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Links of the Ebooks are as below:
Convoluted: Tales of Mystery and Terror-1
Download your copies and please give your precious feedback...
Although the Ebook is not marked as a part of a Series, it tells us this is the first Tale which means the author must be having several plots up his sleeve!
The Ebook is also available on KindleUnlimited that can be read for free! Here is the link to the Ebook!
The first night we slept in my father’s bedroom. Early morning I woke up; there was an incessant chirping of a few house sparrows just outside the window. And I got a flash: my father was content and in peaceful rest, and that I should also feel happy, not to depress the atmosphere further. It came instantly before I had any chance of interpreting the chirping, and it did have a soothing impact on my mental health for the rest of the period.
(You can find a very similar territory in my thriller The Astral Limbo! No harm if you'd like to take a look!)
There was also a very painful prelude to the demise of my father-in-law: he had not been well for some time, but since he didn’t confide in anybody about his condition and we failed to take it seriously enough his condition worsened, and finally when we decided upon the journey he was literally on his death bed. For our peace of mind my wife and I decided to shift him to the nearest city for intensive treatment; we were desperate to do something for him, however futile or too late it were. Those 2/3 nights we spent in my in-laws’ house were terrifyingly disturbing for me. Every night I felt: the spirits of all his ancestors descending on me, not allowing me to fall asleep. I interpreted it thus: the ancestors came down and wanted to take possession of his soul in peace, because the end was inevitable and they did not want him to suffer more at the hospital beds and labs; they seemed to be angry at our efforts to linger it further. However, my father-in-law, kind soul as his was, understood his daughter’s feelings and allowed us to transport him for one last attempt to save him.
And, as it happened, he came back home again after almost a tortuous month to pass away in peace a few days later. Meanwhile, I had to go to my workplace for an emergency, and returned as soon as my wife gave me the sad news of his passing away. During the next few days of rituals leading to the aadya shraddha on the 11th day I had a few supernatural experiences which, in final analysis, were only a communication or messaging from his soul.
Once around noontime, when I was alone in the room normally allotted to me on our visits, somehow I had an urge of sitting on the old wooden chair with arm-rests preserved there which was the favorite chair of my wife’s grandfather. As I moved towards it something inexplicable happened: the chair seemed to have jerked sideways which froze me on my track. I deciphered it thus: it was due to the profound respect the grandfather was given in that household, and that my father-in-law who lost his father very early in life wanted me to adhere to it.
One night as we were sleeping I woke up suddenly to a peculiar sound. It was a sound of laboured breathing that seemed to emanate from within the bed. It was so loud and clear that the bed almost shivered and shuddered. I put my ears near to my soundly-sleeping wife—no, it wasn’t coming from her. I examined the bed all around, but failed to identify the source of the sound. My efforts woke my wife up. I told her about it, she advised me not to think much about it. So we went back to sleep.
Very late in the night another time I woke up without understanding why. There was a pin-drop silence and it was pitch dark in the room—the period being a waxing moon fortnight. Suddenly I beheld a patch or a circle of bright white light floating at the ceiling, then moving all around us. It continued its movement for more than a minute, as if watching us, surveying us. My mind immediately started exploring the possible source for an infiltrating light. There was no chance. The curtained two windows on one side of the longish room were completely sealed in by the tin-roofed pandal constructed in the courtyard for the shraddhaceremony; heavy curtains were also fully drawn across the two windows on the other side and from that walled-in side there was no possibility of any light; the lone street light in the driveway had not been working for a few days. I confirmed every facet the next morning and found no justification for an infiltrating light.
There could have been only one messaging in those occurrences: that the spirit of my father-in-law wanted to assure us again and again that he was with us all the time and would be watching over us for some time. It is also interesting to note that my wife never expressed surprise or shock at my accounts, because, as I came to know later, she was also having similar communications those days.
Hark! Such messages keep on coming and are all around you! You only need to respect those and try to decipher to your own benefit. If you deem it to be superstition you’re most welcome to ignore this piece, apart from the messages!
The story basically consists of four close friends—Juhi as Ishi, Soha as Saiba, Shahana as Zaira and Kritika as Dolly. While Saiba has an established family with husband and two kids Dolly is into a three-year-old unhappy marriage and the other two are supposed spinsters with Shahana having suffered a breakup previously. The story opens in Kolkata in 1978 establishing Ishi as an orphan having a close sister-like ties with the younger Meera (played by Ayesha in the older role) who is among others in the same orphanage. Then, the story cuts to 2019 in extremely posh environs in Gurgaon or Gurugram in Haryana showing Ishi as a high-end mover & shaker, the role almost inspired by the controversial real-life Niira Radia, and a huge scandal just breaking out in the media involving Ishi. Meera reappears much later in the plot. As per the time-period Ishi should be in her late forties, Saiba and Shahana possibly in early forties with only Dolly most probably in the late twenties.
The overwhelmingly female-cast is joined by Karishma as the tough cop Geeta who starts her investigation in a very promising note too as the four friends land up in a shady mess with Ishi dying a violent death the same night when the anniversary party of Dolly’s parents-in-law was going on. The plot moves intriguingly till the third episode and then, as we mentioned earlier, it falls flat. Instead of going into the detailed storyline that could possibly lead to spoilers we’ll just point out the main disappointments that mar the suspense elements that could have been built up in a telling manner.
· The biggest disappointment is with Juhi Chawla’s comeback to the OTT. She dies in the very first episode and then appears only momentarily in various flashbacks or revelations. She apparently has no solid stuff to prove her towering performance-related abilities, because the makers do not allow her or us to know how she moved up in her career as the most upmarket influencer Ishi and what had been the pros and cons in her success ride. The only point of reference as regards flashback is the consistent ‘five years ago’ which does not help anyone—performing or viewing.
· The ‘five years ago’ reference also applies to Ishi’s extremely close three friends and we hardly know anything about how their friendship started and grew and bloomed over time. Matters are not helped at all by the age-differences that we pointed out going by the time-period revealed in the story between the four fast friends.
· Karishma Tanna as the tough cop Geeta hardly does anything that proves her ‘toughness’ and never tries to go deeper into the shady affairs of a violent death, a missing person and the three clearly nervous friends. No doubt, she must’ve been hampered in her investigations by her obstinately unreasonable, unnecessarily foul-mouthed and apparently ignoramus lady boss ACP Madhu played by Vibha Chhibber. While we kept on expecting Geeta to excel as an honest and bold cop she gets more and more into a frame of mind to let go of the three ‘implicated’ friends, perhaps a tad more ardently than the writers-directors who’d really want to protect them for future use, and in the supposedly climaxing seventh episode we get treated only with Geeta’s lesbian leanings.
· Of course, being an out and out women-oriented story, the male characters have to be sketchy at best. However, it does create more roadblocks for the storytelling, because the seemingly important husbands of Saiba and Dolly and the photographer-friend of Shahana have been rendered clueless about what to do and how effectively to contribute toward the story.
· The reappearance of Meera in later episodes only adds to the melodrama rather than building up the tension. Anyhow, Ayesha Jhulka is able to do some justice to the insufficient role give to her.
· Finally, the makers of the web series Hush Hush should essentially have done much more to present a mature suspense series than indulging in endless hugging cum teary-emotional outbursts cum domestic-affair scenes of the most upmarket kind between the three friends in the glaringly disappointing last four episodes of the Series.
I am giving the links below where you can buy the book or take a look or read a sample. If the book gets you interested and immersed I’d be the happiest writer of the world!
Thank you all!
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First, the swearing-in ceremony for the formation of the new government was advanced to 7pm today itself, that is say, at least the swearing-in of the new CM. And then, in a joint press conference addressed by Shinde and Fadnavis the latter dropped the bombshell that the new CM was going to be Eknath Shinde, and not himself as was widely expected in media circles. Fadnavis went on to say that the state BJP would not even be a part of the government, only extending his party’s support to Shinde’s faction from outside. That announcement left everyone in utter disbelief and it was speculated that the BJP, in fact, wanted to oust the Thackeray family from active politics while still claiming the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray and to show that they’d not been hungry for power at all, not at all having any part to play in the split in Shiv Sena. It was also speculated that Fadnavis wanted to become the kingmaker or the remote control to monopolize the Hindutva space in the state.
In another twist just before the oath-taking ceremony Devendra Fadnavis announced that they’d in fact be a part of the new government and that he’d be the new Deputy Chief Minister. This announcement was supposedly made at the directions of the BJP high command in Delhi. And accordingly, the swearing-in ceremony was organized with Shinde taking the oath as the new CM and Fadnavis as the Deputy CM.
While the earlier speculations we mentioned could still be valid the question arises as to why the mighty BJP should allow the party to demote itself to a secondary position. Could it be due to factors of compulsion? Because, the only hope of the BJP to recapture power depends entirely on that faction of 49 legislators supporting Shinde who claims to be the real Shiv Sena and should they decide to go back to the Thackeray fold later the BJP would again be out of power. This makes the alliance as unholy as the earlier one looking at a volatile future ahead. So far the defectors have been kept safely away from the hub of politics, but they will have to come back to take oath, join the government and run it.
Another question that arises is that if the BJP is agreeable to giving away the post of the CM to Shiv Sena why they didn’t do it in 2019 which would’ve prevented the entire political drama to unleash ceaselessly in the following two and half years and would’ve ensured a BJP CM for at least two and half years seamlessly. Such questions raise the doubt that the BJP has in fact suffered a loss of face under pressing compulsions. One BJP national spokesperson has stoutly justified the move saying that their party is committed to ending family rule in politics across the country; well, that can be too tall a promise. Besides, a long battle lies ahead of Shinde’s faction to fight for the original party symbol and to appropriate the Balasaheb legacy at the same time. On the other hand, the NCP stalwart Sharad Pawar is not going to sit idle and watch the games as a spectator. Only the future can tell on how solid grounds the new alliance stands at the moment.
Meanwhile, the holidaying Shiv Sena rebels (now claimed to be 49 including a few independents) along with their leader Eknath Shinde had been shifted from Guwahati to another luxury resort in Goa in the evening today and they are likely to return to Mumbai early morning tomorrow to have discussions or negotiations with the BJP first and then picking up on the government formation process. It’s almost certain that Fadnavis will be the new CM, waiting for more than two and half years. It can called a quirk of nature that the Shiv Sena left the pre-poll alliance with the BJP on the CM post issue, demanding a rotational CM for half of the five-year term each; and in around two and half years only the Uddhav government has fallen.
The state BJP has been celebrating in their Mumbai party office with Devendra Fadnavis present and being served with sweets. There are actually three cheers for them: first, they’ve avenged the betrayal of the Shiv Sena in 2019; second, they’ve successfully engineered the biggest split ever in Shiv Sena ranks thus somewhat clearing the way to become the only Hindutva party in the state; and third, they’ve achieved a most significant victory in the run-up to the General Elections in 2024 by recapturing the state with the financial capital of the country. Although Eknath Shinde wants to retain his faction’s identity as the real Shiv Sena it’s going to be a long legal battle to do so. The Shiv Sena earlier made it very clear that they’d never allow the legacy of Balasaheb Thackeray to be taken away from them. How long would Shiv Sean exist with the isolation of the Thackeray family is also to be seen in the coming days.
There have been protests against the ‘traitor’ rebel MLAs and counter demonstrations in support of Shinde across the state in the last few days which made the Governor order the state police to ensure safety of the rebels once they come back to Mumbai. Interestingly, the pleas for and against disqualification of 16 rebel MLAs as demanded by Shiv Sena is pending with the Supreme Court with a hearing scheduled on 12thJuly. The apex Court came into the scenario as there’s been no Speaker in the assembly and the Deputy Speaker in charge is qualified to handle the matters relating to issues of disqualification and ordering a no-confidence motion.
(PS: The Final Twist! As on the afternoon of 30.06.2022, former BJP CM Devendra Fadnavis has declared the Shiv Sena rebel group leader Eknath Shinde as the next CM of Maharashtra!! This move has surprised one and all. Is it aimed at finishing off the traditional Thackeray family led Shiv Sena? It'll take time for a much clearer picture.)
The most definitive parameter of such political thrillers, the hotel-resort politics, is very much there in this too: first the dissident MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly) led by Eknath Shinde, one of the senior-most and loyalist leaders of the Shiv Sena, were lodged in a five-star resort in Surat, a city in the BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, and then shifted unexpectedly at the dead of the same night to a five-star venue in Guwahati, of course, the capital of another BJP-ruled state of Assam with one of the most prominently aggressive national BJP leaders, Himanta Biswa Sarma, being the Chief Minister there. Dissident leader Eknath Shinde reportedly moved in there with around 30 supporting Sena MLAs which has increased to 42 (total of 46 including independent MLAs), as claimed by him on the morning of 23rd June, 2022, for which he’d provided video proof too.
As per the anti-defection law Shinde needs to ensure the support of at least 37 MLAs which is two-thirds of the 55 SS MLAs in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly after the 2019 assembly elections. With apparently more than the required number the dissidents can now avoid disqualification and vote for the BJP in case of a no-confidence motion or in terms of showing the numbers to the Governor of Maharashtra to stake claim for the formation of a new Government with the BJP, the traditional partner of the SS on the basic Hindutva issue till 2019. Buoyed by this support Shinde has been claiming to be the leader of the ‘actual’ Shiv Sena, wanting to retain its identity at any cost. So, now we’re faced with a situation of a Shiv Sena without the Thackeray family whereas it was the legendary Balasaheb Thackeray, father of the present CM Uddhav Thackeray, who founded this party on 19th June, 1966 in the interests of protecting the rights of the local Marathi population of the state.
Perhaps, somewhat nonplused by those emotional proceedings Eknath Shinde shied away from his intended press conference in Guwahati last evening, and instead shot off an ‘emotional’ letter to Uddhav this morning alleging a saga of sheer neglect to the SS loyalists by his coalition government that consistently preferred those of Congress and NCP only. However, despite the charged emotional drama MLAs kept on defecting from the Uddhav group and flying over to Guwahati, at times accompanied by BJP leaders.
The main spokesperson of the SS, Sanjay Raut has been saying repeatedly that the CM was not going to resign and that once the ‘imprisoned’ flock of MLAs returns to Mumbai it’d be an entirely different scenario as he has claimed to have been in touch with at least twenty dissident MLAs. He has also said that the traditional supporters of the SS have reiterated their binding faith in the Thackerays, have called the Sena dissidents as ‘traitors’ and have warned that they’d defeat them in the next assembly elections. All these claims and counter-claims about the numbers make this abundantly clear that this political thriller is far from over at the moment. Coincidentally, the 80-year-old Governor of Maharashtra has been in a hospital after being proved COVID positive.
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The Amazon web series ‘Bosch’ was premiered on Prime in February 2014 with a 10-episode Season-1 and in 2022 the seventh and final season was released. The Series have been rated very highly, almost 100% for some seasons, by the premiere rating agencies and critics, ‘Bosch’ has been termed as one of the best detective television series ever. I had a sneak preview when ‘Bosch: Season 7’ started streaming on Prime Video and got interested immediately, coming to know that the stories are based on the novels of Michael Connelly, a bestselling author of 31 suspense-thriller books and the creator of the character of Harry Bosch among many other memorable ones, whose books I never read. Sensing an inevitable continuity in the storyline even though every episode features at least one new case, I decided to start at the beginning, that is Season-1. And I got so immensely immersed in the smart plotting and storytelling that I made sort of a world record for myself by completing a total 68 episodes of 7 seasons in less than a fortnight.
Most importantly, Bosch is honest, uncompromising, brave and always ready to fight with the system or with his bosses as the situation requires. He has deep compassion for child victims, female victims and for that matter any kind of victims of brutal abuse and crimes. His traumatic background always influences his emotions. Bosch was the child of a prostitute and at a very young age his mother was brutally murdered by a young client who later became a very influential personality of Los Angeles. His relentless quest to bring his mother’s killer to justice is a running thread through most of the Seasons till he succeeds in tracking down the killer, to the utter dismay and discomfort of his police chief Irving (played by Lance Reddick) who is very ambitious, not even deterred by personal tragedies to carry on with his career progression.
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The web Series Bosch gives us a very convincing picture too of the rivalries between the cops and top bosses within the department. The ever-present character of Lieutenant Billets (played by Amy Aquino) whose lesbian inclination threatens to impact her career progression adversely, but she always stands by Bosch for all his actions including even throwing a superior crashing through the glass wall to be on the side of the truth. At times, interferences in cases assigned to a particular cop cum his/her partner cause intense rivalries between detectives too.
Then of course, the bad, corrupt and criminally involved cops within the department that call for most careful handling. Further, as is observed in India too, the coming of the FBI or the CIA into the scenario causes a holy mess, the cops complaining about their own investigations and leads neutralized as they’re always the first to reach the crime scenes. On the positive side the comradery within LAPD in times of crisis, personal or departmental, is heartwarming. Comic interludes are also nicely provided by the lovable veteran duo of Crate (played by Gregory Scott Cummins) and Barrel (played by Troy Evans).
All the characters are fully developed and believable. This is being helped by the fact that the plots and the storylines follow Connelly novels very closely with the latter being one of the producers of the Series. As an inevitable result most of the episodes are primarily dialogue based which seems to slow down the pace as regards the usual suspense-detective storytelling. However, this does not hamper the viewing experience, because the interesting dialogues bring out the detailed process of investigation—discovering more and more leads and then tracking these, finally leading to the conclusion. Of course, a bit of criticism can be valid at stages in one or two episodes when the storytelling somewhat loses its steam and personal tragedies have to happen to pace up the tension and the momentum again.
Apart from his ‘creative and experimentalist restlessness’ RGV is also like a cricketer who is often in full form and the next day he is out of form. His movies truly reflect this throughout the last three decades.
Of course, he never forgot his ‘horror’ genre and made a commercially successful ‘Bhoot’ (Ghost) in 2003, following it up in the same year with ‘Darna Mana Hai’ (fear is forbidden) and ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’ (fear is necessary) in 2006. In the year of 2003, he also produced a psychological thriller ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ (there was a girl) starring Urmila and anti-hero Saif Ali Khan. In 2004 he produced a suspense-crime flick ‘Ab Tak Chappan’ (so far 56) on an encounter specialist played brutally by Nana Patekar. He also returned to the horror genre with ‘Phoonk’ (Blow) in 2008 and this was perhaps the last superhit of RGV. Unfortunately, since then the RGV movies have been able to get only mixed to negative reviews except the absorbing political thriller ‘Rann’ in 2010 starring Amitabh Bachchan. The same year his ‘Rakta Charitra’ double-header reminded viewers including this writer prominently mostly of gore and violence portrayed in C-grade Hindi commercial masala movies.
His mistakes have contributed to his being consistently out of form since at least 2010: the mistake of trying to do a remake of the classic ‘Sholay’ that landed him in controversy and he went ahead still with a ridiculous title of ‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag’ (the fire of RGV); his misconceived notions of remaking the evergreens ‘Shiva’, ‘Satya’ and ‘Bhoot’; and so on. His supposed docudrama ‘The Attacks of 26/11’ (2013) failed to portray the intensity of the frightening Mumbai terror attack. In fact, the recent Amazon web series ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’ from a medical point of view is more engrossing as well as realistic.
Every filmmaker has his/her ups and downs, hits and flops as we’ve tried to narrate in the case of this iconic filmmaker of India who is apparently like the volatile cricketer. However, nothing of this justifies his making of the ’12 O Clock’ movie. Thanks to some Hollywood horror epics we know very well the phenomena of ‘possession and exorcism’. But in this film, this phenomenon has been turned grotesquely on its head without any explanation.
A stalwart theater-cinema actor Makarand Deshpande who has also featured in many of RGV movies has been reduced to a mockery of a character that emotes without conviction. Veteran Bollywood hero Mithun Chakraborty, also roped in as psychiatrist (the character pronounces it as ‘psychiatric’!), does not know what to do most of the times. The supposed exorcist played by Ashish Vidyarthi, before he could offer a solution, gets killed in his own house by the remote-controlling ghost of a psycho serial killer who possessed Makarand’s daughter Gauri. Manav Kaul and Dalip Tahil as cops are entirely wasted. RGV’s final solution to the problem is as horrendously absurd and laughable as the entire movie is inadvertently funny. I had the misfortune of watching this movie because of the RGV tag and that it was available on a streaming platform.
The story of Kimiis grounded entirely on the female protagonist Angela Childs, played brilliantly by Zoe Kravitz, whose agoraphobia gets aggravated by a previous assault (not shown in the movie), the pandemic and lockdowns, her continuous work-from-home as a tech executive with only her laptop, mobile and other gadgets for company. She panics and shudders at the idea of going out of home; she works on her gadgets, particularly ordering the Kimi for every action, the smart digital assistant like that of Siri in Apple and Alexa in Amazon; she does workouts, picks her ailing teeth daily and gazes often out of the window taking in the movements of persons inside various surrounding apartments; she talks to her mother or co-workers virtually; and invites her boyfriend cum neighbor Terry (Byron Bowers) for an occasional fling. She violently resists any request from anyone asking her to visit them, let it be her dentist or colleagues. Her lonely existence goes on till something happens that forced her to come out of home.
The first scene of the movie shows the CEO (Bradley Hasling, played by Derek DelGaudio) of a tech corporation called Amygdala, interviewed by a TV channel for his forthcoming IPO. He explains the smart speaker device of Kimi that works on voice commands and involves human monitoring of the incoming data streams from Kimi users. The CEO says that the device is working very well among the users and that he expects millions from the initial IPO issue.
Angela Childs works for Amygdala and monitors all the incoming streams from users taking further measures whenever necessary to improve the experience. One day she picks up a stream where loud music is playing, but in-between she hears a women’s screams. She starts editing the stream, minimizing the music and concentrating on the voices. Getting convinced that that stream could possibly involve a violent sexual crime against the woman she talks to a co-worker and wants him to give her the full streams of that user. The co-worker gives her an admin code with which she could enter the data zone of Amygdala and get what she wanted.
Angela succeeds in getting all the Kimi recordings and the final video stream, and is horrified to find a murder of the user woman being committed. Shaking all over she speaks to her boss, the CEO, for necessary action. He tries to evade and refers her to a senior Amygdala executive Natalie Chowdhury (played by Rita Wilson). After Angela’s several attempts to reach her, finally Natalie calls her and convinces her to come over to her office, further assuring her that her disclosure would be done in the presence of an FBI officer. So, Angela moves out of home at last and what happens afterwards is a sequence of events leading to a shattering climax.
Zoe Kravitz portrays the character of Angela Childs as effectively as Soderbergh visualizes. She behaves weird and shouts often indoor; shakes all over violently in sudden panic; is extremely fastidious like taking out the pillow covers and bedsheet in the very presence of her boyfriend Terry after the act was done; and while outdoor she is masked up and covered from head to foot, walks with her head lowered, stops suddenly in corners, walks like in dazed huddle. However, the string of terrifying happenings awakens her energy and she fights for survival gallantly. Soderbergh did not make any special attempt to keep the suspense element sacrosanct, because during the very beginning of the film he reveals a vital clue for the viewers to remember.
The storytelling or the antics of the protagonist is entirely convincing and realistic. As is often observed by critics, suspense/mystery thrillers with a female protagonist are always convincing as to her acts or heroics while a male protagonist is always led to do the heroics of a different level, making us wonder at his superhero abilities. Steven Soderbergh, always committed to avant-garde arthouse approach despite his typically Hollywood subjects, delivers his punches everywhere in this pacey thriller, from the lingering camera work that captures his tacky character in the rather spacious apartment to the outdoor scenes where the hand-held camera just freaks out.
In all, Kimi is immensely watchable and enjoyable. It also satirically brings out the increasing dependence of modern humans on gadgets, devices and various digital platforms. All the keys-tapping, searching, surveillance and tracking which have been an inseparable part of almost all Hollywood films for quite a while now, are also here in this film; but with a kind of emphasis that can be safely called a warning.
The Durga Puja pandal was quiet in the morning hours, except for the occasional bursts of incantations from the priests, amplified by th...
