KhepiAri

Book Review: The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman and illustrated by Tom Percival Quote: The robbery was not without consequences. The consequences were the point of the robbery. It was never about money. The thief didn't even ask for any. That it happened in a bank was incidental. Can we take a moment and appreciate the cover! The only reason I picked this book from my friend Ashwin's bookshelf; the cover and the adorable illustrations inside. The Tiny Wife is a modern-day fable, it definitely is a weird and witty book! A perfect short distance read. It's the story of Stacey and David, Stacey gets robbed in a bank, where this flamboyant purple hatter robs an item of sentimental value from victims. David, Stacey's husband narrates the story, a smart narrative choice: a spectator and commentator. Each of the victims has their own 'shit' to deal with after the incident. Dawn's lion tattoo springs into life! Grace's husband turns...

Book Review: Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain? By Saroj Pathak Quote: But Poorbi was impatient. She was a woman alone, and men were never very trustworthy. If she could once and for all wear the wedding sari that would bind Sambal to her for good! She didn't care about caste or class. The trouble was that she had lost all joy in the red of wedding sari; there was no other reason why she felt h esitant. An anthology of twelve translated stories that Stree published almost two decades back. My interest grew in the book when one story, The Vow was selected for an upcoming Reader. But due to space and budget crunch, we had to drop it later. Originally written in Gujarati, Saroj Pathak remains one of the first Indian authors to delve into the psychological and social strains the men, the women and the society go through. From divorced women to unmarried women to women in an extramarital affair, all sorts of character from lower to upper-middle-class society get a glimpse. Sh...

Book Review: My Pet Human by Yasmine Surovec Quote: It took me a while to master "the look," but it's essential to getting what I want from humans. And let's just say, I always get what I want. I mean, who can resist this face? I'm adorable! Meet Mr. Independent nameless cat, who knows it all! He knows how to avoid animal control, how to get scraps from cooks at restaurants, climb tries and avoid human toddlers. And oh he loves boxes. The blurb of the book is what made me part with my money. A cat seeking a human pet: who must feed him a lot of treats, give back rubs, supplies boxes, plays with him and loves him Infinitely. Soon this independent cat befriends two humans who have just moved into the empty house at the end of the line. Curiosity get hold of him, he ends up becoming the little human's only friend and her mother soon warms up to him. They give him baths, feed him tuna and cuddles, and he in return claws meows in the night and shove...

Book Review: Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell and illustrated by Simini Blocker Quote: More like...skipping ahead. If you like someone, you should have to make an effort. You should have to get to know the person--you should have to work for the first kiss. Almost Midnight is the story of Mags and Noel, it's a glimpse into their lives through that one day of the year, for the next four years. On every 31st of December Noel and Mags go Alicia's house for new year's eve party and every year Mags refuses to dance with Noel, and Noel always kisses different girls at midnight bell. We see them through these snippets, Mags and Noel are thick as peanut butter sandwich, and Noel is allergic to nuts so Mags is his proxy food tester. The brownies and lasagnas he can't have, Mags eats them all for him. She is always on alert about the food he is gouging on. They have a close intimate circle of friends, Simini the shy, Pony the tall emo, Natalie, Frankie, Cornor...

Every year the goddess with ten hands comes to visit the tribe called Bongalies. A tribe spread all over the world, loves eating sweets, fish, rice, and words. The goddess comes as daughter leaves as the mother brings a lot of emotions and excitement in the B genes. With her comes the headache of shopping and pandal hopping. None of which yours truly enjoys. Not only the goddess visits her family, she brings her children, her pet, and her children’s pet. My house is quite the human representation of that divine family. Our mother is as ferocious as the goddess, willing to kill and bite and rip for her children, flowers and pets’ sake. She has two daughters one who loves, let’s say anything related to material possession. Another who believes in burying herself in fiction to avoid public interaction. Again, my mom’s elder daughter has a handsome and short-tempered son-in-law who fills the vacancy of goddess’ war faring son. My mother doesn’t have a lion, but a Persian ...

Three months back Jerry Pinto was reciting on how we humans clutter and crystallize with each other based on our prejudices. Even the most educated and liberated mind have a queer screw which never bends on an idea. Our prejudices are the secret screenshots our friends enjoy. Sometimes in the company or on the online platform, we let our mind roll and like a Djinn in the bottle, our prejudices make an unwanted statement. Four days ago, as I sat inside my pre-heated blue bus and waited for the driver to unroll the shirt down his hair nipples and pot belly and press the clutch with his slippers, some pretty girls took the front seats beside the driver and chatted away in their own tongue, a tone similar to my ears but meaning scarce to my ears.  The bus driver out of the sense of shame roll downed his shirt and smiled at the girls, exposed hairy chest are not everyone's wild fantasy. Two women dressed in sarees, sitting before me observed the friendly driver talking...

As I settle on the cozy bed, I can see and sense, some of us are preparing bottles to pop up at the stroke of midnight, some are just waiting for an eventful year to just get over. My virtual friends are making a Year Review Video on Facebook, my best friends are with their lovers and dear ones sharing photographs on Instagram, my fandom reader friends are drunk on nerdiness. For a human who is more alive on her virtual space, the world is a view through her Instagram page, a whisper within 140 characters on twitter, an emotion disguised in a status update, sadness the reaction button. All these virtual actions are fictional in the rational eyes, they are not touchable or kissable. Yet they exist, they exist on the other side of the screen. I woke up from a siesta dream today, in it, I was cooped in a room, everything was Blue and White but nothing is alive. Everything typed on the virtual screen was getting erased, every photograph I uploaded were getting whitewashed, ever...

[Another Bloagathon! This is for Women's Web  Finding Mr. Right Stories competition in tie up with the Woo App ] Love has been a constant in this blogger’s life, I have always been in love with the idea of love. Fueled by Mills and Boons initially, I always wanted a Tall, Dark, Handsome lover, well I was fifteen when I read my first Mills and Boon, the shift to Tall, Fair, Handsome Vampire happened quickly at sixteen, and I wanted a blood sucking creature for my husband. While Elizabeth Bennet said yes to Darcy, I sighed and imagined myself in her gowns and laces! Oh, how much I love those silly novels by lady novelist and how much I waste my monthly allowance on them!  The Twilight hangover had made a racist out of me and I would hanker after any cute fair guy with decent height! It was always the lips of the guys that caught my eyes first. By the time, I reached enlightened eighteen my eyes searched for Jang Keun Suk alike, Suk is the perfect blend of husk...

For almost six months City of Joy has become by my new address, the addressee finds the city overwhelming and loud, populated and confused, filled with rude yellow cab drivers and helpful blue bus conductors. It is both logical and magical, basically an irritating place but none the less very homogenizing in approach. One can find a street named after every other historical figure, except Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin we have Ho Chi Min to Lenin at one random nook. Navigating through this city is hard yet funny, going to my darling college is a journey of its kind. Fortunately, we have the metro which is efficient unlike this lazy city. Travelling through metro has bought to my sight hilarious scenes from everyday life, from a pervert being publicly shamed to an old man getting off at wrong station, in five months four eyes of the addressee has seen a lot. Often the addressee has been part of tragically comic scenarios herself where wrong exits have made too many cameos. In th...

(This blog post is written for the Blogathon competition hosted by Women's Web in collaboration with the Maya App, copy the link-> http://www.womensweb.in/2016/10/periodpride-blogathon/ or click on the hashtag #PeriodPride ) In whispers and giggles it had entered our ears 'a girl had bled', a bleeding girl is lonely, but a herd of bleeding girls is celebration. A girls first blush is celebrated in Assam as Tuloni Biya, she is kept inside the house for three days, on the fourth evening she is decked up as bride and a great feast is organised, it’s a coming of  age ceremony, a celebration of blooming into a woman, a tradition both praised and frowned upon. Growing up in Assam had made me attend many Tuloni Biyas, though my own close friends failed to invite me in their own celebrations [traitors]. Being a Bengali I never got my own feast, Bongs are on the hushier side of washing the bloody undies in public. This ritual is celebrated by the whole community; i...

First time I saw a mannequin is a memory lost in the Ocean. My major encounter with one happened when I was around seven. I was visiting my paternal home during summer vacation, on one particular horrible summer day my family had decided to go shopping. That was where I met a doll that was my size and wearing a metallic brown skirt, I fell in love with that skirt at first sight. Poor doll was also wearing a bottle green sleeveless tee, the greedy me desired that too. Shopkeepers found me exact copy-paste of the brown skirt, but when it came to the tee, they didn’t have another in stock. They bought me white full sleeved white shirt with red flowers, a yellow collared shirt, a pink frilly blouse, but I wanted that bottle green tee. Meanwhile my sister, mom and dad had selected their clothes; I was still stuck on the green tee. My love for green has been dominant trait since childhood; those were first strikes of my green-insanity. I made the shopkeepers bent to my demand, ra...