Opening Chapters

Anita Nair is one of the prominent authors in the Indian publishing scene today. The first Anita Nair book I picked up was Idris, published in 2014. Idris is a historical fiction novel. She is also known for Lessons in Forgetting, The Better Man and Mistress to name a few. Sometimes, a book comes along that devours you as much as you devour it. I started reading Eating Wasps as soon as I got it - how could you not, with a title and a cover like that?  EW begins with a first-person narrative of a woman called Sreelakshmi - a writer who had been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award at only 30 years old - she is dead. Sreelakshmi’s character committed suicide - the locals who know about her and didn’t know about her begin to talk about why did that. “The speculation was as dense as the grief.” After the cremation of her body, Markose - Sreelakshmi’s secret lover - digs through the ashes, finds a piece of skeleton that once was Sreelakshmi and keeps it for himself,...

Taken from balabhaskar.in On Tuesday, 2nd of October 2018, Malayalis and other Indians across the world woke up to the news of musician Balabhaskar's death. Just a week prior, they woke up to the news of the car crash that took his daughter's life on the same day.  I woke up later than usual today, the 2nd of October being a holiday. I woke up and scrolled through Twitter only to see that Mohanlal had shared a video of Balabhaskar playing Kanneer Poovinte from one of Mohanlal's most prominent and moving films, Kireedam . The song in itself is a sad song - and while it is one of my favorites of Mohanlal songs from the 80s and 90s, I listen to it on rare occasions because such is the power of that song to move you to sadness.  The violin is a beautiful piece of instrument. When I was 9 years old and had gone to summer camp, I had learnt to play it - although I did not continue once summer ended for a myriad of reasons. My first encoun...