The Blog of Small Things

  Name :  After the funeral/ One, two, buckle my shoe/ Murder in Mesopotamia Author : Agatha Christie Year of Publication : 1953/1940/1936 Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction Rating : ****/***/** (4,3 and 3 stars out of 5, respectively) Hercule Poirot is in the thick of things again solving crimes in the country, dentist's clinic and an archaeology dig at Mesopotamia. "After the Funeral" is the last Great Christie in terms of vintage mis-directions and well placed clues. "One, Two, Buckle my shoe" is good but the politics is silly and the connection to the eponymous poem is contrived. In "Murder in Mesopotamia", the characters are not well-developed thus serving the single purpose of hurtling towards the inevitable climax of Poirot conjuring the magic solution out of thin air.

  Name :  Three Act Tragedy/Death in the clouds/The Hollow Author : Agatha Christie Year of Publication : 1935/1935/1946 Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction Rating : ***/****/** (3,4 and 2 stars out of 5, respectively) 1930s was the decade when Agatha Christie was in her prime, reeling off one blockbuster whodunit after another. "Death in the clouds" published in 1935 is vintage Christie set in an aeroplane wherein an "improbable" crime has happened and Hercule Poirot employs his little grey cells to crack the case. "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) is again a cleverly plotted Christie but the first murder in the novel is more of Christie showing off that she has found another new motive for murder than plausible story-writing. "The Hollow" (1946) could have been a complete novel even without Poirot or a murder - the characters are so well written and the sub-plots make for a good romance. The flaw is that we do not enter Saravana Bhavan expec...

  Name :  Myth-busting : Indian cricket behind the headlines Author : Gulu Ezekiel Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Cricket Rating : *** ( Three stars out of 5) Any Indian cricket fan will explain why Kapil Dev's immortal 175 not out vs Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup was not recorded on video : BBC workers were on strike that day. This is a standard quiz question across the country. Gulu Ezekiel painstakingly ties the loose ends and proves that the BBC strike is a myth and the reason for the innings not being available on video is something more prosaic (Read the book to find the reason). Another example is how when the word Viv Richards is mentioned, we think of the swagger, the gum-chewing big man walking out without wearing a helmet. The author tries to unearth circumstances when even the Great Viv wore a helmet. These are two examples from a delight of a book which finds meaning in the otherwise mundane and celebrates the game. When a person purely loves a f...

  Name :  Stargazing  Author : Ravi Shastri Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Cricket Rating : * 1/2 ( One and a half stars out of 5) A successful cricketer-commentator-coach writing a book of short pieces on his favorite cricketers is  a great idea. Sadly, the idea does not get converted into magic on paper as the author dishes out one glorious cliché after another. Even the anodyne demi-God Sachin Tendulkar got critical of Greg Chappell in his autobiography but Shastri steers clear of even a single critical remark throughout. Kohli is "intense", Dhoni is "cool", Laxman is "stylish", Steve Waugh is "tough", Mark Waugh is "gifted", Gower is "elegant".. The  cliché fest is endless. A good book should linger long after reading but to borrow the author himself, this book will go out of our minds "like a tracer bullet".

Name :  400 days Author : Chetan Bhagat Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Fiction, Novel Rating : * 1/2 ( One and a half stars out of 5) After initial successes, the best-selling author was saddled with lack of creativity and was forced to cook sugary romances with socio-political commentary for dessert. Then, he resorted to whodunnits with an upper caste Holmes and a fatso as Watson. This formula actually worked as his crime plots were grounded in contemporary upper-class Indian society providing a window to how India lives even as the crime detection happened in parallel. Unfortunately, this new book lacks the thrills, the red herrings are too obvious and the romance (like in all his other novels) is an excuse for sex. Chetan Bhagat has potential to write Bollywood screenplays but unfortunately, the number of copies his novels sell (contributed to by this reviewer, as well) make him still believe that having a story plot is literature.  

  Name :   Vaazhndhavar Kettal Author : K.Na.Subramanyam Year of Publication : 2011 ( This edition, Original year of publication is before 1960 or so) Genre : Fiction, Novel Rating : ***( Three stars out of 5) The author digresses into philosophical musings rather unnecessarily but the core plot of a fallen city, a fallen family and a fallen man is deep. The story has the nature of a mystery as to why Raghu hates the Mammeliyars viscerally. The final twist is rather bland but the title assumes a new meaning in the end. My favorite line in the novel comes at the end, translated here loosely as "I did not regret that he died; I regretted that he had to live and go through so much".

  Name : Bullets over Bombay Authors : Uday Bhatia Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Cinema Rating : ***( Three stars out of 5) Uday Bhatia's "behind-the-scenes" book on how the 1998 classic gangster film "Satya" was made focuses on the intricate details without losing the historical perspective. There are two long chapters on the Indian gangster film and the Bombay/Mumbai city film which meticulously document every film or even moments from history. The audacious vision of Ram Gopal Varma, the maverick director who succumbed to mediocrity in later years , the realistic filmmaking and the juicy anecdotes (like how the legendary "Mumbai ka King Kaun" cliff scene lasts just thirty seconds not because of any cinematic preferences but due to Manoj Bajpayee's fear of heights) all come together seamlessly in this history-meets-trivia-meets-love for cinema tome.