The Blog of Small Things

Name :  A.R.Rahman - Naveena Indhiya Thirayisayin Adayalam   Author : Vijay Mahendiran     Year of Publication : 2019     Genre : Non-fiction, Cinema , Music     Rating : **(2  stars out of 5) To write on a person who prefers to talk through his music and whose music has already been analysed threadbare in multiple books and blogs is a tough ask . Vijay Mahendran suffers from the same problem. That he is a true Rahmaniac is evident from the fact that he spends as much time on "Vandicholai chinrasu" as he does on "Dil Se". But that does not really make the book a great read. Beyond passion and hard work, there is magic in A.R.Rahman's music . No book on Rahman thus far has recreated even 5 percent of that magic.

Name : Aaha...rasigan Author : Bala Ganesan     Year of Publication : 2020     Genre : Non-fiction, Cinema     Rating : ***(3  stars out of 5) The author has emerged from the world of Facebook ,notorious for it's ephemeral attention spans. Writing for an audience who will scroll down to the next post in the news feed if the first line induces a yawn has helped the author develop an engaging narrative style. The book's aim is to trace an introductory outline of the Tamil superstars from the point of view of the fans who eulogize them. If the author stays away from Facebook and does solid research from original sources, he can write an even more definitive history of Tamil Cinema. He has the flair. Hard work will help him grow.

                                                            Name : 2019 : How Modi won India Author : Rajdeep Sardesai     Year of Publication : 2019     Genre : Non-Fiction, Politics     Rating : ** (2 stars out of 5) Rajdeep's strengths are his access to leaders and reportage. That,combined with a page-turning narrative, makes this book a topical read for followers of Indian politics. The drawback, as in other Rajdeep's books, is that his capacity to debate and analyse ideas is nowhere near to his flair for describing events. Also, he writes this on Amit Shah : "The truth, as often is the case, could lie somewhere in between deifying him as the ultimate election guru and demonizing him as a roguish villain". Not being able to take a clear stance on someone as polarizing as...

Name : Ants among elephants Author : Sujatha Gidla     Year of Publication : 2017     Genre : Non-Fiction, Caste, Memoir     Rating : **** (4 stars out of 5) The author's poignant retelling of her own family story serves as a primer on how the timeless scourge of caste has been eating into the soul of modern India. Sujatha spares us from theory as she knows that the life stories involved are fodder enough to make an arresting narrative. The early promise which Communism held in the heady post-1947 days and the irony of how enthusiastic youngsters who dreamt of revolution backed out when called for guerrilla warfare are both beautifully captured. One can tell a country's story by telling the story of all it's people but here by telling the story of a single family, the author aims to tell India's story. An elephant of a book among so many ants being published.

Name : Malevolent Republic : A short history of the New India Author : K.S.Komireddi     Year of Publication : 2019     Genre : Non-Fiction , Politics, History     Rating : ***** (5 stars out of 5) This short debut work is a hard-hitting recap of the Indian story and warns us of the dangerous turns our republic is taking today. The author's classy turn of phrase makes the book a must read. (Example : "The future of the state was mortgaged to the presumption that Indians would continue to respond to history's unresolved knots with the same self-possession as the republic's founders"). The book chronologically documents the dismemberment of the republic by it's leaders since independence with special focus on the present Prime Minister. The author's warnings regarding a temple in Ayodhya and Article 370 have already come true since the book was published. The book is a Indian version of Orwell's "1984" except that Komi...

Name : Thottiyin Magan Author : Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai (Translation by Sundara Ramasamy)     Year of Publication : 2000     Genre : Fiction , Novel     Rating : **** (4 stars out of 5) Sundara Ramasamy's brilliant translation work of Thakazhi's novel on the lives of manual scavengers in Alleppey during the early decades of 20th century. The novel is striking in it's explicit language which makes privileged upper class readers (like me) squirm. Every character -be it Sudalaimuthu or Sundaram or Pichandi- leaves you with unforgettable pain. The novel also underlines the roots of communist politics in post-Independence Kerala. It has been decades since this novel was written but what was relevant in Kerala then is still relevant in other parts of our country showing how good literature transcends time and geography.

Name :  Flood and fury Author : Viju B     Year of Publication : 2019     Genre : Non-Fiction, Environment       Rating : *** (3 stars out of 5)               The book's release coincided with the first anniversary of the catastrophic 2018 Kerala floods . The book's "success" lies in the fact that it keeps arguing that the 2018 floods is not an one-off event and sadly,the book's release was greeted with the second bout of floods and landslides in consecutive years.  The author travels across the entire stretch of Western Ghats ( with special attention on Kerala) and comes up with a panoramic view of how human interventions have led to such ecological damage. He intersperses painful stories of disaster with positive anecdotes of local communities and NGOs striving to rejuvenate the Mother Earth. The book is poorly edited with lots of typos and repetitions but that is mere nitpicking. T...