Title: Climbing The Mango Trees
Author:Madhur Jaffrey
Price:Rs 642
I have always been fascinated by Madhur Jaffrey.I came across this petite lady on one of her food shows while I was randomly browsing channels.More than the recipes shown ,the way she presented it all was so captivating that I began following the show .I can best be described as an armchair cook.
I love reading about food and food memoirs,so when I got to know that Madhur had written a book on her childhood,I immediately put it on my to- read list and I am very happy that I did.
Climbing the mango trees is an endearing account of a childhood in Delhi spent in pre-partition India.Madhur fondly recounts staying in an extended joint family,presided by her grand father,her relations with her various aunts ,uncles and cousins and her rendezvous with food.The lip-smacking food which she grew up having fond memories of remained forever imprinted in her memories.
I savored this book and was instantly transported to the Delhi Madhur lived in,years ago.I saw her climbing the mango trees in the orchard around her house,armed with a mixture of salt,pepper,ground chillies and roasted cumin,pick-nicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and tucking into freshly fried pooris.I saw her sampling the heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends,sneaking tastes of exotic street fare with her Mom before heading back home.
I shared her distress over partition ,which affected her very deeply.
Madhur comes across as a very independent,sensitive individual who loved uncovering her family's many layered history which she speaks of in the book without making it sound boring.She also speaks about her family's trials in the book but it is more about her happy childhood filled with the things she is fond of that makes for the most part.
At the end of the book Madhur gives more than thirty mouth-watering recipes which ,I have book-marked to try out sometime in life when I get out of my arm-chair cook mode.More than anything else,I loved the book for its sheer simplicity and writing style.In my opinion its a must-read for people who love reading food memoirs .I rate it a 3 out of 5.
Title: The Krishna Key
Author: Ashwin Sanghi
Price: Rs 250.
Let me begin by saying that I haven't read Ashwin Sanghi's 'The Rozabal Line' and neither have I read
'Chanakya's Chant',although I heard a lot of good things being said about the latter.So his style of writing and story-telling was entirely new to me.When blogadda sent me this book,I couldn't wait to start on it.I finished reading it in two days flat.
The book started at a very fast pace,but slacked later on.Before I go on any further let me tell you a bit about the story.'The Krishna Key' is a racy thriller based on historical fiction intermingled with mythology.The search is for 'The Krishna Key',which is Lord Krishna's best kept secret.To do this there are 4 seals which need to be placed together on a base plate,left by Raja Man Singh which will ultimately reveal the secret.The book is based on deciphering the clues to find out where the object pointed to by the key is located.Prof Varshney a symbolist and linguist,who has all the clues and knows the secret is murdered.However he has been careful to send the seals to four of his close friends who are also researchers.But the story starts when these friends too start getting murdered.One friend in particular,Prof Ravi Mohan Saini is a prime suspect in Varshney's murder and he starts to try and decipher the mystery of the seals and thereby prove his innocence to the police and evade himself from being next on the murderers list.Helping him to do this is his post-doctorol student friend Priya.
This is the simple premise on which the book is based.
What I liked about the book is that it is racy in the beginning with a lot of twists and turns.Each chapter also starts with a small vignette from the Mahabharata, and so we have two parallel stories running together.What I found tedious,however is that there is loads and loads of historical research thrown about and spewed by every body from the researchers to a Don who has self -educated himself in history (rolling eyes). Undeniably the research done is commendable,but it ended up being too intensive for the reader in me.Also the Anagram's were taken a bit too far.At some point ,I felt there were a lot of similarities between 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'The Krishna Key'. However I don't hold a grouse against that.It was about time we had our very own Dan Brown.The ending was rather abrupt,I was expecting something dramatic,but maybe that's just me.
All in all the book was a good read,a different style of story-telling brought forth which was refreshing.The writing is lucid.It gave a new insight into history for the uninitiated like me.At one point it had me believing every word that was written.Does it prompt me to pick up his other books to read?Yes I will now read ' Chanakya's Chant',to see if I like it even more than this one.So I would say 'The Krishna Key' is worth a read and rate it a 3 out of 5.
About the author : Ashwin Sanghi is an entrepreneur by profession but writing historical fiction in the thriller genre is his passion and hobby.He holds a master's degree from Yale and is working towards a Ph.D in Creative Writing.He has written two more novels 'The Rozabal Line' and 'Chanakya's Chant' which shot to the top of almost every best-seller list in India within a few weeks of its launch.
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