Igraine The Brave

Let me just start by saying that I loved every page of this medieval tale. So if I seem effusive in my praise, you.have.been.warned.

Igraine is the twelve year old daughter of the great Magicians : The Fair Melisande and Sir Lamorak, The Wily. She has a magically inclined, know-it-all brother : Albert. The family of four live in a magical albeit small castle which houses the legendary ‘Singing Books of Magic’. The castle is magically protected by ferocious stone lions, cannonball swallowing gargoyles and a moat swarming with endearing water snakes. Despite the above mentioned overdose of magic all around her, young Igraine has no wish to follow in the enchanting ways of her kin. Magic for her is an unnecessary but undeniable facet of her life. Magic is something that she just has to grit her teeth and bare with.

Her aspirations lie in a totally different arena.

Igraine wants to be a Knight; a full-on, armour-clanking, lance-hurling, dragon-fighting Knight. She wants to emulate her great-grandfather Pelleas and have her day of glory in a battlefield. And sooner than she ever imagined, her dreams come true, in a rather uncomfortable way.

For the castle is soon in danger of an attack by the vile Osmund also called Osmund The Greedy. Osmund is a practitioner of Dark Magic and wants to lay his hands on ‘Singing Books of Magic’. He believes that their possession will soon make him the greatest magician and the master of all he surveys.

Handling Osmund would have been embarrassingly easy for Igraine’s parents, but unfortunately the powerful magicians had a spell go awry which converted them into talking but wholly non-magical pigs!

It is now up to Igraine to save the day. She must return her parents to their natural form, assist her brother in protecting the castle and generally have her much longed for (but now truly terrifying) wish to be a brave knight come true.

The tale is tight, packed with sharp plotlines and endearing characters. Magic is used in enchanting and unpredictable ways. I liked the unexpected twists that occurred at regular intervals. It’s heartening to not be blasé about where the story is heading. Igraine is a wonderful heroine, a charming mix of kind-heartedness and spunky fervour. The illustrations by Funke enhance her narration and make the book a joy to possess. The best bit for me was that while I loved The Inkheart series, my main grouse was the unnecessary rambling that swallowed up so many pages. This defect was heartily absent in Igraine The Brave. Cornelia Funke was precise and engrossing in ever line.

An enchanting tale of a girl-knight embroidered with magic, cleverness and sheer gutsiness.

Battle for Bittora

Anuja Chauhan follows the success of ' The Zoya Factor' with yet another desi firecracker. Battle for Bittora is all good, tried-and-tested Bollywood clichés parcelled into one enticing masala-read.

Jinni Pandey is a happy-go-lucky animator drawing award-winning ‘kitaanus’ (germs/bacteria) for Harpic and other noteworthy brands. She’s young, spunky and has a carelessly-on purpose dishevelled half-rosebud haircut that she's mighty proud of.

But Jinni is also, infact Sarojini Pande, granddaughter of the fearsome political matriarch Pushpa Pande. The Pande clan is an illustrious (albeit with a dubious background) political dynasty. For a long time, they have contested the Lok Sabha elections through their hometown Bittora. Sometimes they have had resounding victories and at other times, embarrassing losses but it’s always been a full-on tamasha.

And now in true-blue unbendable grandmother/ conniving politician mode, the great Pushpa Pande has manoeuvered the clueless Jinni into contesting the upcoming elections from Bittora. Soon Jinni finds herself togged up in starched sarees and matronly blouses. She’s thrown headlong into a world of kleptomaniac Election agents; Crack teams who will “do anything” to help ‘didi’; hormonal pet dogs; frenemies; stalwart ladies who don’t visit parlours but bite off their underarm hair with their teeth (a very disturbing exaggeration, that); manipulators; back-stabbers; gropers and the entire rigmarole that is our grand Indian Politics.

Standing on the tip of this fast dissolving Gola, is Jinni's opponent : The idealistic (also, chiselled), intellectual (yes, his tan is honey colored) and universally loved (well, with that build-up....he obviously has to be lustworthy!) Zain Altaf Khan. Maruti Zain (as Jinni had mockingly nicknamed him) and Jinni share a rich past. They were childhood friends who were almost lovers before the great Pushpaji brought their raging "haarmoans" under control.

As the two youngest ever Lok Sabha candidates battle out the elections in grimy Bittora; kid gloves are shed, dirty politics lunge forth in full force and the trusty ol’ “haarmoans” make a predictable reappearance.

Anuja Chauhan strikes gold yet again. I am thoroughly chuffed to say that I have a favourite Indian author who doesn’t play the displaced NRI/ skanky urban cougar/ Indian travelogue card. Her dialogue is a delightful blend of propah English with a spicy tadka of local dialects. She captures the dusty contours of rural India, jazzes it up with a host of laugh-out-loud caricatures and gives you a stellar lead pair who make you root for them.

Kudos to Chauhan for plumbing her political lineage (her mother-in-law is Margaret Alva) and employing it with insouciance. I loved the book and would strongly recommend it for all who are still searching for that elusive "must-read Indian Author".

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #2)

Whenever I visit my lovely (albeit a tad lonely) ancestral home, I instantly associate with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. I have the mysterious house with a few empty rooms...the boredom of being stuck-in that makes me rattle around like a disgruntled pea-in-a-pod......and......I even have an unused wardrobe. Sadly, to my abject disappointment, the wardrobe doesn’t open into Narnia or even a respectable secret passageway. (I checked). But since reading The Narnia Chronicles and having to make regular visits to my hometown; I more often than not always carry along my copy of ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’.

There’s something truly delightful of hiding in a fur coat laden wardrobe and coming out into a parallel world replete with a winter wonderland, a nasty Snow-Queen, troubled mythical creatures, and the truly splendid character of ASLAN.

ASLAN

C.S.Lewis gave a very apt description in his introduction of Aslan. It goes thus:

The Beaver said, “They say Aslan is on the move – perhaps has already landed”

And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something that you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it has some enormous meaning ¬– either a terrifying one that turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each child felt something jump in it’s inside. Edmund felt a sense of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delicious strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

This has always been my favourite passage. It’s sheer simplicity and accuracy pens the exact emotions which we have all experienced at the onset of something life-changing (nice/nasty, depending upon our perspectives and personal demons) .Aslan is a memorable character and the tale, according to me, the best of the Narnia Chronicles. It’s believable, doesn’t drag or preach unnecessarily and is a delightful treat for fantasy-lovers like me.

I usually tend to read the book first and follow it up with the movie viewing. I love both versions and ‘The Battle Tune of Narnia’ is on my perpetual Playlist. It’s almost my own personal ‘defeat-your-demons’ tune.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is the Grand Poobah of fantasy reads (Lord of The Rings, notwithstanding) and I would strongly recommend it for all wide-eyed children with a longing for magic to drive away the monotony of everyday life. If I could, I would also insist on scornful adults to capture a bit of their young wonderment and escape into The Land of Narnia.

C.S.Lewis in his dedication to his goddaughter, aptly summed it up:

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy-tales again”