The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K Rowling

I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. I have read the series thrice and surely think will read again and again in the years to come. I had put off watching the movies for quite sometime and watched them only in an attempt to get my son interested in reading the series. But that is another story.

When I heard that J K Rowling was coming up with a book on a completely different genre, to say I was intrigued would be an understatement. How could the creator of the world of Harry Potter think outside that world!!!

I felt the initial interest in the book would be because it was authored by J K Rowling. It might even make it to the best sellers list, but may still be a not-so-good book. So even when I had got hold of a copy, I pushed off reading it for a few months. I was both right and wrong. Right on understanding the initial interest and wrong to think that it could be a not-so-good book.

So, when I began to read it was with trepidation. And for a long time, hundred pages or so I was lost. A small village of Pagford with this petty politics and average characters. A bunch of kids, a few dysfunctional families and on and on in the same vein. I simply couldn't understand what the whole point of it was. I continued plodding maybe because I did not want to give up on her yet, or my nature to finish a bad movie or book till its end and pronounce it worthless, or she managed to hold the reader in some sublime way.

I do not understand at what point and how, but the story got under my skin. I kept thinking about Kristal and Andrew and Cubby and Kay. I panicked for Kristal when she felt trapped by her circumstances. It is very easy to denounce the addicts and their problems saying it was brought on by themselves. I wanted to hold Parminder by her shoulders and shake her "Look at your daughter!!!" I was completely puzzled with Stuart Walls' actions and never understood why he behaved like a prick.

I could go on and on, but will not summarise the plot here. But I will tell you this. This book makes you think. Think about others and their unique set of circumstances. It will make you pause before you get judgemental of your neighbour. It will make you understand that there is no clear line distinguishing the good and the bad. Its like a giant microscope on a small sample of the human race and shows what you see everywhere. Racism, drug abuse, bullying, the frustrations of the middle class, what obsessive compulsive disorder actually means, what really happens in an abusive household. You will relate these to things that you see around you. The book also shows hope and is not all gloom and doom.

I read in an interview of hers that the initial name of the book was to have been 'Responsibility'. But if you ask me, I would name it 'Empathy'. Or maybe that is my takeaway.

I rate it 4 out of 5 stars. It could easily have been 5 out of 5, but I really needed to plod on those first 100 pages with determination and that cost it one star.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A delightful read. The name of the book sure puts one off. When I picked it up, one of the blurbs read something on the lines of "You want the book to go on and on, don't want it to end". I heartily agree.

The whole book is in the form of letters. No narration, no long rants of anything. Just letters.

If you like fiction, then I would definitely recommend this.



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Room by Emma Donoghue

Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is more than "inspired" from a true happening. An awful happening that makes one cringe to even remember it.

But the wonderful part of the book is because the story is narrated by the child. Who did not know that he was a victim, who was not aware that he had to really be "scave" to escape and who is completely bewildered when in the real world.

Zero points if you are looking for an original story, but full points for the treatment.



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Sweet teens or the seasoned thirties

Anyone who has been through the daily commute in Bangalore by semi-public transport, will know what I mean when I say "it feels endless, no hope that you will ever get home". The exhaustion of simply waiting in a traffic snarl rises up like bile in your throat, but you simply swallow it down and wait, resigned to the rut.

There are those industrious few, who would get printouts of techy stuff like Java, Swing, Servelet and what not and use the wait to read up. There are the sensible who would either listen to music with ear plugs or would read a book. There were even the blessed few who would doze off the entire duration!!

Well, me was neither industrious nor sensible nor blessed. All I could do was gawk outta the window at other vehicles or observe people inside my own.

It was in one such gawking time, that a very tiny incident happened. The protagonists were two ladies in their thirties, good friends of each other, chatting with each other engrossed in whatever topic it was at that moment. All of a sudden, there is a gust of wind and a sheet of paper flew in through the window, and landed smack on the face of one of the ladies. She calmly pulled the paper off her face, gave her friend a tiny smile, threw it outta the window and the two resumed the conversation.

This was sufficient for me to get into a tailspin of thoughts and what ifs.
Have you seen teenage girls? Put any two of them together in any situation, and within no time they would find something to giggle about. If the same sheet of paper had landed on a teenager, it would be sufficient fodder for giggles for a long long long time. Where does the innocent happiness go to feed the demands of day-to-day life? Can't we retain the child like laughter while still being responsible to our duties? What should we do or rather what should we not do, to retain the basic simple intrinsic happiness in each of us? Any thoughts?

Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin 'einstein' Varghese by Sidin Vadukut

Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin 'einstein' Varghese by Sidin Vadukut

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Initially funny, I kept giggling for sometime. But after a while the dorky treatment started grating on my nerves. I plodded on hoping that there would some deviation, some show of genius which I thought I could discern in the first few pages. Nothing like that. It continued being dorky.

It was a HUGE disappointment, given all the reviews and feedback on the book.



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The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Life was very difficult in the medieval times. Whether it was war time or peace time, the common man faced an uncertainty that people of our time and location will find hard to comprehend.



It is not about a person. I cannot say Prior Philip or Tom Builder or Jack or Aliena or anyone to be the central character of the book. Its about all of them. Normal people with normal weaknesses.



I found the first 200 pages difficult to cross, but once the characters were all in, it was unputdownable.



A very very very good read.



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Grades of a chef

I have been on a mission to understand what a chef is and the various grades and types of them. Here is what I learnt
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A kitchen chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Below are various titles given to those working in a professional kitchen and each can be considered a title for a type of chef.

Chef de cuisine : This person is in charge of all things related to the kitchen.

Sous-chef : The sous-chef de cuisine is the direct assistant of the executive chef.

Expediter : The expediter takes the orders from the dining room and relays them to the stations in the kitchen.

Chef de partie : A chef de partie, also known as a "station chef" or "line cook", is in charge of a particular area of production.

Commis : A commis is an apprentice in larger kitchens that works under a chef de partie to learn the station's responsibilities and operation.

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As I understand, these are the roles that are awarded based on seniority and skill in their areas. This is the accepted norm world over.

Now, I see a new trend, wherein even wannabe cooks are graded as chefs. No, it is not arbitrary, there is a definite logic in the entire grading system. I shall briefly dwell upon the grades and the criteria and thereon go the origin of this new line of thought.

Sub-junior chef : This is the learner cook, someone who tries simple recipes. Recipes that are safe, do-able and within his/her comfort zone. There is no creativity involved whatsoever. A sub-junior chef blindly follows tried and tested recipes whether it be ingredients or the method. And yeah, a sub-junior chef makes mistakes. Lots of mistakes. A dish done well once doesn’t necessitate that it will be good the next time too. A sub-junior chef has immense potential to create disasters where none lurk and jump right into them. Bang on!

Junior chef : These are the experienced cooks. They know their methods well and the pros and cons of subtle changes in ingredients and the methods. But they do not, I repeat, do not go outside their comfort zone. They do not create new dishes. They are happy to serve lip smacking meals to near and dear ones and even more happy to be appreciated as "excellent cook!". They preen under such praise. But seldom can we see this potential going beyond their realm.

Senior chef : Now this is the breed which can be thought as the crème de la crème of the gastronomic world. They are the creators, they are the thinkers, they are the improvisers. They can give a new twist to the most basic eons-old recipe. We can safely assume that all we eat today can be attributed to some or other senior-chef at some point in time. After all, someone should have thought up of combinations to produce desirable tastes. That someone my friend, belongs to the senior-chef category. I salute this category, without which we would still be eating fruits and berries and bland meat.

I perchance encountered this new categorisation very recently. I had to dig, question and grill quite a bit to understand the differences between the sub-junior and junior, and junior and senior. All I have done here is elaborate upon the very crisp, clear vocabulary used to express the demarcation.

By this I fall under the sub-junior category.
My mother, mother-in-law, in fact most women I personally know fall under the junior category.
It’s the people who run cookery shows on the TV and internet who may fall under the senior category.


I am sure you would have questions, queries or even counter points to the criteria mentioned above.

If you do, the person to contact is Siddharth Siju, an 8 year old boy who resides at Bangalore.

He also happens to be my son.





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