Words From Vaish

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman                                HarperCollins Publishers 2017                                                                       386 Pages Norman Bates of Psycho infamy had to live with the malign specter of “Mother” that drove him to murder. The eponymous Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine similarly labors under the ghost of poisonously murderous “Mummy” – but copes rather better than poor Norman ever did. At lea...

I once rented an apartment in a pleasant residential block of flats in Dwarka sub-city, National Capital Region. The residents’ homes there were all equipped with washing machines that took care of the laundry. However, that still left the problem of the ironing. The busy working couples inhabiting the society seldom had the leisure or the stamina to perform this seemingly minor chore at the close of an often exhausting day. And as neatly pressed clothes were essential for a smart turnout in the office, the Residents Welfare Association misguidedly gave the contract for providing this service to a burly, surly native of eastern UP. Barrel-chested, with an incipient paunch to match, this gentleman gave the impression of resenting this employment as being beneath him. This was much too low; he was destined for greater things – which unfortunately never materialized (like Achche Din ). This resentment found expression in his “work”; he accepted clothes for pressing...

A Murder On Malabar Hill Perveen Mistry Investigates Sujata Massey Penguin Books 2018                                                426 Pages There are some “whodunnits” that greatly benefit from a strong sense of place such as Sherlock Holmes’ fog-shrouded Victorian London of 1897 and the 1930s-1940s California of Raymond Chandler’s private eye Philip Marlowe.  Sujata Massey’s excellent A Murder On Malabar Hill set in 1920s colonial Bombay (now Mumbai) is just such a work. The sights, smells and sounds of this period are so richly evoked that this novel has the heft and feel of an epic, rather than just a simple mystery. The teeming city - with its evocative architecture and cuisine, its social interactions, complex ethnic politic...

War At The Edge Of The World Ian Ross Head Of Zeus 2015                                       387 Pages The long twilight of the Roman Empire during the period of late antiquity continues to exert a peculiar fascination on historians, novelists - and the reading public. Ian James Ross is the latest entrant in this field, with his military adventure War At The Edge Of The World set in Roman Britain during the twilight of the Tetrarchy (305 AD) and before the rise of the Emperor Constantine. The Tetrarchy was the reform inaugurated by the Emperor Diocletian in which the Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western provinces for administrative convenience, each ruled by an Emperor assisted by a junior colleague.   This system of four co-emperors held good for over twenty year...

Looking down the slope, I could see the tiny figures of the people who’d opted for the short flight. Their parachutes were spread out behind them like saris drying out on a dhobi ghat . Their pilots were connecting the rigging lines to the tandem harnesses they’d use for paragliding. My family was somewhere down there but at that distance I couldn’t distinguish them from the ant-like figures milling around. I’d opted for the medium flight that could extend anywhere from seven to ten minutes. This required taking off from a higher altitude. A sturdy, shaggy hill pony had taken me up most of the way. Despite the smelly animal’s sure-footed way over the narrow mountain trail, I’d been apprehensive of falling off; especially when it balked midway up. The guide had encouraged me to whack its sides with my legs and that seemed to work. I had no wish to share the fate of the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve, who ended up a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse. Luckily, th...

The Dog Defenders “The dogs have gone to their kin, the sons of dogs,” growled the Pathan scornfully. He had reasons for his displeasure. The prowling pack of pi-dogs that patrolled the main portal of the fort ranged in colour from a dirty jaundice-yellow to the dull khaki of the native regiment that manned it. These animals made surprise attacks and incursions difficult. A long time ago, a kindly cook from a bygone regiment had set out boiled leftover scraps from the cookhouse in a large terracotta plate for the dogs. This individual act of charity had since become a tradition set in stone. In the customary way of the Indian Army, cooks from the regiments that followed had continued the practice. They had even extended it, by adding a crude trough that was periodically filled with the dishwater left after cleaning utensils used in the mess. The dogs, while not allowed within the precincts of the fort, were very grateful for this particular amenity. Especially during ...

The Secrets Of Wishtide A Laetitia Rodd Mystery       Kate Saunders Bloomsbury 2017                                                              336 Pages England, 1850. Sherlock Holmes had the street urchin Wiggins and the Baker Street Irregulars to assist him in his cases. Frederick Tyson, a celebrated Victorian criminal barrister, has his sister, the redoubtable widow Mrs Laetitia Rodd. This relic of a much-loved archdeacon, the late Reverend Matthew Rodd, is not quite the harmless old biddy that she seems. Reduced to shabby genteel poverty by the passing of her husband, the resourceful Mrs Rodd avoids the usual fate of being a poor relati...