Shiva Trilogy - Amish

Immortals of Meluha & The secret of the Nagas.

What a lovely simple story.  And such an easy read that I could finish reading both books in less than a month, while keeping an eye on my 9 month old.

What I found interesting is that author has taken various mythological characters and places and come up with an entirely new story about them. Well, not entirely new, cuz it does has some references with the mythology. But still it’s a different version altogether.

The name of the series is based on its protagonist Shiva - who is worshipped today, but was a mortal some 4000 years back who did great deeds. It’s a story about good - evil and how they are the two faces of the same coin. It’s a story about faith, courage and righteousness.

 It is fun to read and the suspense element keeps you hooked. Some of the events do get predictable though and you can see them coming as the narration progresses. Eagerly waiting for the third part to come out – The Oath of the Vayuputras.

From The Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple

Okay I have taken record time to finish this book. And I am not be blamed for that. Actually this is not at all an easy read. Need to concentrate while reading and being a busy mommy that I am, I took 4-5 months to actually finish it. Anyway about the book now.

This travelogue has history, historical monuments, religion and conversations / stories of various people. William Dalrymple has tried to retrace the path travelled by John Moschos long back during Byzantine era and has tried to compare the world then and now. He has visited various religious places and monuments mentioned in the book. He is researching the current situation of Christianity in Levant area [The countries bordering on the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Egypt], once a dominant religion in this region seems to be on a descent now, not to mention the dwindling Christian population. So he has talked to various people in this entire journey, trying to understand the problems they faced then and in today’s time.

Little Rann of Kutch

Was just going through some of my old pics and thought of uploading these couple of them from Rann of Kutch. I made this one day short trip more than 1.5 years back and these pics bring back fond memories :)

We had reached Ahmedabad via an overnight train in the morning and after a shower and breakfast started for Dhrangadhra by road. It was noon by the time we reached there and after a short nap headed for the salt dessert. Neither the driver of our jeep was acquainted to the place nor there were any directions marked so it took us a while to find our way. Besides Little Rann of Kutch not being as famous as its counterpart The Great Rann of Kutch, nobody could really understand why we were making a big fuss in a small place like  Dhrangadhra. I still remember the way our driver was asking directions in his strong Tamilian accent : Rann ma jana hai :-)

Full tilt - Dervla Murphy

A sole woman's journey - pedalling across Europe and Asia, taken at the age of 31. The very description made me long to read this book. But considering the enthusiasm I had, the beginning proved quite a dampener. This book was not easily available in Indian markets and I finally got a copy from Flipkart after a long wait. And once I got my hands on it, I could barely wait to begin with it. However few chapters through the book, I was thoroughly disappointed to see that Dervla had finished writing about the first part of the journey from Ireland to Iran in just one chapter. Hardly any details were provided and there was minimum chronology. Random reminiscences formed this first chapter. And to be fair, she didn't really pedal all the way cuz of snow, as was the impression given from the description of the book.