people, police and purchasers of the drug in legal and non-legal ways.

Overall it was an insightful read connecting something that’s debatable in legal angle, scientific viewpoints, livelihood perspectives and the drain of the police force engaged in the war in between legalization and mafias.

Suggestion – To get more insight about the back history about the use of bhang (Cannabis), opium and how India got trapped into this drug also read “Smoke and Ashes: A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories” by Amitav Ghosh

About the Book:

‘A wild ride through the dreamworlds and shadow life of bhang and ganja in Odisha… Akshaya Bahibala is the Baudelaire of Indian literature.’—Chandrahas Choudhury

For ten years, from 1998 to 2008, Akshaya Bahibala was in the grip of bhang, of ganja—drinking it, smoking it, experiencing the highs and lows of an addict on Puri’s beaches with hippies, backpackers and drop-outs from France and Japan, Italy and Norway. Then he drew back from the edge and tried to make a life, working as a waiter, a salesman, a bookseller. He starts this journal-cum-travel book with startling, fragmented memories of his lost decade. From these, he moves to stories about people across Odisha whose lives revolve around ganja-bhang-opium. There is the owner of a government approved bhang shop who takes pride in selling the purest bhang available and insists it can make people as forgiving and non-violent as Jesus. The opium cutter who learned as a boy how to massage a lump of opium with mustard oil and carve it into little tablets. The girl who survived cholera by licking opium and became a lifelong addict. The goldsmith whose opium de-addiction card entitles him to 20 grams a month, but who wishes it were 25. The ganja farmer who came from Punjab in a helicopter. A young man, a victim of ganja and-bhang-fuelled paranoia, who believes Indian and American spies are out to get him. Excise department men who go to destroy ganja plantations and are beaten up by angry villagers. Interspersed with these stories are official data on opium produced, seized and destroyed; UN reports on the medicinal properties of cannabis; and a veteran’s recipes for bhang laddoos and sharbat.

Full of surprises, utterly distinctive, this entertaining, often trippy book of memories, journeys, facts and figures about the popular intoxicant is both a celebration and a warning.

About the Author:

Akshaya Bahibala is a bookseller, poet, publisher and library activist. He is the co-founder of Walking BookFairs, an independent bookstore and publishing house.

About the Book Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Brand Magic (Book Review)

“Brand Magic – The Art and Science of Creating Successful Brands” by Prof. Alan D’Souza and Dr. Prashant Pareek dissects each of the 10 notable brands from Gujarat that emerged into huge successes. Published by MICA (MI-Press), this book is a go-to book for everyone who wants to establish their knowledge base on branding, especially from the perspective of brands from Gujarat state.

Presented in case study format, this book explores Gujarat-based brands like Sugar Free, Wagh Bakri Tea Group , Amul India , Astral Pipes , Fogg, Balaji Wafers Pvt.Ltd. , Jio Platforms Limited (JPL) , Rasna International , Symphony Limited and Havmor Ice Cream Pvt Ltd , among the top 10 brands making it big in India and internationally.

Each brand case study is presented with the backstory of the brand and its creation, the efforts undertaken to market/brand it and the competitive as well as market analysis of each. While Amul has been the brand with the maximal usage of IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) for branding, others have used more videos and digital inputs. Each brand is a study in itself and this book makes the study very easy for anyone interested in branding and marketing.

Key Points –

• Entrepreneurship from generational and present-day perspectives gives rise to different ways of branding
• Spotting opportunities and making decisions to grab them is a crucial indicator of how a founder/businessman can foresee the growth of the brand
• Distribution is the primary concern for any FMCG brand and it holds the fort for visibility, expansion across geographies and brand awareness at a regional level
• Price, Patience and Prediction of brand success is essential to guide the decisions ahead.

Overall, with colorful illustrations, charts, diagrams and statistics, each brand story has an impactful and clear visualization for anyone who reads this book.

From a similar perspective, the book is a simpler take on another book that was a great reference source – Advertising & Promotions An Imc Perspective. by Kruti Shah, Alan D Souza (Author),. Mcgraw Hill Education (Publisher)

With the conceptual linkages of branding and IMC, this book is useful for academicians who want to share brand stories and also for anyone associated with the field of branding.

I highly recommend this book!

Blurb:

“Brand Magic – The Art and Science of Creating Successful Brands” – is an extensively researched and curated book that delves into ten notable brands that emerged from Gujarat and became prestigious national brands over the past decades. The book showcases how Marketing Communications has played a significant role in taking these brands from state to national and international levels. Apart from telling stories behind brand-building, the book will also serve as a helpful reference book for management students studying Marketing, Marketing Communications and Branding.

About the Book Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Suryavamshi : The Sun Kings of Rajasthan (Book Review)

Marrying the facts with fiction is no mean feat, but then in the land of the brave Rajput people the romantic illusion of living life to the fullest is not only romantic but also an inspiration for ballads and songs.

Suryavamshi (The Sun Kings of Rajasthan) particularly focuses on the kings of Mewar who were said to have descended from the Sun God. The chronology of the kings isn’t what you can expect in this book but you can definitely have a wonderful storytelling that mixes James Todd’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan merged into a storytelling by Abanindranath Tagore, leaving you engaged till the end. The translation and adaptation from the original ‘Raj Kahini’ in Bengali to English by Sandipan Deb is a beautiful undertaking. This book is published by Juggernaut Books.

As a reader and reviewer hailing from the lineage of the Sun Dynasty, of course I would sound biased in my approach to the review of the book. However, I have tried and been objective in my approach to the reviewing.

The captivating story of Shiladitya, adventures of Bappa Raval, the love of Rani Padmini for her husband and the Jauhar story, Mirabai’s devotion, tracing dynasties and lineage till Chhatrapati Shivaji and the relationship of the Rajput kings with the Bhil kings has been vividly described with many other stories of challenges the sun kings faced. The political intrigue, drama, ascendance to the throne, the right way to rule and the kingdoms and dominions are all fantastically described with facts and fiction. Abanindranath himself had admitted to getting the facts from James Todd’s work.

To get the idea of how the emergence of kings, kingdoms and kinship arose from various tribes, we need to understand the historical implications of different situations. The role of Bhils in keeping Mewar from the attack of invaders however can never be ignored. If you see the insignia on the coat of arms you will find both standing proud on either side of the Sun God.

जो दृढ़ राखे धर्म को, ताहि रखे करतार – has been the pledge of the Sun Kings of Mewar but it can be also be taken into consideration for all of Rajasthan’s brave men and women including the royal families to have followed this path. The pledge translates as – The Almighty protects those who stand steadfast in upholding righteousness (dharma).

Gods and Goddesses also form part of storytelling, weaving into the fabric of Rajasthan’s religious practices without being too obvious about it.

Overall, the book brings into its stories a beautiful amalgamation of wars, politics, justice, rivalry, enmity, love and bravery. The only drawback is that the book doesn’t go beyond Maharana Pratap’s story, I wish there were more stories to encapsulate the rule of the later kings.

The book is ideal read for readers of 10+years and onwards in age. The confluence of fiction and non-fiction makes it a great read for all kinds of readers.

Book Blurb:

For over a century, Abanindranath Tagore’s Raj Kahini has been among the most beloved works of Bangla literature. Mixing history and mythology with an extraordinary visual imagination, it tells the tales of the Suryavamsha – the Sun Dynasty that ruled Mewar. Here we meet Shiladitya, child of the Sun God; Bappaditya, who builds an empire that stretches up to Persia; Hambir, the cheeky teenager who reclaims the throne of Mewar. We meet Padmini, the princess from SriLanka who becomes a goddess; Mirabai, who renounces her kingdom to be with her child-god, Nandalala.

On every page, we are exposed to emotions that define the human condition – love, sacrifice, jealousy, courage, greed and treachery. Honour and loyalty clash with villainy and evil, and the better side does not always win. Epic in their sweep, universal in their essence, the stories are timeless. Suryavamshi is a translation and adaptation of Abanindranath’s classic for twenty-first-century India.

About the Authors:

Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951) was one of India’s most important artists and led the influential Bengal School of Art. A member of the Tagore family, he was also a well-regarded writer, especially known for his children’s books which includes the classic Raj Kahini.

Sandipan Deb became a published author at the age of eight when one of his stories was printed in Sandesh, the Bangla children’s magazine edited by Satyajit Ray. Since then his writings have ranged from business to cricket, cinema to artificial intelligence.

About the Book Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Grandma in the Stars *Book Review*

Painful and abstract concepts of death, aging, illness can have a very negative impact on children. It therefore makes sense to give them a kind of understanding that matches with their age. That’s the kind of children’s book we need more these days and Dr. Sneha Sharma‘s Grandma in the Stars aptly touches upon this.

Grandma in the Stars is about a young girl, Ayesha who is missing her Grandmother. She lost her maternal grandmother in the pandemic. She is unable to bear the loss, however, a chance encounter with a calf ‘Chatur’ gives her a chance to meet her grandmother once again.

Key Takeaway for the readers –

1. Easy language for children up to 10 years
2. Fantasy fiction story form
3. Includes many aspects of curiosities that kids encounter. For example, lunar eclipse
4. The role of grandparents in grandchildren’s lives and how they want to communicate or express their absence
5. Illustrations to propel the story forward.
6. Animals and Indian lifestyle and culture are explored.
7. An abstract concept is touched upon in a very positive and non-scary way

Notes for Parents when explaining the concept of death to very young children:

1. Simply and honestly respond to their inquiries.
2. Adopt a soothing voice and a soft mannerism.
3. Soak in your child’s tears. Expressing your feelings lets them know it’s alright for you to be depressed as well.
4. Children all grieve in unique ways. Show understanding and patience.
5. Take a look at children’s books that illustrate Indian cultural views on death. Pick up this book – https://www.amazon.in/Grandma-Stars-Sneha-Sharma/dp/9360160369

Overall, it is an interesting story especially suited for Indian children. I wish it were a fully illustrated book so that very young children would get gradually used to the concept through pictures.

Book Blurb:

Ayesha lost her Nani-maa to the pandemic two years ago. With summer just beginning, she’s already missing her Nani and her home in Delhi, which she used to visit this time of year. But this summer promises to be unlike any other. Ayesha’s best friend, Shreya, plans to make her smile again. She shares a story of an adorable calf named ‘Chatur’ and invites Ayesha to spend time with him. Chatur is born to Leela, a friendly white cow, at Shreya’s Nani house in Nashik. Ayesha is captivated by Chatur’s story and can’t wait to meet him. However, she soon discovers that Chatur is not just an ordinary calf and her companion to a place among the stars where she finally reunites with her Nani-maa!

About the Author:

Dr. Sneha Sharma is a PhD in Media Management, faculty member in Renaissance College of Commerce and Management, author and coach. She has written for platforms like Woman’s Era, SheThePeople, The Hindu, The Children’s magazine, Kitaab, Toastmasters International, among many other. 

She enjoys both speaking and writing. While writing is her passion and home speaking is something that she passionately aspires to pursue as a skill. 

She is the author of the novella, ‘Grandma in the Stars’ – a fantasy fiction for primary school children. 

Her past experiences include service as a National TV host for Care World TV, columnist for Times of India and a Voice Over Artist for broadcast commercials and documentaries.

Her debut documentary Adrashya Nari as director and script writer, has won national and International acclaim, including silver at Usha Pravin Gandhi, Aligarh Muslim University, and the Hawai International Film Festival. It was also screened at the prestigious Mumbai International Film Festival. 

She is also an avid Toastmaster and has achieved a rare feat of being a bronze medalist and finalist at two districts of its public speaking championship in a single year.

About the Book Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Tomorrow Someone will Arrest You: Book Review

The voice is important. Not only the voice to be heard but to marvel at the way the voice speaks out on a range of topics that may seem offbeat but bear the brunt of the beaten track over the years.

Meena Kandasamy‘s poetry book is the assimilation of those voices. Voices that have been drowned in the agony of living. ‘Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You’ published by Juggernaut Books is something of an unfolding of woman’s enigma to the universe; yet with a hidden subversive approach, it gives you something more.

A striking book cover

The title is totally a ‘let me know what this is about’ reaction maker. Why this kind of title? Not only does it draw attention to the reader to pick up the book, but it also makes way for the right to speak out about speech impediments that make way in our lives without our conscious allowance.

The experience of reading this poetry book is not only bi-lingual (Tamil words with translations with English) but also multi-lingual in the context of violence against women, the society’s performance and the political mayhem that’s plaguing us.

Meena doesn’t mince words to speak out against the various atrocities we are facing in different aspects of life. To say that she is the representative of a collective voice for women against violence is a major way to say “yes” to this book.

Overall, not only did I relate to what Meena was talking about but also I could feel that certain stanzas were spoken to me from other women. I did feel that though Meena is more favorable in talking about women, the poems also had a hint of talking about men too. After all, while the percentage of victims of violence is more for women than men, men too undergo a different kind of violent deals that change them.

Some of the poems I liked are –

1. A poem in which she remembers
2. The Seven Stages
3. A cat closing her eyes
4. A poems on not writing a poem
5. We are learning by heart

The title poem Tomorrow Someone will Arrest you has many aspects to understanding how a misunderstanding can be dangerous for anyone.

Especially loved the endnotes that gave a distinctive explanation of the triggers of that particular poem.

About the Book:

All discipline
a deception to hide the wildness, all symmetry
an excuse for keeping count.

Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You cements Meena Kandasamy as one of the most exciting, radical thinkers at work today. These poems chronicle wanting, art-making, and the practicing of resistance and solidarity in the face of a hostile state. Here, the personal is political, and Kandasamy moves between sex, desire, family and wider societal issues of caste, the refugee crisis, and freedom of expression with grace and defiance. This is a bold, unforgettable collection by a poet who compels us to sit up and listen.

About the Author:

Described by the Independent as a ‘one-woman, agit-prop literary-political movement’, Meena Kandasamy is a poet, writer, translator, anti-caste activist and academic based in India. Her extensive corpus includes two poetry collections, Touch (2006) and Ms Militancy (2010), as well as three novels, The Gypsy Goddess (2014), When I Hit You (2017) and Exquisite Cadavers (2019).

About the Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

The Bad Cook’s Guide to Indian Cooking

‘Maa ke haath ka khaana’ is an emotion! While everyone thinks of mothers when it comes to eating tasty food, not all women (or mothers specifically) are good cooks. While in India, it has been perpetuated down the generations that women have to be good cooks and serve the family, the fact remains that it is not surprising that not all women are actually good cooks.

‘The Bad Cook’s Guide to Indian Cooking‘ by Aakanksha Sethi (Published by Juggernaut Books) is not only packed with recipes from India but also has motivating quotes in between to keep up with the spirit of cooking experiments.

The Book… The Recipes… The Bad to Cooking better guide is here!

So what does this book do?

• It helps moms, women, men; in fact, all kinds of humans to cook well.
• The Indian recipes are simple and come with great illustrations
• There is attention to detailing ie. quantity and types of ingredients to choose
• Most of the cosmopolitan recipes can be found here
• The visuals are so spot on for Indian cooking that it helps to identify the ingredients and the meals with ease.
• Gives you the best Indian meals with diverse nutritional values

Who should not have this book?

• Lazy people who think cooking is not necessary
• People who think recipes belong to women
• People who want to survive on deliveries and ‘baahar ka khana’

Overall verdict? I can visualize girls and boys going through this book and making yummy foods in their PGs while the mess food can be easily ditched without guilt. I give this book points for visuals and easy uptake of ingredients and cooking methods. If you were to ask why not see YouTube? Well, there is an old world charm to have a book to guide you rather than a video to misguide you.

About the Book:

Aakanksha Sethi is a bad cook – but she manages to make delicious Indian food because of this genius cookbook that she has compiled over the last ten years. Now you can use it, too! From elementary paneer and microwave ghiya to straightforward chicken and homely biryani, this brilliantly designed book with its flow-charts and illustrations will set you up in the kitchen and no one will know your secret – that you can’t cook!

About the Author:

Aakanksha Sethi is a thirty-six-year-old woman juggling a nuclear family with two super cute and naughty kids as well as assisting her husband in the core areas of his business planning.

About the Reviewer:

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

An Uncommon Love: The Early Life of Sudha and Narayana Murthy

A fiction writer wrote a biography and I was intrigued! While the author, Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee herself expressed that it was her first book in non-fiction genre, she enjoyed the process.

An Uncommon Love – a title that definitely gets everyone to sit up and notice! This book by Juggernaut Publishers has had people getting curious and rightfully so! Who wouldn’t want to know about the person who created Infosys!

If you approach this book as a love story or rather a biographical romance then I would say you haven’t opened your mind to the possibilities yet!

This book though puts the readers into the early lives of Sudha and Narayana Murthy, it also attempts to take the readers into a journey of how their childhood life lessons and values instilled shaped their adult life. It definitely puts everyone in a framework of how India was also shaping itself in the different political climate and the background of families and culture.

This book isn’t just about two people. Rather, I would say, I felt richer in getting all the background scoop of how their lives were shaped up by so many incidents and causes.

Some quotes/ lines I would love to share from the book that have impressed me –

“To me, learnability is the ability that allows you to extract genetic inferences from specific instances and use them in new, unstructured situations to solve new problems. It’s far more useful than having knowledge, which can get outdated fast, especially in the rapidly changing IT industry. We’ll be going from country to country, developing new applications for new domains. What my team needs is flexibility to learn new things quickly and the ability to think nimbly.”

—

But on the way back, he began to think through his failure and delineated some lessons he could learn from it. The first was that a startup needed to be in touch with the senior management of a potential client rather than its mid-level or junior managers. The second was that Murthy’s presentation needed to strongly differentiate Infosys from its competitors both in technical competence and in business value – otherwise a large company would not take a small start-up seriously. The third was that the vendor had to demonstrate unusual strengths in areas where the customer was weak. 

—

When all possible options are eliminated, we must try the impossible.

—

Entrepreneurship has a human cost, and it is the entrepreneur’s family that pays it.

—

Overall, I have really enjoyed reading this book. Being a reader and an entrepreneur, it is definitely an eye opener. As a woman, it tugs the strings of your heart for you can empathize with Sudha and rationalize with Narayana. Do pick this book!

About the book –

Sudha Kulkarni was forging a career as TELCO’s first woman engineer when she met the serious, idealistic and brilliant Narayana Murthy, and they fell in love. For the first time comes the story of their early years – from their courtship to Infosys’s founding years, from their marriage to parenthood – told by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. What drew them together and kept them bound tightly through the challenges and loneliness they faced? What was it like to create a start-up during the licence raj, when there were no VCs, and entrepreneurship was regarded as a dirty word? How did Sudha Murty balance being a career woman, a mother and a start-up wife? How did Narayana Murthy’s obsession affect himself and his family? Taking us deep inside the minds, hearts and values of the Murthys, with exclusive access to them, Divakaruni tells their story with extraordinary emotional depth, bringing them and their worlds vividly alive. This book is about the sacrifices it takes to forge a powerful and lasting marriage, about the early story of Infosys and Indian business before liberalization, and most of all about two icons before they became the legends that transformed the fields of business and philanthropy.

About the Author –

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the award-winning author of 18 books. Her themes include the Indian experience, contemporary America, women, immigration, history, myth, and the joys and challenges of living in a multicultural world. Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies and translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Hindi and Japanese. She has won numerous awards, including an American

Book Award and the internation Premio Scanno Prize. Divakaruni also writes for children and young adults.

Her latest novel is Oleander Girl (Simon and Schuster, 2013). Her upcoming novel is Before We Visit the Goddess (about 3 generations of women– grandmother, mother and daughter– who each examine the question “what does it mean to be a successful woman.” April 2016, Simon & Schuster.)

Two of her books, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into movies. Her novels One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions have been optioned. Her collection of stories, Arranged Marriage has been made into a play.

She was born in India and came to the United States to continue her education, receiving a Master’s degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

She currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the Univ. of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of Maitri in the San Francisco Bay Area and Daya in Houston, organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women in abusive situations. She is also closely involved with Pratham, an organization that helps educate children (especially those living in urban slums) in India.

She has judged several prestigious awards, such as the National Book Award and the PEN Faulkner Award.

She lives in Houston with her husband Murthy and has two sons, Anand and Abhay (whose names she has used in her children’s novels).

About the Reviewer –

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Rajasthani Stories Retold by Rima Hooja (Book Review)

Most of the people who hear the word ‘Rajasthan’ have this romantic notion of a desert place with brave kings ruling the place. While that is fine, what we all need is the gathering of stories that go beyond just kings and kinship. Rima Hooja in her book ‘Rajasthani Stories Retold’ has picked up the untold stories, most of which even I haven’t come across in my long years of reading books!

What makes Rima’s stories different from the usual? This particular book touches upon stories that you might have not read in textbook history or commonly heard it. These stories pick on particular and peculiar incidents that somehow shaped a different historical narrative. Though partly fictionalized, it is all credit to the author that a reader can easily visualize what would have occurred and how they feel as the story progresses.

When we talk about warriors, we don’t just talk about men but also of women who have imparted a new direction to how the lives are supposed to be worth defending or fighting for. Loyalty, bravery and selfless love are all part of the package that Rajput heroes and heroines in these stories inspire. Even the most ordinary persons did extraordinary feats and their actions are recognized in these stories.

Overall, it was an immersive experience as a read as if the ‘time travel’ into past opened up rich stories to explore for me. I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves historical storytelling.

---

About the Book –

Rajasthan continues to fascinate the world for many reasons. Some of the more obvious ones include its colours, music and dance, venerable history, forts, fortifications, palaces, step-wells and old towns, and rich textile tradition. Rajasthan also brings to mind the vast tracts of golden desert to its north-west and west, juxtaposed by the scattered green and dust-mantle clad valleys, plains and hills of its south-east and east, with their rivers and rivulets and lakes.

Rajasthan is also famed for its rich oral and written traditions, drawn from mythology and religious tales as much as from the history of the area. The oral and written traditions are sometimes coloured by the blood of battles, sometimes romantic with the folk-remembered tales of Moomal, Dhola and Maru, Nihal-de, and often based on real-life tales of sacrifice and duty of valourous men and women like Maharana Pratap, Prithviraj Chauhan, Jaimal, Patta, Gora, Badal, Panna-dhai, Achaldas Khinchi, Durgadas Rathore and countless ordinary citizens.

Dipping into this rich heritage, this book brings to its readers a collection of short stories from Rajasthan. These are based on real people and events, but are somewhat fictionalised in the narration. The nine Rajasthani tales in this book are but a fraction of the amazing legacy of Rajasthan.

---

About the Author –

Archaeologist, historian, and writer Rima Hooja is Consultant Director (Library & Archives) Maharaja Swami Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur; Managing Trustee Jaipur Virasat Foundation; Editor Journal of Heritage Management; and Adjunct Faculty at Ahmedabad University’s Centre for Heritage Management.

She has been a Member of India’s National Monuments Authority (2011-2014), Director Minnesota University’s MSID India Program (2003-2014) and Faculty Director New York State Independent College Consortium for Study in India Program (November zeta-February 2016). A PhD from Cambridge University, Distinguished International Academician of Minnesota University, and Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, the author has held several academic posts and served on various governing boards, committees and councils.

Rima has several books, research papers, newspaper articles, and conference presentations to her credit. Known for her fondness for animals, she runs an organisation named Animal Care Trust, and currently cares for 80-100 cats in Jaipur. She occasionally also writes!

---

About the Reviewer –

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

Welcome to Hyunam-Dong Bookshop (Book Review)

If you think that bookshop owners are the luckiest because all they have to do is read – then you are in for a surprise! They do read; however not just that is all that makes them successful.

Go inside the bookshop of Yeongju and find out for yourself how the bookshop works. Who made the bookshop successful? The readers! But not just readers. You have to count on more than just readers.

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop!

While someone pegged this book as a love letter for bookshop owners, readers and publishers; for me this book was a sweet way to give anyone a glimpse into how a bookshop comes into existence. Setup in Korea, the geographical difference, the reading habits of the people and their thought processes are what drew me to read more of the story until it ended.

The story had me thinking about many aspects of bookstore owners and their lives. When you open a bookshop you are open to the lives of the people too. While a book is therapeutic, it can also put you in a fix about what to do next! The world of books is great but the real world needs the book owners to interact with people when they probably might not want to. When a bookshop opens, the economics of keeping it going trickles in. This story is not just focused on the bookshop but also talks about the people in the neighborhood who slowly become part of the book shop and the benefits it provides.

Some interesting quotes from the book –

“Books are not meant to remain in your mind, but in your heart. Maybe they exist in your mind too, but as something more than memories. At a crossroads in life, a forgotten sentence or a story from years ago can come back to offer an invisible hand and guide you to a decision. Personally, I feel like the books I’ve read led me to make the choices I’ve made in life. While I may not remember all the details, the stories continue to exert a quiet influence on me.”

“Life is too complicated and expansive to be judged solely by the career you have. You could be unhappy doing something you liked, just as it was possible to do what you didn’t like but derive happiness from something entirely different. Life is mysterious and complex. Work plays an important role in life, but it isn’t solely responsible for our happiness or misery”

---

Final Takeaway –

A soft, sweet yet realistically built up story of a bookshop owner and her struggles to come to terms with her life decisions. Asian parenting is something that attaches itself as a footnote to understand the way the protagonist behaves. I found this book a nice read.

---

Blurb –

The Korean smash hit available for the first time in English, a slice-of-life novel for readers of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of AJ Fikry.

Yeongju is burned out. With her high–flying career, demanding marriage, and busy life in Seoul, she knows she should feel successful, but all she feels is drained. Yet an abandoned dream nags at her, and in a leap of faith, she leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a small residential neighborhood outside the city, where she opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

For the first few months, all Yeongju does is cry, deterring visitors. But the long hours in the shop give her time to mull over what makes a good bookseller and store, and as she starts to read hungrily, host author events, and develop her own bookselling philosophy, she begins to ease into her new setting. Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that connect them all, she finds her new story as the Hyunam-dong Bookshop transforms into an inviting space for lost souls to rest, heal, and remember that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start again.

---

About the Author–

Hwang Bo-reum studied Computer Science and worked as a software engineer. She wrote several essay collections: I Read Every Day, I Tried Kickboxing for the First Time and This Distance is Perfect. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is her first novel, which has sold over 150,000 copies in Korea and been sold into 9 territories. Before its release as a paperback, the novel was initially published as an e-book after winning an open contest co-organised by Korean content-publishing platform ‘Brunch’.

---

About the Reviewer –

Reviewed by Kavita Jhala, Founder of Kaffeinated Konversations – a Bibliophile, writer and artist. You can reach out to her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin. If you want your book to be reviewed, drop an email to kaffeinatedkonversations@gmail.com

IRO Litfest – The Rewards for Reading

On 10 February, Hyderabad witnessed a unique festival. Literature festivals are not unique in India anymore. What’s unique is the approach towards literature. Food 4 Thought Foundation has created a new benchmark with the Reading Olympiad that creates readers from a very young age. 

What is the Food 4 Thought Foundation?

The Foundation in its 7th year is keen to promote reading habits among the urban children and youth who have access to books but have lost interest in reading and encourage individuals / institutions who selflessly promote reading habits in their own way across India

What is IRO?

IRO Lit Festival (ILF) is a platform to promote reading habits in a formal and informal setting among urban children and youth besides creating an avenue for book clubs (ABC – Association of Book Clubs) to meet and discuss issues about book clubs, members and readers.

IRO (India Reading Olympiad) is a platform that enables, encourages, and endorses an ecosystem that creates active reading spaces & joy for reading and appreciates the efforts towards igniting a reading revolution across 13 categories by an independent jury. The broad objectives of the IRO are to Encourage reading habits and enable Joy of Reading at large, Encourage and appreciate individuals, groups and institutions that promote reading and Inspire citizens to become lifelong readers & book lovers.

What happened at IRO 2024?

The Lit Fest 2024 had the following programs:

1.     The Reading Decathlon

2.      ABC – Association of Book Clubs (Group Discussion)

3.      IRO (India Reading Olympiad) Awards

On 10^th February at Birla Planetarium, Hyderabad, students from Classes 9^th to 12^th took part in the IRO Reading Decathlon. 6 schools from across India were in the final round. These schools were from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Shillong, Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya. The competition was spread across 10 rounds. These rounds were based on different forms of reading like Intensive, Extensive, Skimming and Scanning. The Winner was Seth M.R. Jaipuria School, Lucknow followed by Glendale International School, Hyderabad as the first runners-up and Zydus School of Excellence, Ahmedabad as the second runners-Up. 

Adopt a Library has always been the first initiative of Food4Thought Foundation

The 2nd part of the IRO Litfest consisted of the greatly engrossing discussion by

ABC – Association of Book Clubs. 7 Book Clubs from across India participated in group discussions on below topics: 

• Challenges and Opportunities for Book Clubs in a Digital World 

• How to Increase Membership and Monetize Book Club

All the book clubs expressed their solidarity in the fact that the pandemic had put a dent on their activities pushing them into the digital stratosphere. Ms. Vandana Bhagra from Keekli Times, Shimla expressed the fact that though she never wanted to monetize, it gets increasingly difficult to sustain without a good funding setup. Ms. Kavita Jhala from Kaffeinated Konversations, Indore mentioned that having a setup in a way that the hybrid model ie. offline and online both need to be implemented works wonders. Yet, the book clubs need to first rally in all their audiences that are scattered across different geographies, ages and even social media platforms. So digitally though this is  a boon, it is a huge task to put everything on the table and work smoothly. Ms. Deepal Adhikary Joshi, Between the Lines Library, Indore also pointed out that it makes sense to seek membership actively to sustain. One has to be online and offline to balance everything and make monetization a priority to keep the passion going.  Mr. Prakash Purohit, Ahmedabad Book Club, Ahmedabad suggested that the collaboration between book clubs can also work wonders for pushing the book club promotion and activities on digital platforms. 

While many more points emerged in the discussion, it was a great gathering of minds who are passionate about the affairs of minds ie. books. 

The Book Clubs and their Founders

The third part was the IRO Awards 2024 wherein 12 categories were declared for awards while the 13th category was a Jury Award. 

Some award-winning initiatives worth mentioning here:

Ghoda Library by Shubham Badhani from Nainital is a unique project in which he carries books on horseback to the inaccessible hilly areas of Uttarakhand to provide books to people.

Keekli Times in Shimla is run by  Vandana Bhagra, ignites the joy of reading in young minds through innovative workshops and activities. They have a dedicated newspaper which is a very committed endeavor to showcase literature.

Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur strives to preserve the ancient scripts in their original formats. They have unique script books that are worth seeing and remembering and a visit is a must to see the richness of our writing culture. The library received the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Agna Yami is a UKG student. But don’t let that fool you! She is an avid reader at such a young age and has written 30 poems and has published them as an anthology book too! She won the I am Bond Under 18 Award. 

(R to L) Kavita Jhala, Deepali Adhikary Joshi and Jigna with Agna Yami

There were many inspiring stories from Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Chattisgarh, Mumbai, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Kerala.

            The Winners in various categories of IRO 2024

It was an illuminating, igniting and inspiring litfest that respects culture, tradition and the idea of ensuring the continuity of literature for the purpose of ensuring a better future based on our rich past. Special thanks to Madhavi Sharma, Director of Food4Thought Foundation for gathering resources to open the avenues of the people to be more outspoken about literature and learning through this wonderful litfest initiative. 

(Written by Kavita Jhala with thanks and special inputs from Deepali Adhikary Joshi)