The Blog of Small Things

  Name : Amazon Kaadugalum Sila Perazhagigalum Author : Vinayaga Murugan Year of Publication : 2020 Genre : Non-fiction, Essays, Society, Politics Rating : ** * (3 stars out of 5) A collection of essays published in different periodicals from 2015 to 2019.  The author has a flair for simple and engaging writing regardless of the domain covered. The topics covered are diverse : NEET to Godmen, IT sector to Chennai floods. There is an obituary too, to add to the eclectic nature of the collection. The author works in the IT sector and brings an unique perspective to social issues.  He worries about how the present lot of youngsters are intellectually challenged . His worries can be addressed if youngsters start reading good prose - like the author's.

Name : Bengal 2021 : An election diary Author : Deep Halder Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Politics Rating : ** 1/2 (2.5 stars out of 5)   In a short volume , Deep Halder converses with multiple actors in the Bengal society across class, caste and religion trying to make a sense of the arena before the battle of 2021. He unwittingly reveals where his faith lies by an all-round attack on the Mamata regime without covering a single good story about her administration. He ends the book asking  "Is it just me or is the sky a shade of saffron?". The election results have proved otherwise but the failure in psephology is compensated by some passages of engaging anecdotage.  

Name : How India Votes ? Author : Pradeep Gupta Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Politics, Psephology Rating : ** (2 stars out of 5)   Ace pollster Pradeep Gupta distils 7 years of gyan on election analysis into a short tome. The best parts of the book with original insight are wherein he explains as to how his team wrongly predicted a DMK win in the 2016 polls because of lesser women participation in the exit polls. Despite the author's ability to derive such conclusions, the book peters out with it's bias towards Narendra Modi. The author mentions that "Human Psychology +Sociology is Psephology" but the book reveals more of the author's personal psychology than sociology.