Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood, takes us into the struggles of an oft overlooked region of India – the people of Nagaland.

By Rohini Haldea

I have always been somewhat shamefaced about my lack of knowledge and insight into the politics and history of the part of India one usually thinks of as a bunch of small states collectively referred to as ‘The Northeast’. I have always wanted to know more, but paucity of time and a brain simply too overloaded to take on a bunch of lengthy non-fiction tomes has kept me from doing anything about it.

And so, when I was offered a chance to read and review Bitter Wormwood, Easterine Kire’s historical novel set against the backdrop of the Naga struggle for independence, I jumped at the chance to find out more about the Nagaland story.

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In the ‘Author’s Corner’ series we shine the spotlight on promising first-time female novelists. Hope you enjoy reading some fun facts about them!

Kick-starting the series is Judy Balan, author of Two Fates; the breezy story about a clashing couple always at loggerheads with each other and their journey to getting divorced.

If you had not become a writer, what would you have been?

I’m an all or nothing person and don’t believe in alternatives. Like I always say – I’m the single mom who quit her job without a Plan B, without alimony and with a 2 year old in tow because at that time, all I knew was that I had to quit my job. But then, it worked for me. So I really can’t see myself doing anything else. Who knows, maybe I would have made T-shirts with “clever” lines such as – I took the road less travelled and look what happened!

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Anita Agnihotri’s Seventeen, a collection of short stories, many from India UnShining, delights with its insights into human nature. 

Review by Aparna V. Singh

Seventeen, a collection of seventeen short stories by bureaucrat-writer Anita Agnihotri (translated from the original Bengali by Arunava Sinha) is an illustration for any aspiring short story writer on how fiction can begin in fact and yet not be limited by it.

Agnihotri draws inspiration for many of her stories from the have-nots of this country – the landless peasants, the migrant workers, the abandoned wives, the unemployed. Yet, she does not fall into the trap of ‘reporting’ – this is fiction that serves better to illuminate India UnShining than most ‘factual’ pieces could.

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A murder mystery starring a bored housewife, Kiran Manral’s The Reluctant Detective, works well as a light read with self-deprecating humour.

Review by Unmana Datta

Don’t go into Kiran Manral’s The Reluctant Detective expecting a detective story on the lines of Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple. The two murders in the first couple of chapters are almost incidental to the story, narrated by and starring a bored suburban housewife, Kay Mehra, who, driven partly by boredom, partly by curiosity, and partly out of her wish to see justice done, looks into the murders she encounters.

If you go in expecting the story of a somewhat bored, somewhat flurried housewife with what appears to be low self-esteem, a marriage which has long since lost any vestige of romance or meaningful communication and an exhausting and often repulsive five-year-old… that’s exactly what you get.

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Sharell Cook’s Henna For The Broken – Hearted, is an interesting personal account of an expat’s life in India; an alternate perspective could have lent better balance. 

Review by Rakhee Ghelani 

Sharell Cook is the woman behind the popular blog, Diary Of A White Indian Housewife. Her debut novel, Henna For The Broken – Hearted is about her move from a comfortable middle class life in Australia to India following the dissolution of her first marriage. The book starts by outlining the events that led to the break-down of her marriage and the effect of it on her personally.

To recuperate she goes to India to volunteer and falls into the arms of a man who would later become her husband, Aryan. The course of true love never runs smoothly, and her relationship with Aryan takes a few more turns before it brings her to India permanently.

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Why does infidelity happen? Are Indians today more adulterous and less moral? Vijay Nagaswami’s 3’s A Crowd attempts to answer.

Review by Aparna V. Singh

There is a general perception that infidelity is on the rise today. There is also much hand-wringing one comes across in public discussions and private conversations that young Indians today are less “moral”, less committed to a once-sacrosanct institution.

In this context, well-known psychiatrist and counsellor Vijay Nagaswami’s 3’s A Crowd: Understanding and Surviving Infidelity is a welcome addition to the small selection of popular literature on relationships in India. Most work on relationships in India is either simplistic self-help manuals or research-based writing meant usually for an academic audience.

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Taking witty digs at the Indian psyche, Cyrus Broacha’s The Average Indian Male makes for a fun and entertaining read.

Review by Anne John

When you pick up a book by Cyrus Broacha, you already have an idea of what to expect; non-stop chatter loaded with sarcastic humour, at times making sense, at times making no sense whatsoever – and at other times making it difficult to distinguish between the two! The Average Indian Male, is no different – it is quintessential Cyrus.

The book is divided into two parts, with the first part in the form of letters from people aggrieved for some reason or the other, by the average Indian male. Delving into the many ‘unique’ qualities of the average Indian man, be it a cloying devotion to his mother or his disgusting bathroom habits, Cyrus analyzes several aspects that make men typically men, and provides some ‘enlightening’ answers to them. The second part, in the self-explanatory words of the book, consists of ‘The Incoherent Thoughts of an Average Indian Male’, where Cyrus muses about ‘important’ issues such as the tendency to smother ourselves with talcum powder and the phenomenon of  ‘phamily phrends’.

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Meenal Baghel’s Death In Mumbai researches in-depth the Maria Susairaj-Emile Jerome murder case without overloading on sensational details. 

Review by Anjana Basu

The story has everything – an apparent femme fatale in the shape of a Kannada starlet with cognac eyes, a TV executive with a roving eye and a steely naval cadet and violent death in a bedroom all set against the backdrop of Mumbai. In fact, if it weren’t a true story, it would have been the stuff blockbuster films are made of.

The tragedy of Maria Susairaj, Neeraj Grover and Emile Jerome hit the headlines in 2008 with its gruesome details – Neeraj hacked into pieces by Emile and Maria and his body buried in the jungles of Manor. Three young ambitious people with apparently bright futures in front of them brought together in a crime of passion. In her preface Baghel writes, “Here were three people blessed with many favours through their lives — they were young, educated, each talented in their own way, beautiful, and from comfortable middle class backgrounds. What dark undercurrents in their personalities drew them to one another?”

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Balasaraswati – Her Art & Life celebrates one of the most renowned Bharatnatyam dancers, indeed, a messiah of this art form in the 20^th century. 

Review by Lavanya Sampath

In the book Balasaraswati – Her Art & Life, Douglas M. Knight Jr. has documented the life of noted danseuse Balasaraswati, and in turn has taken us through the various eras of art and culture that emerged in India in the late 1700s, 1800s and 1900s.

Balasaraswati came from a professional matrilineal community with ancestral roots that spanned across a millennium. Her ancestors were professional artists who adorned the royal courts of the most thriving dynasties of their times – Thanjavur and Thiruvananthapuram.

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Manjul Bajaj’s Come Before Evening Falls, tells the story of a forbidden love and the destruction that Khap Panchayats can cause.

Review by Manmeet K Sahni

Manjul Bajaj’s Come Before Evening Falls is set in a pre-independence village of Haryana named Kala Saand. She has tried to capture the realism of rural India by taking up issues such as honour killings, same-gotra marriage and feudal inheritance. At its heart, the story is of a lovelorn couple, Rakha and Jugni. Belonging to the same ‘gotra’, their love is dangerous in a land where Khap Panchayats and honour killings are prevalent. Jugni’s fear is well depicted through her terrifying nights, filled with graphic images of ‘men with lathis’, ‘kerosene lanterns’, ‘flame torches’ and herself ‘hanging by the tree’ with her family reputation in shambles.

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