Digi's Blog

  Achala Moulik's novel "Rogues Among the Ruins" is not a fictional novel, in case the synopsis gave you such an idea. It is essentially a pure non-fictional tale in the guise of a fictional novel.   PLOT There isn't one single plot. It is basically an amalgamation of a few incidences from our country's history, beginning from pre-independence era to post-independence era. The focus here is on how corruption invades all forms of professions and all strata of the society. The novel begins with an archeologist named "Elangovan" describing in first person his experiences during the British rule. Later on, Elangovan's son Raman carries forward the account in first person how he experienced the various events during his tenure and experiences of his colleague. There are a lot of familiar names during this phase – Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Arun Jaitley & Ram Jethmalani (Towards the end), and you really enjoy watching the proceedings throug...

  A general question to everyone who reads a lot of books – what is the first thing you look whenever you read a book from a new author? There are going to be a lot of answers – plot outline, genre, etc etc.   For me, it always was and it will always be the author's command over language. And that is why I loved Nachi's debut novel "Death of a District Magistrate".   PLOT It is a murder mystery just as the synopsis promises. There has been the death of a renowned district magistrate and it most likely appears to be a suicide. Or is it? As the story unfolds, we realize that things are murkier than what they appear. Watch how the protagonist "DSP Arjun Iyer" solves the case.   WRITING STYLE Narasimhan Eswar chooses to use the pseudonym "Nachi". I still remember that time when this author known as Chetan Bhagat made his debut. And everyone was gaga over the fact that he wrote a book so relatable, he was an investment banker who quit ...

You can listen to the entire playlist on Spotify  HERE Despite the persistence of COVID in 2021 and despite the mix of majorly OTT releases and a few theatrical releases, 2021 was a pretty good year for music lovers. Here is a list of my top 30 songs from Hindi films.  The first 10 songs are ranked according to my liking. The remaining 20 are in no particular order. This list only contains songs from films released in 2021, with the exception of "99 Songs" which I had already included in my list of favorite songs of 2020.   1.    Thode Kam Ajnabi (Pagglait) (Himani Kapoor, Arijit Singh, Neelesh Misra)   The best thing about 2021 was Arijit Singh making his debut as a music composer for a full music album. He had composed a song here and there, but with "Pagglait", he made me respect and adore him even more. The fact that he thanked A.R Rahman when he released the OST is evident. What a mindblowing soundtrack he delivers – including the instrumenta...

  As mentioned by the author Rammesh in the preface, even I was wary initially as to how did the guy manage to find FIFTY Indian war films, that too good ones. But then I started recapitulating, and I realized there were quite many.   As soon as I laid my hands upon the book, I immediately checked the "Contents" page to see which all films the author had included. There were times when I smiled satisfied seeing a few expected names pop up. There were times when I read the movie name and realized – "How did I not remember this film!"   WRITING STYLE, LANGUAGE & GRAMMAR Author Rammesh's writing style is grammatically correct and immaculate. I particularly liked how he designed this scoring system for each films based on a lot of criteria. To be honest, being a bollywood fan myself, even I had never analysed a war film with such precision and detailing. The way he categorizes the points to be seen in a war film are excellent. For example, the authen...

I have been following Mayank Shekhar since the last many years. I have always liked his writing and his bollywood film reviews. He is one of the few Indian film critics I like primarily because he reviews the "product" and not the "people" associated with the "product". (Unlike many so called reviewers and film critics who vomit out their personal hatred towards a particular actor/director in the review.)   And so when I came to know about this book written by him, I was only happy to read it. Major chunk of the book focuses on bollywood, so I had hardly any reason to complain,   being a hardcore bollywood fan myself.   The title of the novel itself evokes nostalgia – "Name, Place, Animal, Thing". The kids of today's generation who are perennially glued to their mobile and laptop screens would hardly understand the sheer joy of playing this game called "Name, place, animal, thing" during a free period in school on the last p...