Bengali short story in Bhashabandhan

One of my Bengali short stories was published in the July issue of Bhashabandhan.Bhashabandhan is a monthly literary print magazine published from Calcutta, edited by the award-winning novelist and poet Nabarun Bhattacharya (Herbert, Kangal Malshat). My story in Bhashabandhan is titled, Bokdharmik. Do get back with your feedback.

An Excerpt from a Could-be Novel in Eclectica

An excerpt from my second novel, which is still a  work-in-progress has been published in Eclectica (US). Eclectica is one of the oldest good-read magazines to be found on the web. You can read  the excerpt here (Scroll down the page that opens and click on Fiction)  The illustration that goes with the piece is by the Romanian artist, Costel Iarca. 

Review of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay's The Final Question (Shesh Prosno)

I recently reviewed this English translation of Saratchandra's last complete novel which was published this year by Penguin, India. The review appeared in Indian Literature journal published by Sahitya Akademi - India's national academy of letters. Here is a link to the review at my website. table style="width:194px;">








Book Review | `The Final Question' Saratchandra Chattopadhyay | Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi)

My review of Venus Crossing, Kalpana Swaminathan (Penguin, India, 2010)

My review of Kalpana Swaminathan's Venus Crossing was published in Sahitya Akademi's, Indian Literature  journal (No. 256, March-April, 2010). 


Glad to note that this book is on the shortlist of the Vodafone-Crossword Book Award (fiction) 2009. The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri and three other accomplished authors are on the shortlist. May the best book win. 


This is the fiction shortlist for the Vodafone-Crossword award:


- The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri – Picador India

-  Family Values by  Abha Dawesar – Penguin Books India

-  If It Is Sweet by Mridula Koshy – Westland India

-  Nothing Is Blue by Biman Nath- Harper Collins India

-  Venus Crossing: Twelve Stories of Transit by  Kalpana Swaminathan - Penguin Books India


I have posted a scan of my review of Kalpana Swaminathan's book on my website: 


This collection of a dozen short stories by Kalpana Swaminathan is not like anything you would expect from your average IWE (Indian Writing in English) title. Swaminathan’s surgical realism, if we may give it that name, makes a brave departure from the surfeit of baggy prose and exoticisation that has come to characterize a large part of fiction being produced by Indians in the English language ...
To read the full review click here or on the image below.

The Rainbow of Pain. Review of Venus Crossing, Kalpana Swaminathan (Penguin 2010) for IL journal

Short story in The Legendary

Delhi can get lonely in winter... More so for an outsider, as she comes face to face with well-guarded secrets of a middle-aged poet's life, behind the doors of the Atlantis bookshop. It gets even more curious when British royalty from across the centuries throw their hat in the ring ... My short story, The-Made-to-Order Muse published in The Legendary. To read the story point your browser at Issue 18, (June 20)  of The Legendary and click on Rajat Chaudhuri or go directly to my Author page. on their website.

Birds of our neighbourhood

Google and the April Fools

After logging out of gmail today many of us would have noticed the gmail homepage to have switched to an sms/mobile text message like lingo. Google says it's because of a vowel outage in some of their servers.

Obviously this is Google's April Fool's Day leg-pull. Not very imaginative this time. Last year (Google Paper) was better. Gt entrtnd!

Here is a list of the `top 100' April Fool's Day hoaxes of all times, from the Museum of Hoaxes site.