eBook Review: Spicy Trail

Shipra Trivedi starts her eBook ‘Spicy Trail’ with a quote saying “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all…” Having read her eBook, I must say, she truly has a love for spices, and the detail and research she has exhibited for each spice article is commendable.

The eBook not only acquaints us with many popular and rare spices but also shares historical and ancient text references to these spices often going back to their origins and early uses. It is a splendid combination of knowledge and information about the spices with dashes of history to add to its flavor.

The fact that Shipra has been able to find a spice for every letter of the alphabet shows us how well she has researched on the topic. On one hand we have the very common Cinnamon, Cardamom Fennel, Turmeric and their likes, while on the other we have rare spices like Kalapasi, Xacuti, Alkanet and Star Anise. Shipra has indeed given us a full repertoire of the spice world in her eBook.

The sprinkle of delight in each spice article is her ‘Dadi Ma ka nushka’ which surely makes us laugh in wonder as it also educates us on how easily these spices have always been used in a common Indian household. Along with references to the epics and puranas on the usage of spices in cooking in ancient India, the domestic usage of spices almost tempts us to try our hand again in our kitchen with some of the common spices at least!

Overall, Shipra’s eBook is indeed an aromatic and spicy trail of knowledge and information about the spice heritage of our land, and kudos to her for such an excellent compilation.

This eBook is a part of the Blogchatter eBook Carnival and can be downloaded from:

https://www.theblogchatter.com/download/spicy-trail-by-shipra-trivedi/

eBook Review: Finding Your Writing Flow

What interested me most about the eBook “Finding Your Writing Flow” by Sona Grover was an author writing about the writing process and being candid about the highs and lows of being a writer. I was keen to read about the author’s own experiences and experiments with the writing process and see if I could find some answers to the questions that lurked in my mind as a writer. I must say, Sona has not disappointed her readers at all on that count and on many occasions in the eBook has even exceeded them with her honest and practical approaches that she has explained.

The eBook makes for an easy read and right at the beginning the author shares her purpose and the flow of the journey of writing that she intends to take her readers on. While it surely is something that writers will enjoy reading and relating to, even newcomers to the world of writing with find it interesting and useful.

I especially liked the sections ‘Are you meant to be a writer?’, ‘Being Productive’ and ‘Renewal’ as they put the writer in you face to face with your inner fears and doubts and help you find answers and inspire at the same time. Sections like the one where Sona talks about the writer’s ‘Muse’ or being in ‘Gratitude’ are softer aspects of the writer’s mind and I am happy to see that she has handled that with due care. The eBook overall has a deft balance between the key yet routine and mundane part of the writing process and the moments of inspiration that comes while you write.

My heartfelt thanks go out to Sona for having written on such an important subject and having been so candid in her explanations, examples and descriptions of what goes on inside the writer’s mind and heart. I would recommend Sona’s eBook as a must read to everyone who wishes to write well and dreams of oneself as a writer.

The eBook is a part of the Blogchatter eBook Carnival and can be downloaded from:

https://www.theblogchatter.com/download/finding-your-writing-flow-by-sona-grover/

Blochatter eBook Carnival - Here comes the eBook Relay chain !

............ I take on the Baton of Blogchatter EBook Carnival from Ruchi whose ebook 'That Year I Found Me' is also part of the mix. 

About Ruchi's ebook: "Neha runs away from her family to the big city with only her diary as her friend. Will she be able to give love a second chance and reunite with her family? Dive into this tale of entangled emotions and accompany Neha in her journey of healing and Self Discovery".

Now presenting my eBook Ancient Cities of India which presents an easy re-telling of the history of select ancient cities of India. Packed with mythological tales and historical anecdotes the stories bring alive the imperial kingdoms of the past, for you to re-discover India’s heritage in a new light.

I am delighted to participate in the Blogchatter eBook Carnival which has turned the limelight onto my first and exclusive eBook which spun out of my debut run in the Blogchatter A2Z challenge 2018: a milestone which became an inspiration for me to write more and write better!

I pass on the Baton of Blogchatter EBook Carnival to Maheshwaran whose ebook 'Puglia: Hidden Treasures of Italy' is also part of the mix. 

About Maheshwaran's ebook: "Travel guides give people detailed lists of places in a region. But one finds it difficult to plan and worry about the lack of time to see so much. This book is a new type of travel guide with clear details on what to do every day and the sequence to see them".

May the chain of good writing carry on non-stop..............

eBook Review: Love in the Battleground

Writing historical fiction is no mean feat, as it calls for bold handling of characters which are already entrenched in their casts in time, of depicting situations which are already known to everyone as having unfolded in a particular manner. However, the success of writing historical fiction lies in finding and highlighting the lesser known stories and the alter-facets of the powerful characters and presenting well known events in a new light.

Author Kathakali Mukherjee, in her work "Love in the Battleground" makes a bold attempt to present to us enthralling but lesser known stories of a well known period of Indian history, the Maratha Renaissance. I find her intention very brave in the first place as she chooses the very star of the Maratha Renaissance, Shivaji as her protagonist, but very skillfully places an anti-hero too in the narrative in Raghupati, who gradually creates his own space in the readers' mind. While it is easy eulogize an already epic character, the author does not fall for the temptation instead uses her characters deftly to compliment each other. 

The title of the book 'Love in the Battleground' may sound like a giveaway to the readers in the beginning as to what they can expect in its pages, but then it is historical fiction and without the key elements of love and war, any tumultuous period of history is incomplete. The author again shows control and maturity in handling the narrative as she well balances the saga of Shivaji's battle and political upheavals against the lyrical love story of Raghupati and Sarayu. Both aspects are written and dealt with the right amounts of emotions they deserve. 

The narrative at times is fast paced and hooks the reader on the journey excitedly, while also allowing for suitable respites at certain points where the love saga takes its episode. The author also provides enough foreground and background knowledge and context for the reader in preparation of the core story, which is an important element for any historical fiction. It was nice to see that the author has not neglected setting the correct context. Also, she has done a great job in her detailed description of the characters, situations and settings for each scene and episode, thus enabling the readers to almost visualize the action and feel the emotion. The result has been a very well written and succinctly bound plot that keeps its readers going with the story from start to finish.

In her note, the author has mentioned that this was her retelling of the historical tale of the Maratha Renaissance which has been earlier written - Maharashtra Jiban Prabhat. Whilst I have not had the opportunity of reading the referenced text, I was quite overwhelmed by reading 'Love in the Battleground' as an independent historical fiction. In my opinion, Ms Mukherjee has spun out a powerful and engaging historical novel which readers will both enjoy reading as well as benefit from refreshing their knowledge of the Maratha Renaissance. Therein lies the success of 'Love in the Battleground'.

The ebook is a part of the Blogchatter eBook Carnival and can be downloaded from: 

https://www.theblogchatter.com/download/love-in-the-battleground-a-maharashtrian-saga-kathakali-mukherjee/

History Bytes and an eBook

When I decided to try my hand at the Blogchatter A2Z challenge, I didn’t really have a clue of what a Blogging marathon was and what it took to come out successful at the end. Towards that, my journey through this has been totally one of learning and full of positives, as it has been of crazy fun and of an exhilarating writing adventure.

When I announced that I would be writing on Ancient Cities of India with their historical and mythological references, many around me opined that I was selecting a difficult theme for myself. But then, I had just completed reading a couple of history-based books and had also written a six part series, in my own blog https://sayanwrites.blogspot.com/, tracing my very own family lineage to the ancient lost city of Kanyakubja; an exercise which had deeply immersed me in India’s ancient history and mythology. Thus at that time I could think nothing beyond India’s ancient history. To me, it was also a means to re-live and wallow in the rich heritage of our country, explore the cities and eras of the past and what better than to be able to narrate some of these stories to my readers and better acquaint them with the ancient cities that we would have read about in our history books in school.

Thus was born the concept of ‘Ancient Cities of India’ as a compilation of light-reading historical tales, and across a gruelling April, as I toiled in my research and continued to write about the ancient cities, it expanded to include stories of 25 Ancient Indian cities and some traveller and historian accounts. The endeavor was to export the reader back in time to many of our famous ancient cities and re-tell the history and fate of imperial kingdoms and mighty kings who ruled our land. Vivid descriptions of battles which changed the political, economic, geographical and social fabric of the country across the eras. Also at one point, the attempt was to explicitly identify and recount the era when time crosses over from what is classified as mythology, to the better recorded ancient history of India.

I am glad that throughout the duration of the Blogging challenge when these stories continued to appear daily on my blog, and the weeks even beyond, they have received good readership, encouraging comments and appreciative reviews from readers and veteran bloggers alike, and have been shared widely on social media. Finally, at the end of the marathon, the compilation “Ancient Cities of India” saw itself published as a successful eBook. I truly owe my thanks to the Blogchatter team and my readers across different virtual mediums for generously encouraging this exclusive eBook.

Stories of imperial kingdoms and tales of valour of kings have always been recorded in history, first orally by the bards in the royal courts, then in scripts by chroniclers and historians, until in the last few centuries via printed books authored by scholars. Mighty kings like Ashoka, Harsha, Akbar and Shahjahan find themselves entrenched in such pages forever across the centuries, but would they have fancied finding mentions in an eBook of the digital era?!

               

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Ancient Cities of India has been published by BecomeShakespeare.com in both Paperback and eBook  (Amazon Kindle) editions, in April 2019. Hence the posts have been removed from my blog.

You may get your copy of the book from the following sellers:

Amazon India - https://www.amazon.in/Ancient-Cities-India-Sayan-Bhattacharya/

Amazon global - The book is available on the respective Amazon portals of USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan as part of its international distribution. Please search with the Title of the Book, or the Author name.

Flipkart India - https://www.flipkart.com/ancient-cities-india/

Become Shakespeare Dot Com - http://www.becomeshakespeare.com/ancient-cities-of-india/


Thank you for your interest in my Book, and I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Reflections on Blogchatter A2Z 2018

At the end of a month of hurricane blogging and reading, I am still wallowing in the delight and amazement of the entire exercise. I cannot but thank the Blogchatter Team enough for this stupendous initiative and introducing me into a whole new level of blogging. Truly, at the successful completion of the A2Z, I was able to take my blog to the ‘next level’.

The A2Z started out as a first-of-its-kind experience for me, as I had never tried my hand at serious blogging before. But once it started, it was a roller coaster all the way. Choosing the theme was the first important step and that done, the journey only got better. Blogchatter made A2Z easy for us with a well-structured plan, clear rules, timely linkies and prompt replies to our queries. The DM groups run by Blogchatter introduced us to our fellow bloggers who very quickly became our friends as we shared thoughts, opinions, likes and support with each other.

My blog had hitherto not seen such an influx of readers and visitors and thus the experience was one of a delightful learning for me. Almost every post that I wrote in the A2Z was read, commented on and appreciated by my fellow bloggers and other readers. This in itself was a rocket of inspiration and urged me to write better in each subsequent blog-post.

The Blogchatter team left no stone unturned to ensure that we had the time of our blogging life during the A2Z by continuously ‘liking’, ‘retweeting’ and sharing our posts and links on Twitter and other social media. The ‘secret activities’ and ‘badges’ kept us thrilled and our morale high. The veterans of earlier A2Zs soon turned mentors for newbies like us, where they answered our questions, offered advice and constantly encouraged us with their comments and appreciations.

The other aspect of the A2Z which became as integral to the journey as the blogging itself, was the group of new-found friends among the fellow bloggers. We discovered many talented writers amongst ourselves who wrote on varied subjects, different genres, adopting a range of impressive styles of writing thereby giving us a myriad of blog-posts to read every day. Discovering and subsequently following others’ blogs was yet another wonderful find of the A2Z.

 A marathon as the A2Z has its own share of challenges as well. Time and time sharing was the primary challenge that I felt hit us hard. While composing our own blog posts every day, amidst the daily chores of work and life, took up the major share of our time, reading so many good blogs by others also necessitated that we devote due time. Gradually, it all fell into a daily routine, but then the learning was to come better prepared the next time around.

As I reflect on the recently concluded A2Z, I must say a BIG Thank You to Team Blogchatter and my fellow Bloggers of the A2Z, especially the ones with whom we formed a close knit group of daily camaraderie, for a very enriched, delightful and rewarding experience. While my blog had seen its next level, A2Z has also opened doors for me into newer and exciting territories of writing. Armed with more confidence and the boost of appreciation and encouragement gained from A2Z 2018, my mind is already planning for my theme for A2Z next year!

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Blogchatter A2Z Challenge 2018: Theme reveal – Ancient Cities of India

Theme: Ancient Cities of India

That India has a rich historical and mythological heritage is not unknown, but hidden in the folds of such mythology and history are cities which once sparkled with glory. We know about a lot of such ancient cities of our country from the Vedas, Puranas and mythological legends. In later Vedic periods, accounts of historians and chroniclers from India, Greece, China and the Arabian region have given us legendary tales and information about many cities which were imperial seats of power, home to many dynasties, steeped in religion, learning and culture, thus etching their names in history forever.

My attempt during the A2Z Blogchatter Challenge in April will be to alphabetically showcase some of such ancient cities which have had an impactful life in ancient India, but have either faded into insignificance later, or changed their character and names as they fell into the hands of other rulers, or with time and change have been erased from the face of the world. In my blog-posts on these ancient cities I hope to share with my readers many lesser known ancient cities and the role they played in their times; also tracing the history of those cities down to the modern times wherever possible.

I hope my readers will enjoy this re-telling of history and the stories that come with it.

To leave you with a taste of history, let me share with you the story of Pushkalavati, an ancient city first excavated in 1902 by archaeologists John Marshall. Legend has it that Pushkalavati was founded by Bharat’s son Pushakala, as mentioned in the ‘Uttarakhanda’ of the Indian Epic Ramayana. 

This legendary city was built on the banks of the Swat River near its confluence with the Kabul River. Pushkalavati once served as the capital of the verdant Gandhara kingdom and was an imperial city which impressed the visiting Greeks, who called it ‘Peucelaitis’. 

King Ashoka built a stupa in Pushkalavati when he was propagating Buddhism in the region, and the city was later visited by the famous Chinese traveller Hieuen Tsang in 630 AD and finds mention in his records.

The ruins of Pushkalavati are found near the outskirts of modern-day Charsadda in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

So, if you enjoy mythology and history, stay tuned for my posts in the A2Z Blogchatter Challenge 2018!

Thank you…

Sayan Bhattacharya


                                                           -------------------------------

Ancient Cities of India has been published by BecomeShakespeare.com in both Paperback and eBook  (Amazon Kindle) editions, in April 2019. Hence the posts have been removed from my blog.

You may get your copy of the book from the following sellers:

Amazon India - https://www.amazon.in/Ancient-Cities-India-Sayan-Bhattacharya/

Amazon global - The book is available on the respective Amazon portals of USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan as part of its international distribution. Please search with the Title of the Book, or the Author name.

Flipkart India - https://www.flipkart.com/ancient-cities-india/

Become Shakespeare Dot Com - http://www.becomeshakespeare.com/ancient-cities-of-india/

Thank you for your interest in my Book, and I hope you will enjoy reading it.