Urmilla Deshpande » book review

3/21/2011 ~ “A Pack of Lies” reviewed on Curious Book Fans

Urmilla Deshpande — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:02:31 +0000

http://www.curiousbookfans.co.uk/2011/fiction-books/6438/pack-of-lies-urmilla-deshpande

This is a cool site – the reviews are honest and insightful, and, will point readers to books they may not encounter on the usual bestseller lists. Worth a look, I really like this site. Even though they don’t rave about my books. Or maybe because they don’t rave about my books

01/26/2011 ~ New Madhouse Review – 2

Urmilla Deshpande — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:56:32 +0000

http://johncheeran.blogspot.com/2011/01/madhouse-true-stories-of-inmates-of.html

By John Cheeran
Here is an awesome book.
Madhouse: True stories of the inmates of Hostel 4, IIT-Bombay is going to be a trendsetter. It puts together utterly common and uncommon moments from the lives of a group of students, achievers of some sort, for they cracked the JEE to get in to the IIT.
Though all the recollections in Madhouse are specific to one of the hostels in IIT Bombay – there are 9 others, including a ladies hostel (hostel 10) but you don’t have to be an IITian to enjoy these true stories on hostel food, ragging, pondies, phone, entertainment programmes (EPs), copying, girlfriends and other assorted adventures.
These stories cover a timeline of less than 10 years (roughly a period ranging from 1972-1985) out of IIT Bombay’s more than 50-year history.
It’s an unputdownable book, especially if you remain young at heart. Any reader should be able to recall more than one occasion from his student/hostel life similar to that Madhouse speaks about. These colourful tales do make you nostalgic of a time of infinite freedom and immense pressure to live up to parental expectations.
Madhouse shatters a few myths regarding how above average and brilliant the guys and girls who make the cut to the IIT are. May be, after reading these true accounts, you would feel that what a bunch of quirky, degenerate and spoilt characters are these people, with no qualms about flouting rules of all kinds.
Some of these tales are absolutely wacky. Bakul Desai (contributing editor and a successful businessman based in Hyderabad) wanted to bring an elephant to the campus for the H4’s EP (entertainment programme). An enterprising Bakul, in his desperation, went to Antop Hill and had a negotiation with underworld don Varadaraja Mudaliar for renting out an elephant without knowing who the guy was. Later Bakul tells how they invented ways to use the public coin phone in the hostel without inserting coins. I burst out laughing when he described the day when a telephone department official came with a big bag to collect all the coins from the phone box but only to be shocked when he opened the box by the sight of matchsticks, broken strings, crumpled computer cards, rubber bands, clips, pins and an assortment of wires made of steel, copper, plastic, a wad of chewing gum and a 50 paise coin in the middle of it.
Who thought IIT students could be so enterprising?
Most of the heroes and heroines of Madhouse have done well in life. Many here recount that they learnt more by bunking classes than from classrooms.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, who was a commie then at IIT Bombay has traveled quite distance to become BJP ideologue and now an advisor to Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee. Manohar (Manu) Parrikar is another H4 inmate who became BJP chief minister of Goa and now the opposition leader in the assembly.
Urmilla Deshpande (editor) and Bakul Desai (contributing editor) deserve a toast for putting together this book. It was Bakul who took the lead to get the project on track. Urmilla played her role as a sensitive editor to perfection by letting these stories speak by themselves without the writer in her taking over to shape them. She realized that in these stories style and content were inseparable. She should know having married an H4 inmate Hashish Koj La (Ashish Khosla).

Posted by johncheeran at 12:17 AM

03/01/2011 ~ new review of “A Pack of Lies”

Urmilla Deshpande — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 04:35:02 +0000

Happy new year! A Pack of Lies, which was published October 2009, is still being read and reviewed, I’m very pleased! A friend sent me this link today. Nice new year present, an inspiration that might help me to finish the book of short stories I have promised to deliver to my editor by the end of January…

Sheila Kumar, the reviewer, has alluded a few times to “autobio masquerading as fiction” as several have done before, but she has stopped short of making any further assumptions, and has actually given me the benefit of reading the book as fiction. More on this later, it’s time I wrote about it. A book to finish first – a challenge from my dear editor.

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article1020913.ece

The text of the review:

Mommie dearest

SHEILA KUMAR

Sometimes, telling a tale of childhood can also be an exorcism of sorts.

A Pack of Lies, Urmilla Deshpande, Tranquebar, Rs. 295.

The pulling down of the covering veil is not a gentle gesture here; it is a brutal act of ripping. Yet, when the reader reaches the end of this coming-of-age novel, autobio masquerading as fiction, the utter imperative behind it does not fail to impress. Deshpande has a story to tell and she tells it, consequences be damned.

It is the improbably named Virginia who comes of age in the early 1980s here. The girl was never the shy, retiring sort to begin with; add a strange, preoccupied mother who swings between languid condemnation and an equally languid neglect all through, throw in generous pinches of dope, drink, men, women, modelling contracts, unsavoury relationships and the occasional bout of introspection, and you get a very readable account of a young life lived to the hilt.

Of course, it is anything but a pack of lies. The novel deals with truths, mostly unpalatable. Virginia a.k.a Ginny, named after the doomed Woolf is ironically enough, not much of a Woolf fan. She tires early of trying to live up to her moody mother’s unpronounced expectations and decides to go her own way. That particular road involves the jettisoning of any remnants of inhibitions, taking up with a glamorous woman mentor, an unsavoury boss who quickly become Ginny’s live-in partner, and sundry other quick gropings and one-night sessions with attractive men who come her way. There is a career of sorts in photography that is slowly coming together, there is the occasional reunion with her separately re-married father and mother and their new families. There is the immediate bonding with her sister who lives with her father and his awful new wife, as well as the small stepsister born to her mother late in life. Tumult but not all bad, either.

Real lives

It’s the old cliché come alive: Ginny isn’t really short of money, she even has her own apartment in Mumbai. What she lacks desperately and seeks hungrily, is unconditional love and acceptance, mainly from her parents. Ginny’s mother, the distant writer with longings both the girl and the reader can only guess at, as well as a predilection later on for drink, tends to steal several scenes from the young girl throughout the narrative and is someone who leaves quite an impact.

What shines through is the truth (again, masquerading as distinct possibility) that Ginny’s story is a true one. Love, lust and life, the three strands inform the narrative in a clear-eyed manner. The story is written in a no-frills, direct style, and the reader warms to the heroine despite the best efforts of the writer to create a no-sympathy-needed character. That ultimately is the book’s winning formula.

12/14/2010 ~ Madhouse reviewed… and enjoyed!

Urmilla Deshpande — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:10:12 +0000

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/madhouse-is-a-candid-provocative-narrative/137422-40-101.html

Deccan Herald Review

Urmilla Deshpande — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:27:50 +0000

Painfully ever after

#mce_temp_url#

POL in Marie Claire India december 2009

Urmilla Deshpande — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:46:22 +0000

Marie Claire Dec 2009

family

ties

and write them into major events. Or

take marginally interesting people and

write them into giants and trolls and

goddesses. For example, the people

Ginny has sex with. There have been

men and women that I had crushes

on, that I might have wanted to have

a larger relationship, or just sex with.

And circumstances or their desires did

not allow it – well, Ginny got lucky (or

unlucky) where I did not. My mother

was quite a character and I did draw

upon her for Ginny’s mother. But I

had to distort her in order to make

her larger than life. I wanted to write

fiction about a woman somewhat like

me. After I started writing, she took

on her own character. So when I read

the book after its final edit, she didn’t

resemble me. I’m glad for that. Even if

everyone insists on assuming this is – as

one reviewer put it – “autobiography

masquerading as novel” – it is a novel,

and any resemblance to persons living

or dead is purely inspirational!

Who are your favourite writers?

Jane Austen, Kurt Vonnegut, John

Steinbeck, Italo Calvino, Lawrence

Durrell, Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

– the list keeps growing longer. I have

a weakness for comics, graphic novels

and science fiction.

De spi t e the f raught f ami l y

relationships, the book is actually

about family.

Family is an odd thing. There isn’t

always a mutual desire to be part of it

– we don’t choose our parents, or even

our children. We may love them, but

wouldn’t admit it to ourselves if we

did not. Ginny is unfortunate that she

doesn’t have any models to base her

social morals on, or the size and colour

of her family. But she is fortunate too,

in not having those models. Like a

traveller on an unknown road, she has

to make it up as she goes along.

By Manjula Narayan

The Complaints

Ian Rankin

Hachette India, Rs 595

Ian Rankin’s new hero

Malcolm Fox works for

the Edinburgh Police’s

Professional Standards Unit

aka The Complaints. He’s

a cop who catches crooked cops. If his first

outing is anything to go by, readers will soon

learn to love Fox as much as they do crabby

Scot Inspector Rebus. The author’s even been

hinting that Rebus and Fox might make a joint

appearance some day. Bet you can’t wait!

The New Anthem: The

Continent in Its

Own Words

Edited by Ahmede

Hussain

Tranquebar, Rs 350

Here’s a book that brings

together voices from the

Indian subcontinent. Do stop to read ‘If You

Are Afraid of Heights’ by Raj Kamal Jha, ‘The

Ocean of Mrs Nagai’ by Sharbari Ahmed and

‘Cyclone’ by Khademul Islam. Also in the

fiction anthology are works by Amit Chaudhuri,

Tabish Khair, Padma Viswanathan, Kamila

Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid and Altaf Tyrewala.

new on shelves

Urmilla

Deshpande’s

novel A Pack

of Lies is an

interesting

read

(Tranquebar,

Rs 295)

Don’t Swallow Your

Gum and Other

Medical Myths

Debunked

Dr Aaron Carroll & Dr

Rachel Vreeman

Penguin, Rs 350

‘You use only 10 per cent

of your brain,’ ‘Acupuncture doesn’t really

work,’ ‘Condoms protect you from all STDs’

and ‘Eating at night makes you fat’ are some

beliefs challenged in the book. Though some of

the arguments aren’t entirely convincing, it’s

definitely a witty read.

book stills: manasa madishetty

234 marie claire india december 2009

Urmila Deshpande’s A Pack

of Lies traces the journey of

her protagonist Ginny as she

struggles to make sense of family

and of life in 1980s Mumbai. Here,

the original calendar girl – she was a

leading model – talks about her novel.

How much of the book is drawn

from your life?

Ginny is often assumed to be me

because the book is written in first

person. Yes, I am Ginny and Ginny is

me, but I am also not Ginny, and she

is also not me! There are moments in

my life that I used as starting points

to write Ginny – my relationship with

my mother, or my sisters, for example.

But I did not want to be restricted to

the truth. I wanted to take possibilities,

Marie Claire Dec 2009

Nice review by John Cheeran…

sava — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:30:01 +0000

Thanks for this review, John Cheeran, I’m glad you liked my book!

Reviews and other strange things…

Urmilla Deshpande — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:40:42 +0000

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262541

http://www.thehindu.com/mp/2009/10/31/stories/2009103150590300.htm

clips

Urmilla Deshpande — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:01:55 +0000

Asian Age Newspaper Mumbai, Oct 25.

DNA Article

sava — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:32:24 +0000

Write up in the Indian newspaper DNA…

“Beyond the expected“

Note: They got Umi’s mother’s name wrong… It should be Gauri Deshpande, not Shashi Deshpande. Umi is not related to Shashi Deshpande in any way other than as a friend and fellow writer.

Here’s what the paper artcile looks like…

DNA Article: Beyond the expected.

And here’s another image from the newspaper:

Prahlad Kakkar and Umi at the Mumbai Launch

More news and article updates as they occur. Get in touch if you spot anything, we’ll credit you of course.