カテゴリー: Fiction Asian

★★★★☆ “Song offerings” to god by Indian poet Tagore. It opens your mind and heart to another layer of the world, away from the everyday rush life.

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Gitanjali
Rabindranath Tagore, 1910
48 pages
Read 2024.7


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The famous Gitanjali.

It's a poem so inevitably it loses the beauty when it's translated.
I also looked a bit at the Japanese translation but it was better than the English version.

"Song offerings" to god, so I'm unfortunately not familiar with the sentiment as I don't know much, but it is nice and beautiful to read.
It opens your mind and heart to another layer of the world, away from the everyday rush life.

First Asian to receive a Nobel Prize.
He had a warm relationship with Japan and Japanese artists, but he was very critical of the Japanese nationalism in the 1920s and eventually stopped visiting Japan.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Gitanjali (Pocket Classics) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Gitanjali

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Poesie: Gitanjali-Il giardiniere (Italiano)

★★★★★ His adolescence, friendship and first love, like any stories of this kind, but the sense of not belonging was too real and obvious, he really did not belong. A bittersweet love for his home, India.

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The Room on the Roof
Ruskin Bond, 1956
184 pages
Read 2024.08


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
First long novel I read of Ruskin Bond, and his first novel when he was still a teenager.
 
It talks of his own youth, of being a white English boy raised in India and not belonging anywhere. 
His adolescence, friendship and first love, like any stories of this kind, but the sense of not belonging was too real and obvious, he really did not belong.

Bittersweet, under the Indian sun the boy is undeniably in love with India, his home.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Room on the Roof (The Originals) 

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Room on the Roof (The Originals)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La stanza sul tetto (Italiano)

★★★★☆ Nepal and Diaspora, sense of not belonging where they live. Far from home people’s tradition and customs are distant memories while the feelings for home gets stronger.

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The Gurkha's daughter 
Prajwal Parajuly, 2013
280 pages
Read in 2024.09

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The Gurkha's daughter 
Prajwal Parajuly, 2013
280 pages
Read 2024.09


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A collection of short stories of people who have different ties to Nepal.

It's about lives of people living in diaspora, sense of not belonging where they live.
To begin with, 
Nepalese people in Darjeeling area have a different sense of home, and not necessarily uniformed. 
And how about Nepalese in Bhutan who got kicked out to Nepal?
Or Muslim from Bihar in Kalimpong? 
A guy from Darjeeling in New York who's never been to Nepal?

The stories are subtly harsh and sad but not exaggeratingly dramatic, just like real lives of real people, they carry their own inevitable drama and the longing, between tradition and practice and sense of home.
Nice short stories.

🔽 Where to buy 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Gurkha's Daughter: shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Gurkha's Daughter: shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas prize

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★★ These stories vary in the theme or genre, might be a love story, or a ghost story, or about family or friendship. It shows how expansive his talent is, but more significantly his stories are about honest, humble, and poor people.

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Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore, 1886-
India
372 pages
Read 2023.04


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
I have read about how great Tagore's works are, but until you read them, experience them, you don't really know, of course.

There are many of "selected works of" kind of books, this one is from Fingerprint in India.

These stories vary in the theme or genre, might be a love story, or a ghost story, or about family or friendship.
It shows how expansive his talent is, but more significantly his stories are about honest, humble, and poor people. 
That is why after more than 100 years they do not get old and continue to touch people all over Bengal, India, Asia and beyond. 

Some stories stand out more than others to me, like "The river stairs", "The Cabuliwalla", "The son of Rashimani", "The master Mashai" "Living or Dead", "Fair neighbour"

🔽 Related pages 🔽
“Chokher Bali” Rabindranath Tagore, (1903) Review | Tragedy from India

“The Spirit of Japan” Rabindranath Tagore (1916) Review | Short but meaningful

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore
(Not the version I read, but this is available)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore (English)

★★★★☆ Collection of stories associated with wise words passed down from Avvaiyar (a female poet from Tamil), female to female. Wisdom and warmth of the ancient India.

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My grandmother's tweets
Geeta Gopalakrishnan, 2018
India
340 pages
Read in 2023.07 


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Another book gift when I was in India. 
It tells little stories associated with wise words passed down from Avvaiyar (a female poet from Tamil, southern India, from 12th century), female to female.

It's not something to read like a story, something to open time to time to enjoy the nice little stories, 
It's a collection of little famous or historical, or legendary quick stories, so not really something to read all in one go, but something to go back to time to time.
Wisdom and warmth of the ancient India.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

My Grandmother's Tweets: Inspired by Avvaiyar's Ancient Wisdom

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
My Grandmother's Tweets: Stories Inspired by Avvaiyar's Ancient Wisdom

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
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★★★★☆ Selection of short stories from India’s great author. Most of them are bittersweet; like it’s almost a love story but not quite, it ends before it begins, so brief that it’s almost a dream.

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Falling in love again 
Ruskin Bond, 2013
India
197 pages
Read in 2023.04


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Compilation of short stories, of love from one of the most important Indian writers, he turned 89. (now in 2025 he's 91)

They are written in different stages of the author's life, and his stories seem very personal.
Many of the main characters' names are Ruskin, or Rusky, and they are based in Himachal, so it's not difficult to imagine that they are based on his childhood or youth.
Most of them are bittersweet, like it's almost a love story but not quite. 
It ends before it begins, or it's so brief that it's almost a dream.

Some stories are in the train, maybe on the same line, or one of his beloved, Sushila, reappears in another story, many of his girls simply disappear - yes, just like a dream.

🔽 Related pages 🔽
Ruskin Bond A room on the roof

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Falling In Love Again:Stories of Love and Romance

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Falling In Love Again:Stories of Love and Romance (English)

★★★★☆ Set in 1920 Bangalore, a freshly married housewife goes around the city to solve mysteries. Nice locations and  food – a nice little crime novel for India lovers.

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The Bangalore Detective Club
Harini Nagendra, 2022
292 pages
Read in 2022.12


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Set in 1920 Bangalore, Kaveri only recently married to a doctor and was expecting a quiet life, instead she goes around the city to solve a murder. 
A bit of tension with British is always a good pinch of spice.
There are some treats, of famous locations in Bangalore and food - a nice little crime novel for anyone who's interested in India.

What's a bit unusual is that the author is an ecologist, so with her background like that I'm more looking forward to reading her other books.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The Bangalore Detectives Club (The Kaveri and Ramu Murder Mystery Series)

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The Bangalore Detectives Club (The Bangalore Detectives Club Series)

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
The Bangalore Detectives Club (English)

★★★★☆ Exciting as I expected. So raw, so angry, seem so nonchalant but has full of energy, just like today’s India and their youths. It’s so easy to dismiss India merely as a place to get enlightenment and exotic etc, but this is also the reality.

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The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga, 2008
336 pages
Read in 2021.04


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

Netflix was starting the film, so I had to get the book first.

This was as exciting as I expected. 
So raw, so angry, seem so nonchalant but has full of energy, just like today's India the world imagine.
It's so easy to dismiss India merely as a place to get enlightenment and exotic, but this is also the reality, it's where people live and try to go further than what their parents achieved, just like any other place in the world.

While it's raw and its people all tangled up, they know their places, like caste, it's in their skin.
It's similar to Japan in a sense that this is Asia, just that Japan doesn't have that big proportion of poor or extremely poor which makes this story more exciting and energetic.

As our protagonist predicts here, in his lifetime all white men die out and brown and yellow men rule the world - might not be that far from truth.

The Netflix film was also good, with Priyanka Chopra, as great as ever, of course it doesn't have the Bollywood dance or music but it has the energy, power and the different music to pump up the story.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

The White Tiger: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
The White Tiger: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
La tigre bianca (italiano)

★★★★☆ A beautiful widow. She cannot give up her pursuit for happiness. Chokher Bali, the sand in the eye, she disturbs everything she touches and disappears. A strong sense of un-happiness.

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Chokher Bali
Rabindranath Tagore, 1903
298 pages
Read in 2022.03


🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

My first Tagore.
This is actually popular that it's made into film and TV series in India.
The sentiment is close to what they have in Japan: husband-wife relation, mother-son, or even mother-in-law and wife, it's something many in Asia can easily understand, and cannot avoid.

Then comes the beautiful widow.
Despote "her place" as a widow, she cannot give up her pursuit for affection and happiness.
Chokher Bali, the sand in the eye, the annoying thing, she arrives and disturbs everything she touches.
And like an eyesore, before you know it it goes away and the life is back to normal, the witch is punished.

Her happiness was taken away because she's a widow, she brings bad things.
Could they ever blame her?
A strong sense of un-happiness.

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Chokher Bali

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Chokher Bali

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Choker Bali (English)

★★★★★ In India, under British, Opium farming leading up to the Opium War. That’s already enough for me to like the book even without even opening it. Then, you meet some interesting strong characters. It’s gripping, a grand storytelling.

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Sea of Poppies 
Amitav Ghosh, 2008
559 pages
Read in 2025.12

🔽 Book review and notes 🔽

I'd heard of it for a while and finally, finally started and instantly it was obvious, this is one if those great books.

In India, under British, Opium farming leading up to the Opium War.
That's already enough for me to like the book even without even opening it. 

And immediately you meet some interesting strong characters.
Deeti who had a miserable married life, Paulette and Jodu and their unique friendship, a delicate Raja, Zachary who leads us into the mesmerising journeys.
They all meet on Ibis the slaving ship, all carrying their own destinies - it's as intense as it sounds.
Some of detailed descriptions of ship and sailing are hard for me to follow but that doesn't stop me from getting excited at every page.

It's a trilogy so there are 2 more books to go to give the full view on the story but so far, it's gripping, grand storytelling.
Need to read 2 and 3 soon.

🔽 Related pages 🔽
tag インド/India

🔽 Where to buy / Summary and more info 🔽

●●● Amazon.com (US) ●●●

Sea of Poppies

●●● Amazon.co.uk (UK) ●●●
Sea of Poppies: Ibis Trilogy Book 1 Kindle Edition

●●● Amazon.it (Italy) ●●●
Sea of Poppies: Ibis Trilogy Book 1 (English)