Book Review: Dakhma by K. Hari Kumar

 

Title: Dakhma
Author: K. Hari Kumar
Publisher: HarperCollins India 
Genre: Thriller, Horror Fiction
Pages: 280

‘The mind fears the unknown, and it becomes jittery when it has to ponder about death.’

K. Hari Kumar’s Dhakhma, is an enthralling psychological thriller. With limited characters, great premise, and good writing craft, Kumar manages to deliver a ghost story that is so captivating and convincing as well.

‘I saw a woman at the balcony a couple of nights ago. And yesterday, I had a terrible dream. Every night something weird happens.’

Basically, the plot revolves around a couple, Anahita and Varun. Varun works for political parties, as an image consultant, one of his clients ruling the Delhi assembly. He uses media and data science to influence voters. While, Varun scales the commercial ladder, Anahita’s life passes by like a routine. She has been living amid hallucinated voices in her mind, her acute stress disorder triggers anxiety and multiple phobias. She is often doubtful about her marriage.

Twist comes into their life, when they move into a new city, precisely, into a new building, 7E paradise heights. Anahita starts facing some weird experiences ̶ woman in a fluttering maroon dress, drenched in the rain, standing outside her window, looking at her piercingly ̶   when she shares the creepy incident with Varun, he doesn’t take her seriously, ‘No one can climb on the seventh floor of this building in the rain, unless she is some super power  or a ghost.’

‘All those curiosities of infanthood, obsession of adolescences, and ambitions of adulthood just spiral back into a womb of nothingness. Death.’

After delving into the history, Anahita got to know that It was a home to a woman called Parizaad, who sacrificed her daughter to some deity. She meets with Hira Tejwani, a paranormal expert who plays on Anahita’s fears and doubts, just like a scavenging hyena.

Then, there is a subplot, brings Anahita’s school friend, Mehr, into the story. It reveals eventually some unusual memories of past. How Anahita deals with such surroundings, that’s how character grow.

Dakhma, the title intrigued me the most, and it echoed time to time. Although it is a horror book, yet it speaks of anxiety issues, love, power, hope, sacrifice and death as well.

The scariest thing of this story is when author introduces the term Bruja Shamana, that leads to the backstory of Parizad and other evil powers. Basically, the fear part exists in its details. Some sequences really give you sense of dread. 

This story really makes you think about the things that science unable to explain. K. Hari Kumar really knows the game of emotions and conflicting feelings. I loved how he able to maintain a particular environment throughout the book.

The story is creepy enough yet entertaining. Its fast-paced thriller, with an involving plot, that kept you reading in a go. If you are into this genre, it can be a perfect weekend read.

 About the Author

K. Hari Kumar, a.k.a. ‘Horror Kumar’, is an Indian screenwriter and bestselling author of horror and psychological thriller novels. Hari is the first Indian writer to be listed on Amazon.com's top 50 bestsellers in the horror category. He has also written 50 horror short stories that were published in his 2019 book India’s Most Haunted (HarperCollins India), which The Times of India deemed a must-read horror book and which was listed among HarperCollins India’s 100 best books written by Indian writers. It was the highest grossing horror book in 2020, making him the top horror writer in the country. His 2018 psychological thriller, The Other Side of Her, spawned the acclaimed Hindi language web series Bhram (2019). Currently, he is producing a series of regional-language short horror films based on Indian myths and folktales.

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Book Review: Young Blood by Chandrima Das

Title: Young Blood: Ten Terrifying College Tales
Author: Chandrima Das
Publisher: HarperCollins India
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Pages: 336 pages 

 ‘Young Blood’ is a compilation of ten ghost stories. Chandrima Das has proper command on this genre; the way she builds an environment for horror tales is truly commendable.  

I have never picked a ghost book before. There might have a presentiment that horrors of life are more torturous than any ghostly creature. I was just an ignorant person though. I loved the storytelling of Chandrima Das. I will make sure to pick more titles of this genre.  

In Young Blood, Chandrima Das takes an inspiration from pre-existed tales spreading among academic campuses, abandoned colleges, and haunted sightings of India. It makes sense to read about real incident first. For that, author added some notes in the last few pages that covered few facts and details.

These stories happen between friends, room-mates, and lovers. What I liked about this collection is treatment; writing is crisp, with clear cut sentences. Each character has its own battles, wrapped in psychological fear and inner insecurities. So, I found them completely sympathetic and so convincing.    

Some stories are really scary, that triggers imagination and takes you into unknown zone. Das didn’t forget to add that thrilling element that elevates the reading experience. I would say, it is such a page-turner.  

‘I challenge you to spend the evening in a haunted building. I will prove to you that science cannot explain everything in the world.’

The first story, Challenge Accepted, sets in abandoned science college in Hyderabad. This story begins with four friends, precisely believer and non-believer. During a college debate, they challenge to each other and that’s how a planned evening turns their life upside down. The way author has woven imagery, sends real chill to the spine.

‘This wasn’t the first time I had been called names, and it wouldn’t be the last. But the number didn’t matter. It hurt every single time, to be targeted and degraded doubly- for my body and my race.’  

In another story, titled ‘The Inner Door’, Chandrima Das brings an important issue regarding to north eastern girls of India.  The way these girls are targeted for their race, the mental trauma they generally face is unimaginable. It is a tale of two roommates, haunting voices, and that creepy inner door. This story sets in University of Delhi, sometime in the late 2010s.

The next story I liked the most is ‘The Colours of a Bruise’, it is inspired from the incident happened in Fergusson College, Pune.

‘How could I forget that story? It was one of those undying that had floated inside FC for years, passed down from to batch, changing the shapes of its details but never losing its essence.’ 

There is a blurry line between love and being in toxic relationship. Most often we fail to read the difference. Here, this sequence captured the theme of this story, ‘what more did I want? Nothing. Maybe I wanted less – less anger, fewer demands, less control over where I went and who I met.’

I am not going to discuss the detailed plot of each story, as it would ruin the experience of reading. Drop everything and just pick this book, even if you are not a fan of this genre, you will definitely get a nostalgic feel of college days and so. Highly Recommended.  

 

About  The  Author

Chandrima Das has a B.Tech in Computer Science from NIT Durgapur and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. After a decade-long career in management consulting, she followed her passion for writing. Her digital debut The Talking Dead was a bestseller in the horror category. She's performed live at storytelling events with Tall Tales and Kommune, and was published in The Best Of Tall Tales.  

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#Tata Stories: 40 Timeless Tales to Inspire You by Harish Bhat

Title: #Tata Stories: 40 Timeless Tales to Inspire You
Author: Harish Bhat
Publisher: Penguin Portfolio
Genre: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 978-0670095322
Pages: 304
Buy Online: Amazon 

The Tatas have a legacy of nation-building for over 150 years. Dancing across this long arc of time are thousands of beautiful, astonishing stories, many of which can inspire and provoke us, even move us to meaningful action in our own lives. #TataStories is a collection of little-known tales of individuals, events and places from the Tata Group that have shaped the India we live in today.

Here, I have been sharing an EXCERPT from this memorable book of legendary TATAs.

The Maharajah Man

This is the delightful story of one of India’s first marketing wizards, a maverick of the Tata Group, and a close associate and friend of J.R.D. Tata/ Behind the Maharajah, the lovable Mascot of Air India:  Sorab Kaikushroo Kooka, aka Bobby Kooka.

Bobby Kooka was recruited into the aviation department of the Tata Group in the year 1938. Tata Airlines was still a fledgling airline service at that time. Many years later, J.R.D. Tata fondly narrated the tale of how he first met the man.

‘I don’t know how many of you there are here tonight who were in Tata Airlines in May 1938—probably not many—when Mr Kooka first burst upon an astonished air transport world which has never been the same since. On that fateful day in May, Mr Kooka appeared in my office and, having pointed out the deficiencies in the Tata organization, explained how badly needed he was in Tatas to put them right . . . I decided that if there was any place for him in Tatas, it could only be in Tata Airlines. Furthermore, in those days, the chances of survival  of Tata Air lines were pretty dim and so it was clear that by employing him there we would be taking little risk of making any permanent commitment.’

Bobby Kooka also recalled this first encounter with J.R.D. Tata in his inimitable style: ‘I was told that I would have to see Mr J.R.D. Tata. I was warned that Mr Tata was a terror. Heart in mouth, I went to his office. He asked me very searching questions, none of which could I answer. He was obviously impressed, so impressed, that within seconds, I was ushered out of the room...’

Driving this banter was a brilliant, fertile marketing brain. After spending a few years as secretary of Tata Airlines, Bobby Kooka had decided to give the brand (now rechristened as Air India, with J.R.D. as chairman) a human face that represented India with charm and dignity. At the first booking office of the company, located in Church gate in Mumbai, he created ‘an oriental potentate, sitting on a magic carpet, smoking a bubble hookah’. This was the beginning of the Air India Maharajah, perhaps India’s very own first advertising mascot that went on to win millions of hearts across the world.

In Bobby Kooka’s own words: ‘We call him a Maharajah for want of a better description. But his blood isn’t blue. He might look like royalty, but he isn’t royal.’ Working together with Umesh Rao of J. Walter Thomson, the advertising agency, Kooka envisioned with flourish such a lovable symbol of India—a round face, with an outsized moustache, striped turban and long nose.

After making his first appearance in 1946, the Maharajah was all over the world, in the process making Air India one of the most visible and engaging brands globally. Fifty years before Google even thought of Google Doodles, Bobby Kooka was constantly reinventing the Maharajah—as a lover boy in Paris, a sumo wrestler in Tokyo, a Romeo in Rome, and a guru of transcendental meditation in Rishikesh. The Maharajah was funny, irreverent, up to antics, but always full of India, his proud homeland. He was a friend to every traveller on India’s national airline, and would reach out to them with warmth and hospitality. 

Bobby Kooka also extended this ‘Indianness’ to every office of the airline, worldwide. Imagery, dances, paintings and sculptures from India appeared in the offices of Air India in New York, Geneva and London, making the airline a beautiful showcase of the country’s great heritage. This, in turn, attracted many global travellers to make it their airline of choice. The legendary film-maker Muzaffar Ali, who worked as a member of Bobby Kooka’s marketing team for many years, said, ‘For eleven years, I was on a flight, dreaming through the eyes of Kooka and his mentor J.R.D. I was not working for Air India, but for India.’

What beautiful words. Not only was Kooka a marketing genius, he was also a maverick who created storms in many teacups in his time. He used to write for the Tata House magazine, editing the last page, called the ‘Tata Patter’, under various pennames including ‘Pestonjee Pepper’, ‘Umslopogas’ and ‘Chief of the Amazulus’. On the page ‘Tata Patter’, he proceeded to, in the words of J.R.D. Tata, ‘play havoc with the whole Tata organization by demolishing the ego and assassinating the character of every Tata director and senior official . . . [also], through Air India hoardings, he demolished and punctured innumerable egos, which placed me at the receiving end of endless complaints from MPs and ministers, including Mr. Morarji Desai and Mr. Krishna Menon, who were depicted in red pants running a track race with Mr. Kripalani.’

But nonetheless, J.R.D. Tata provided Bobby Kooka with the required support throughout his career, because he recognized Kooka’s genius, and perhaps also the need for some benign humour in the midst of our daily challenges. As J.R.D. said at Bobby Kooka’s retirement function in 1971: ‘May you never cease tilting at windmills, at the pretentious, the charlatans, and the hypocrites of the world.’ He also said, ‘I forgive him all the apologies I had to tender on his behalf. I forgive him all the scars that I have borne because of the pleasure, the laughter and the relief from frustration and boredom that he provided to thousands, and perhaps millions, of people.’

This immediately reminds me of one of J.R.D. Tata’s key secrets to his success, of which he says, ‘If I have any merit,   it is getting on with individuals according to their ways and characteristics...to be a leader, you have to lead human beings with affection. ’J.R.D. led the maverick Bobby Kooka with that same human affection, and, in turn, Kooka led the fabulously successful marketing and publicity efforts for the nation’s flagship airline, including the creation and nurturing of the Air India Maharajah. 

Excerpted with permission from #TataStories by Harish Bhat, Penguin Portfolio 

About the Author

Harish Bhat, currently the brand custodian at Tata Sons, has held many roles in the Tata Group over the past thirty-four years, including as managing director of Tata Global Beverages, and chief operating officer of the watches and jewellery businesses of the Titan Company Ltd.

Harish is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). He won the IIMA gold medal for scholastic excellence, and later the British Chevening Scholarship for young managers. In 2017, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from BITS Pilani.

An avid marketer, he has helped create many successful Tata brands. He writes extensively, and is a columnist for The Hindu Business Line and Mint.

Harish is an incorrigible foodie and fitness freak. His wife, Veena, is a computer professional and data scientist. They have a daughter, Gayatri, who has graduated from college and embarked on her professional career. Harish can be reached at bhatharish@hotmail.com.

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