Chanakya's Chant

This book had promise when it began and spoke about Chanak, one of the greatest minds India once produced. Then it spoke about the present day Chanak, Gangasar, who was portrayed as an ingenious individual with a answer to every question.
The book was only interesting when it went into the parallel ancient world. I expected more but after a point it took a boring stance and started to get dragged. 
Sanghi made it look so easy for a person in India to become a CM and eventually the PM of the second most populous country in the world. I developed a feeling of being taken on a ride by the picture of India being portrayed by Sanghi. Gangasar remained invincible for a major part. Now that's fairy-tail in a fiction.  
This book would make a perfect Bollywood Masala film and this doesn't fit my choice of reading. 
People have loved this book and some have equally hated it and I fall in the latter category who must have left the book unfinished.
What i found amusing was  a man in India hires contract killers in London to kill. Alright, it might be possible but I couldn't find logic on certain occasions. 

To Kill a Mocking Bird - Harper Lee

This book delves into the lives of 2 normal children Scott and Jem. Scott being the narrator of the book takes us into the world of children and how they view the unreasonable world that holds its prejudices against a certain race and certain class of people while stereotyping each other. She points out how people criticise the deeds of others yet fail to introspect and change the way they voice their opinions. The book also shows how some people are reclusive out of choice since they fail to understand the ways of the world.

Scott takes us through her journey of summer time plays, the innocence with which they script a play based on Boo Ridley and how intriguing a subject it is for them and how she is always desires to meet Arthur Ridley. The first half of the book revolves around the children and the ideas they device to lure Boo out from his mysterious abode and shows the evolution of Scout into a more mature girl as the book progresses.

Jem on the other hand along with Dill are in their growing phase and the book highlights the different moods of Jem. One day he is caring for his sister and on the other reprimands her for irresponsible behaviour.

Atticus commands a certain presence in the book and when seen from the eyes of Scott, he has proved himself to be an ideal father for the world to see who single handily raised his children. He comes across as a taciturn but a was an opinionated person who never hid his view about unnecessary killing of Blue Jays and his empathy for the Negros and all the other unprivileged.

As the book progresses it shows how children are subjected to scorns from the neighbourhood because their father took up the case of Tom Robinson. The latter part of the book is infused with a plethora of emotions that leaves the reader concurring with a lot of events that still persist in our present day society. There was this instance where, next morning after the case, Atticus is taken to the kitchen by Calpurina and is moved by the kind gesture displayed by the Negros of that town. That I felt was the most touching part of the book for me.

To Kill a Mockingbird though a very simple book, in terms of narrative hits the bulls eye with its concept of showing the world through the eyes of innocence and keeps you enthralled all the way. Not once did I feel like skimming through nor did I feel the need to take a break. The flow of the story and the lingering presence of mystery throughout makes this classic a must read for everyone.

The Last Mughal By William Dalrymple

The Last Mughal is a book which has been synchronously written and the usage of the language makes it a book that can be read without any hiccups.(looking up a dictionary for meanings) 

The facts put forward by this book are in complete contrast to what we know about the rising. The inclusion of cow and pig fat played a pivotal role but there were many factors that influenced the uprising which in popular tails fails to highlight.(great emphasis on conversion to Christianity for one)

The style of writing is beautiful, providing accounts of both the English and the Indians and the perils they faced and the hardships both the sides were put through during the uprising. This book from the start has been informative which sometimes was not easy to ingest. The slaughter of the English residents and the subsequent slaughter and war crimes that were carried out after the English took over Delhi. The killing of English children and women by the sepoys and the heartless act of Hodson to execute all the princes and then publicly hanging them after having stripped them, for 3 days are a few instances of the horrendous acts that took place in Delhi during the uprising.  

This book had all the important tales:  to save their skin a father in law and personal adviser bring about the end of a family that ruled India for 350 years, a wife plots against her step sons and the other wife(Taj Mahal) of Zafar to make sure her son ascends the throne and is declared the legal heir. How a King is as helpless and is a puppet in the hands of a few advisers, distant relatives and dominating Sepoy forces. 

At the same time he also showed the Indecision of a few English Generals who would have succumbed under pressure, if not for a few brave soldiers. Dalrymple made sure all the trivial details such as what happened to all the Mughal treasure and their wealth, the excerpts of a few Indian refugees who had escaped was mentioned along with the life of the royals in the aftermath of the siege.

The book has been all about the writing and the presentation of the facts in such a neutral manner that as a spectator you know whose acts were immoral and who was a victim of the wrongdoings of someone. The book also sheds light on the abject helplessness of the royals and the state of women in the aftermath(excerpts from Ghalib's memoirs). Dalrymple has also shown, how indecision and equivocation resulted in a free fall of whatever was left of a glorious empire.

Ambivalence is a sin while receding from a promise is even worse.

For those who want to learn a great deal about the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny this is the book which provides a very neutral perspective and is captivating at the same time.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

This book published in 1955 was scorned at for its very controversial subject and has ever since been in the  eye of the storm. This book for me was no way an erotic book. Yes, it has a lingering presence of child abuse throughout the book but it is after all a book about Love and Longing for a person.

I felt the protagonist H.H was not a heartless pedophile but a man who was scarred by the death of his childhood sweetheart, Annabel and looked for her among the children who played in the gardens and that gave him a sense of satisfaction and he wished to court them as he had once wished to court his Annabel. He seemed to have gone crazy and having grown into a man was still in love with his KID girlfriend and hence his tendencies.

The first part of the book was splendid and it kept me interested as to how he reached USA and found Annabel in Doloris. He had finally fallen in love again with Annabel, but a mere reincarnation of her as a 13 year old girl. H.H was indeed insolent as in one of the lines he says that he would court Lolita only for 3 years and then court the children she gives birth to. The way he traveled  all around the country with her and the way the author made sure that the entire USA was put into words for the readers to virtually live it through his book. But then those intricate details were stretched for far too long in the second part.

The second part lost the sheen and the glue the first part provided me with. The book started to get dull but it was still contained by a good piece of writing. This part paved a way for the development of insecurities in Humbert and how he wanted to keep Lo for himself and consisted of a little bit of  mystery as to who that man was. It also shows in one of the lines that Lo who initially hated Humbert and the love they made had started to accept that it as it was the only option she had and portrayed that she enjoyed it.l(she is always at loggerheads with H.H, being a teenager that's understood and also assuming the fact that she was molested by H.H, trauma and mental imbalances also could have been a case.)

Coming to the end I felt H.H was initially just being a man who loved Annabel and longed for her and eventually found her in Doloris. Not wanting to loose her(Annabel) again he hired a detective to look for her(Doloris/Annabel). He had fallen in love with a girl who he wanted to spend his life with. What else would explain his killing instincts and the offer he made a pregnant Lo, while crying?

Neither did he court a girl nor abused one after Lo left him, rather settled down with Rita.

Overall this book promised a great deal when it started but the fire eventually fizzled out by the time I reached the end and it again picked up before the book ends.

I loved the entire plot but the book seemed not something I would re-read. It is no doubt a classic and to explore such a topic in that time Vladimir Nabokov needed guts and that he possessed.