The Whimsy Bookworm: A Book Blog from India

 Hello, hello, Today I'd like to share my favourite Hindi OTT shows/ series of 2021. Let's get into it, shall we?  1. The Family Man (Season 2): The action moves to Chennai this season where some erstwhile members of the LTTE attempt an assassination and our team of TASC officers race against time to stop them. The second season is as full of thrills, humour and edge-of-your-seat moments as the first. Plus, a lot of loose ends from Season 1 were also closed. The Family Man is streaming on Prime Video.  2. Your Honour: A judge will break all laws to save his son from a terrible fate. A fast-paced, thrilling series about the extent to which a parent will go for their child. Your Honour is streaming on SonyLiv.  3. Candy: A boarding school in a hill station. A pervasive drug problem. A teenaged boy brutally murdered. A mythic creature hunting young people in the woods again. A teacher with demons of his own struggling to stop this brutal killer. A really good web s...

  Hello Loves!  I have been writing morning pages (pretty much regularly) since July now. It feels so good to have a place to jot down some musings and thoughts and just vent if I need to. I used the same journal for July and August and used up all the pages come September.  So new month, new journal.  I picked this floral beauty for my Journal in September.  And did a little decor to get it started.  How beautiful is this journal?  This style of florals is my favourite.  I got this journal and another pink one, free with my planner this year. From The Inkbucket. So I figured I might as well put it to good use.  :)  This journal already comes with a front page and I decorated it using some simple supplies.  A whole bunch of stickers, some Washi Tape, a vellum paper and a scrap of brown paper.  I like how it's turned out.  A closer look.  Supplies from:  VnV Shop. Kimey's Corner  Ali Express.  &...

  The Family Man's second season released on June 4th and since my family and I really enjoyed Season 1, we pretty much binged it today in one sitting!  So, here is a quick review:  Things I Liked:  1. The Family Man is an action-packed, espionage thriller series. Season 1 introduced us to the team members of TASC- an elite team within one of India's intelligence agencies. The team's job is to monitor and assess threats to national security as well as neutralise these threats. The leader of this rag-tag team is Srikant Tiwari aka Sri (played with a brilliant mix of wit, gravitas and vulnerability by Manoj Bajpayee), who is our family man  with a wife (played so beautifully by Priyamani) and two bratty-cute-smartass kids. He tries to keep his work life as a spy completely separate from his life as a regular, easy-going family man.  So, each season focuses on the impending threat to the country as well as an exploration of Sri's family life- his wife- S...

  Hello, hello!  I did a brave (for a shy writer like me) little thing earlier today!  I self-published a short story on Amazon via Kindle's Direct Publishing service.  For the past 8 weeks or so, I have been sharing real-life ghost stories via a series on my Instagram Stories called 'Scary Stories'. These are stories of real-life paranormal experiences and have been pretty well-received by my community on Instagram. This has given me a much-needed boost of confidence and so, I decided to flesh out the next story in my series and share it via Amazon.  Here is the link to my little book . I've priced it at INR 50, so that everybody, who wants to read it can!  If you'd like to read my short story, click on the link above and you can read it on your Kindle or the iOS or Android Kindle app.  Thank you, as ever, for reading my blog, sharing your kind words on Instagram and for just being all-round lovely people! 

We (the sister and I) just finished streaming  Gulabo Sitabo on Amazon Prime Video and we wanted to come on here and share some of our thoughts about the movie. Starring Amitabh Bachchan as Mirza, a 78-year-old, cantankerous, greedy man, who also happens to be a petty thief. Mirza is married to Begum, 17 years his senior, and owner of the eponymous Fatima Mahal, a sprawling Edwardian era mansion in Lucknow, which has now fallen into total disrepair. Mirza manages the 3-4 tenant families that live in different parts of Fatima Mahal and he makes a bit of pocket money by stealing bulbs and cycle bells as well as quietly (without Begum's knowledge) selling off antiques and furniture from the house itself. Mirza is in love, not with his wife, but with his haveli and is biding his time till Begum dies, leaving, he believes, the haveli to him. He lives in the hope that he will, finally, be the owner and not just the caretaker of Fatima Mahal, the object of his dreams, affection...

We just finished binge-watching Paatal Lok on Amazon Prime Video and here are our 10 reasons why this web series is an absolute must-watch! 1. Paatal Lok is a layered and nuanced cop drama. The basic premise of the show centres around the four hired "killers", who are arrested by the Delhi Police for an assassination attempt case just as they were leaving the city. The case is then handed over to the inexperienced local thana inspector, Hathi Ram Choudhry, who, along with his rookie junior, Imran Ansari, sets about to solve this case and get to the bottom of who these four hired guns are and who hired them to kill a top, honest journalist. 2. So, while Paatal Lok sounds like a thriller or a whodunnit it is so much more! It is a searing reflection of our times- of the harsh reality of caste politics, of religious discrimination, of dirty politics and it shines a light on the privilege of urban, middle-to-upper-middle class Indians, who live in a cocoon, blissfully u...

Hey all, Hope you guys are staying home and staying safe! We've been home since early March and it feels like a different life where we used to go visit bookstores and restaurants and just be out in the world! Sigh. So, what do you do when you find yourself at home with a little too much time on your hands? Well, you turn to the TV and to online streaming service providers for some fun content. Without any further ado, here are some movies and series that we've been enjoying recently... Panchayat on Amazon Prime Video is a hilarious and heartwarming story of a young Engineer, who finds himself in a tiny village in Uttar Pradesh as the Secretary of the local village Panchayat. The idiosyncrasies of the villagers, the challenges of adjusting to village life and just the sheer madness of a bureaucrat's life make for a hilarious viewing! Solid performances and several laugh-out-loud moments make this series a must-watch! Breeders on Hotstar is a hilarious Bri...

Hello, hello! I hope all of you are doing well and staying home as much as possible. Tomorrow, March 22nd, has been declared as ' Janta Curfew' (People's Curfew) by our Prime Minister, where we've been urged to stay home between 7 am to 9 pm. I know a lot of us are feeling stir-crazy already, so, I thought I'd share some web series and movies that you can watch/ binge on tomorrow to make the self-imposed curfew easier. Asur: Voot Select's new web series is a contest of wits and will between a deadly serial killer and two CBI Forensic Officers. This mysterious serial killer is on a spree and, for some reason, he is taunting two of CBI's top forensic officers. The series is a mix of mythology and science and is quite interesting. We're still in the process of watching it and are very hooked! Little Fires Everywhere: If you've read the book or not, this is a series that explores complex family dynamics, different styles of mothering and just...

Hello!  This has been a good year for TV, there were some amazing shows, most of which we binged on streaming portals.  I am a big TV buff, always have been. Without wasting any more time, let's jump into it.  1. Chernobyl: Possibly, one of the best TV shows of the decade! A story of deceit, corruption, but, most importantly, of the courage, sacrifice, nobility and utter humanity of a handful of people. A must watch! Available on Hotstar.  2. Fleabag: Season 2 was even better than Season 1! A hilarious, heartbreaking, smart show! Available on Amazon Prime Video.  3. What we do in the Shadows: Vampires like you have never seen them! Made by the genius that is Taika Waititi, this show is laugh out loud funny! Available on Hotstar. 4. Stranger Things 3: Possibly, the best season of the show after the epic first season! This season was non-stop thrills and action. So good! Available on Netflix.  5. The Chalet: A French...

Book Review: The Two Lila Bennetts Authors: Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke Pages: 307 Read on: Kindle Read in: 3 hours Plot Summary:  Lila Bennett’s bad choices have finally caught up with her. And one of those decisions has split her life in two. Literally. In one life, she’s taken hostage by someone who appears to be a stranger but knows too much. As she’s trapped in a concrete cell, her kidnapper forces her to face what she’s done or be killed. In an alternate life, she eludes her captor but is hunted by someone who is dismantling her happiness, exposing one secret at a time. Lila’s decorated career as a criminal defense attorney, her marriage, and her life are on the line. She must make a list of those she’s wronged—both in and out of the courtroom—to determine who is out to get her before it’s too late.  But even if she can pinpoint her assailant, will she survive? And if she does, which parts of her life are worth saving, and which parts must die?  ...

Hey, hey! It's another weekend! Happy Janmasthami, if you celebrate it! We had a nice little celebration at home with prayers and mithai ( sweets) ! My sister and I have picked out our weekend reads and here's what they are.... I am reading The Body Myth by Rheea Mukherjee.  Plot Summary:  Mira is a teacher living in the heart of Suryam, the only place in the world the fickle Rasagura fruit grows. Mira lives alone, and with only the French existentialists as companions, until the day she witnesses a beautiful woman having a seizure in the park. Mira runs to help her but is cautious, for she could have sworn the woman looked around to see if anyone was watching right before the seizure began. Mira is quickly drawn into the lives of this mysterious woman Sara, who suffers a myriad of unexplained illnesses, and her kind, intensely supportive husband Rahil, striking up intimate, volatile and fragile friendships with each of them that quickly become something more. ...

Hello! One of the best things to do in the world is reading thrillers, especially, during the monsoons! Picture this- a dark, gloomy, rainy day and you curled up in bed with a thriller! Isn't that the most fun way to spend rainy days?! Well, for a bookworm, it is!  So, obviously, since June is when the rain Gods bless Bombay with some much-needed showers, my sister and I ended up spending many such rainy weekends with some much-hyped thriller books. Most, unfortunately, were a miss, but there were a few good ones too in the mix, which I thought I should review below, just in case any of you fine folk are considering reading thrillers in July!  The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy   Plot Summary:  We all want different things. Francie wants to be the perfect mother. Nell wants to escape the past. Collette wants to spend more time with her family. All Winnie wants is to have her baby back. When Nell suggests a night out in Brooklyn to her n...

Book: The Word is Murder  Author: Anthony Horowitz Pages: 374 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 3-4 hours  Plot Summary:  A woman is strangled six hours after organising her own funeral.  Did she know she was going to die? Did she recognise her killer? Daniel Hawthorne, a recalcitrant detective with secrets of his own, is on the case, together with his reluctant side-kick – a man completely unaccustomed to the world of crime. But even Hawthorne isn't prepared for the twists and turns in store – as unexpected as they are bloody. Things I Liked: This book's premise is so classically interesting! A woman in her 60s, otherwise fully healthy, plans her funeral down to the last detail and the same day, six hours later, is murdered in her own home! Coincidence? Or did she have some kind of premonition? Interesting, right?  The book is well written, but then that is a given when you read Anthony Horowitz! He is an excellent writ...

Book: The Wife Between Us Authors: Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen  Read on: Kindle  Read in: 3 hours  Pages: 353 Plot Summary:  When you read this book, you will make many assumptions. It’s about a jealous wife, obsessed with her replacement. It’s about a younger woman set to marry the man she loves. The first wife seems like a disaster; her replacement is the perfect woman. You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships. You will be wrong. Things I Liked:  This is a really  interesting, twisty book. It starts off as one thing- the story of a wife, who has been left for a younger woman- but then becomes something much more interesting!  This book is written in a really interesting manner. You read these series of chapters from someone you think is someone else.. and .. well, let me not spoil it any further.. but it is written in a ve...

Book: The Woman in the Window  Author: A.J. Finn Pages: 448 Read on: Kindle  Read in: 4 hours or so  Plot Summary:  What did she see? It’s been ten long months since Anna Fox last left her home. Ten months during which she has haunted the rooms of her old New York house like a ghost, lost in her memories, too terrified to step outside. Anna’s lifeline to the real world is her window, where she sits day after day, watching her neighbours. When the Russells move in, Anna is instantly drawn to them. A picture-perfect family of three, they are an echo of the life that was once hers. But one evening, a frenzied scream rips across the silence, and Anna witnesses something no one was supposed to see. Now she must do everything she can to uncover the truth about what really happened. But even if she does, will anyone believe her? And can she even trust herself? Things I Liked:  A very interesting premise. A highly anticipated...

Book: Are You Sleeping  Author: Kathleen Barber  Pages: 337  Read on: Kindle Read in: 4 hours  Plot Summary:  When a family man is killed at point blank range in his home, it shakes a sleepy town to its core. The murder is a strange, horrifying crime but for the authorities it’s an open-and-shut case. Ten years on, the victim’s daughter, Josie, has started afresh in New York – far from the tragic events that blew her family apart. No-one knows the truth about her previous life, not even her fiancé. Investigative journalist Poppy is convinced the wrong man is in jail for the murder and she’s determined to prove it. What starts off as a true-crime podcast snowballs into a national phenomenon and everyone has an opinion on the case. Poppy’s relentless pursuit of the truth threatens to expose old secrets. Josie realizes that her father’s murder could have consequences more devastating than she had ever imagined.     ...