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.

  Name : Collector Bro Author : Prasanth Nair Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Memoir Rating : *** (3 stars out of 5)   Prasanth Nair, a pioneer in IAS who made a "bro" out of the otherwise distant "Collector saab/sir/ayya", debuts with this memoir detailing his experiences as District Collector, Kozhikode. 2015 was a year when avenues of social media like Facebook were waiting to be tapped as a tool in effective administration and Prasanth arrived at the right time converting Facebook posts into amphitheaters for displays of public compassion.  The book is at its best when it talks about the people of Kozhikode . His smartness shines through whenever he couches stories about his own ingenuity in a self deprecatory tone. The illustrations are so good that they steal the thunder from the writing at times. Young readers dreaming of a career in IAS/IPS will definitely enjoy this short and breezy read .  The pageant of the Kerala cadre of IAS is a rich on...

Name : Jugalbandi Author : Vinay Sitapati Year of Publication : 2020 Genre : Non-fiction, Biography, Politics Rating : *** (3 stars out of 5)   Vinay Sitapati's sophomore work on the Advani-Vajpayee duo is a delightful mix of anecdotage, research and engaging story-telling without judgement. He unearths nuggets of information which cannot be found elsewhere : How the crowd started to cheer Vajpayee's name when Advani was about to announce BJP's prime ministerial candidate in 1995. The book's best parts relate to the 2002 National Executive wherein Modi captured the imagination of the cadre despite Vajpayee's reservations. As evident in his book on Narasimha Rao as well, Vinay's strength lies in his ability to focus on engaging trivia without losing focus on the larger picture. Followers of Hindu Nationalism should first listen to the music of "Jugalbandi" before diving into scholarly prose.

Name : Velvithee Author : M.V.Venkatram Year of Publication : 1963 Genre : Fiction,Novel Rating : *** (3 stars out of 5) M.V.Venkatram weaves sociology with relationship dilemmas in this novel. Set in times when the Congress is giving way to DMK, it beautifully captures the lives of the Sourashtrian weavers' community in Kumbakonam. Kannan, the protagonist, rises in life due to his single-minded hard work but is thrown off the tracks by a woman outside his marriage. While the plot has huge potential, it shines more as social commentary than an effective novel which strikes an emotional chord.

  Name : Karunanidhi : A Life Author : A.S.Paneerselvan Year of Publication : 2021 Genre : Non-fiction, Biography,Politics Rating : **** (4 stars out of 5)   In his seminal "India After Gandhi", Ramachandra Guha underlines the need for good biographies of great regional leaders. A.S.Paneerselvan's deeply researched of M.Karunanidhi is one such work. Karunanidhi's previous English biographies failed to capture his multi-faceted personality. Vaasanthi is too besotted with Jayalalitha to do justice in her book while Sandhya Ravishankar's work is a light one skimming the surface except for allegations of corruption.A.S.Paneerselvan is sympathetic to the causes espoused by Karunanidhi and the book is a must read for non-Tamil readers who have thus far understood Tamil Nadu only through the Brahmin-Savarna lenses of "experts". Karunanidhi's epitaph reads : " He who toiled without taking rest is resting in peace here". The hard work involved in th...