CAUTION: VANARS AT WORK!
Here’s a sneak peek at the cover of the UK edition of Bridge of Rama: Book 5 of The Ramayana, to be published in December by Time Warner Books UK under their Orbit imprint. Clicking on the image will take you to the Amazon UK page where you can pre-order a copy. Those of you [...]
“The Name is Ahlawat, Mohit Ahlawat”: Film review of James
RGV (that’s Ram Gopal Varma to you) revealed two things about this film before its release that had me, a longtime RGV fan, blinking madly: James was the first project RGV developed purely as a vehicle for an actor–in this case, newcomer Mohit Ahlawat, whom he was convinced was star material. And secondly, that he [...]
Up The Earthsea, Without A Paddle: Review of Earthsea miniseries on DVD
In the late Seventies and early Eighties in Bombay, India, (long before it became Mumbai, India), it was hard to get science fiction books. The few bookstores we had barely more than newstands and they kept a strange amalgam of non-fiction and the perennial pulp bestsellers that were such a staple here: Carter Brown, Nick [...]
Sozzled in Solzhenitsyn-land: Book review of Vodka by Boris Starling
Most crime novelists write like spinners on Atkins. Lean, mean tales of tough talking and even tougher thrills in a familiar setting. That’s cool when you just want a quick fix. A crime thriller or mystery that delivers familiar thrills on familiar turf. But read enough of those and you find yourself craving for a [...]
Getting ‘LOST’: Review of Season 1 on DVD
New TV shows tend to follow a year or two behind their US telecasts here in Asia. (I’m based in Mumbai, India, but the English-language channels are mostly telecast by satellite from Hong Kong.) They have a small but loyal following, and when I say ‘small’, I mean that in Indian or Asian terms. In [...]
Sex & The Indian Author(ess): Why Some Desi Writers Handle Sex So Well In Their Books…And Some Don’t
Another old Footsie column from The Daily Pioneer. Sex and The Literary Woman Not all Indian English writers are bad at sex after all, in fact some are pretty damn good–and it’s no coincidence the best just happen to be women On hearing that fellow journalist Sagarika Ghose was writing a novel, Tarun Tejpal threatened [...]
Skeletons in the Writer’s Closet
This is another of my old Footsie columns from The Daily Pioneer. FOOTSIE Ashok Banker About the Author–and his mistress too While everybody’s out reading Tom Clancy novels and the prophecies of Nostradamus in an attempt to deal with the worldwide changes after last week’s attacks on the USA, here’s a book that may help [...]
Falling Down: Journalism in an age when everything is for sale
This is an old Book Chaat column that first appeared on Rediff.com. BOOK CHAAT by Ashok Banker It Takes Balls Fallen Heroes is the first of a new breed of non-fiction that’s here to say, feels Ashok Banker FALLEN HEROES 497 pages Paperback Buffalo Books/tehelka.com Rs 350 They say there are only two kinds of [...]
The Spirit of Bombay Past: Book Review of Saleem Peeradina’s The Ocean In My Yard
This review first appeared in HT. The Ocean in My Yard Saleem Peeradina Penguin India; 230 pgs; Rs 250 Books on Mumbai are rare; books on Bombay are even rarer. The Ocean in My Yard is that rarest of rarities: a well written book on Bombay, the city that was and in some ways, is [...]
“All geniuses are plainly mad, Banker is madder than most”: M.V. Kamath’s Review of the first three Ramayana books
This review first appeared in The Free Press Journal, Mumbai on 7th August 2005. An Epic tale to suit modern tastes by M.V. Kamath Prince of Ayodhya: Book One; Ashok K. Banker; Penguin Books, Pages 517; Rs 295. Siege of Mithila: Book Two; Ashok K. Banker; Penguin Books; Pages 522; Rs 295. Demons of Chitrakut: [...]
Yours, Unfaithfully: Talking about Infidelity with Neena Gupta (and others)
This is a column by me that appeared maybe five years ago. Back in my prolific, column-a-day phase, when I was unable to make ends meet by writing novels (before my Ramayana) and column-writing and book-reviewing was preferable to hacking it for the film and TV worlds. Although, to be quite fair, I did do [...]
Gurus of Contemporary Crime Fiction (Part 1): Michael Connelly
I first met Hieronymous Bosch (Harry to those who know him) at Lotus House Books, Bandra. At that time, Lotus was in its original location, in that kopcha behind the furniture store and the petrol pump. Before the flyover came and the slums and road diversion made it impossible to access the store. I was [...]
Small Acts Of Betrayal: A short story
This is one of my SF short stories. Not one of my best, but then again, I rarely think that anything I write is worth publishing–or even worth reading! But it was interesting to write. I began it with the intention of writing an SF story that was set aboard a space ship and had [...]
Why We Hate Bhadralok Who Make It Big Abroad
This one’s a piece from a weekly column–one of several–I used to write. This particular column was called Footsie and it appeared in The Sunday Pioneer, edited by Chandan Mitra. It was one of the last columns I quit and one of the only columns I actually regretted stopping, not only because Mitra is an [...]
Chala Morari Horror Phillum Bananey: How to make a Hindi Horror Film Even If Your Name Isn’t Ramsey
This article first appeared in The Mahazine, a multimedia magazine on CD-Rom published in India some years ago. It was apparently the first of its kind. During its brief lifespan, I contributed articles, interviews, and a serial novel to it. The serial novel was a fantasy titled The Vortal. I still have most of the [...]
