drficticity

Hours before he was to be hanged till death, he was sipping tea. And then he started singing from the 1960’s movie Badal, “Apne liye jiye to kya jiye, tu ji ae dil zamane ke liye.” A few officials of Tihar jail, tasked with carrying out the hanging, sang along.

He then demanded another cup of tea. The man, who served tea in the prison, had left and Afzal Guru, convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack, went to the gallows without his last wish fulfilled – a cup of tea.

Triggered? Proceed with caution but if you are in to it I have got a pretty good book recommendation for you .

Black Warrant
Authors – Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury
Genre – Non fiction /memoir
Publisher – Roli Books
Pages – 178

Tihar is a maximum security prison, currently housing over 10K inmates,also it is the largest complex of prisons in South Asia. Styled as correctional facility it is famous for the rehabilitation of the inmates as on completing their sentence the prisoners can appear for the placements as well as higher studies as much as it is famous for its ‘famous inmates’ including Kanhaiya Kumar, Lalu Yadav,chhota Rajan, Charles Shobraj and the author was it’s jailer for 35 years and so ofcourse he’s got stories to tell and this got me very intrigued from the introduction only.

Many of the Convicts discussed in the book are people and cases we have followed via news outlets but once a convict is sent to jail, nobody think much about the case, because most of the people don’t know what goes behind the bar.

The jail food,the beatings the subhuman living conditions are a few things that I have seen in movies and pop culture, and once in a while we get the news that a mobile phone or a television is found from an inmates belonging but rather than that jail is not a place alot of people know about and I don’t think alot of people would like to know to be honest.

The book starts up with a map to explain the layout of the prison and a hierarchy chart. The story opens up in 1981, when a young man (our author) resigns from his railway job and reports to his new job at Tihar.As it all unfolds the book does a good job at humanizing the inmates and also the jail staff. Sunil also addressed the personal problems he faced because of being in such an unconventional job,& the impact this unusual job had on Sunil and his the family, as he lived with his wife and kids in the Jail complex.

Also the book has some funny moments that sound straight out of a movie screen like how once an inmate dosed off a officer while giving massages and walked off straight from the gate in his uniform to the infamous jail break by Charles Shobraj to bizzare incidents like the once in 1980s, over a hundred, walked out of the prison with the visitors, without being stopped at the gates because they had managed to copy on their own the seals that are marked on visitors’ hands ( saay whaat)

The book also has a lot of things that could be controversial like the accounts of corruption by officers and the power of money even behind bars. What I really liked here is the authors honesty, and the ability of the narration to humanize the inmates and the jail staff. They have also penned down accounts of the eight death sentences which were executed in his watch in Tihar Jail (I said proceed with caution in the beginning) including that of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat.

This book would have been a bummer if he’d say it’s all good and disciplined, but they don’t, infact they accepts how difficult it is to change things, the omnipresent corruption in the hierarchy of inmates, jail staffs and police and how do the rich and powerful manage to get a decent life even behind bars.

Also it gave a different spin to many headlines as they turn in to real life work place situations for the staff at Tihar like when Anna Hazare was arrested from Ram-Leela Maidan.

Also I learnt a bunch of things like there is a free jail system,in which you can go out of jail for the day and comeback in the evening,manu Sharma (Jessica Lal case) use it to run his business and once a big business man converted his cell into his office.Also there strories of Charles Shobraj and Ranga-Billa who have kind of acquired a status of Urban’s legends

So if you have made it up till here on my blog post and you want to know more about Tihar,go ahead you’ll definitely like the book, it’s much better written than this article I promise.

Releasing – February,2020,Genre – dark fantasy

Once upon a time, a demon who desired earthly domination fathered an army of dark daughters to help him corrupt humanity . . .

As children, Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea dreamed of a strange otherworld: a nightscape of mists and fog, perpetually falling leaves and hungry ivy, lit by an unwavering moon. Here, in this shadowland of Everwhere, the four girls, half-sisters connected by blood and magic, began to nurture their elemental powers together. But at thirteen, the sisters were ripped from Everwhere and separated. Now, five years later, they search for one another and yearn to rediscover their unique and supernatural strengths. Goldie can manipulates plants and gives life. Liyana controls rivers and rain. Scarlet has electricity at her fingertips. Bea can fly.

To realize their full potential, the blood sisters must return to the land of their childhood dreams. But Everwhere can only be accessed through certain gates at 3:33 A.M. on the night of a new moon. As Goldie, Liyana, Scarlet, and Bea are beset with the challenges of their earthly lives, they must prepare for a battle that lies ahead. On their eighteenth birthday, they will be subjected to a gladiatorial fight with their father’s soldiers. If they survive, they will face their father who will let them live only if they turn dark. Which would be fair, if only the sisters knew what was coming.

So, they have thirty-three days to discover who they truly are and what they can truly do, before they must fight to save themselves and those they love.

(The quote is from an advanced review copy so is subject to change)

“All souls are special. Son or daughter, Grimm or not, Life touches her spirit to every one of her creations. But the conception of a daughter is a particularly mystical event, requiring certain alchemical influences. For, to conceive a being who can bear and birth life herself needs a little something . . . extra.

Every daughter is born of an element, infused with its own particular powers. Some are born of earth: fertile as soil, strong as stone, steady as the ancient oak. Others of fire: explosive as gunpowder, seductive as light, fierce as an unbound flame. Others of water: calm as a lake, relentless as a wave, unfathomable as an ocean. The Sisters Grimm are daughters of air, born of dreams and prayer, faith and imagination, bright-white wishing and black-edged desire”

(Minor spoilers may be ahead from now)

I would love to call this book a dark fairy tale for grown up girls, I loved how the female leads are portrayed ,each are given their pov along with leo,another key player with the sisters. So that we see their world’s from their perspective and as different their lives are ,they are treated very cautiously, the stories around them slowly evolves and kept me interested in it till the end. Also the novel has an alternative timeline from a decade ago in ‘everwhere’ where the four girls have met before and shared their life as sisters but in the current timeline they are unaware of ‘everwhere’ and the sinister fate that awaits them and they have 33 days to face it.

The four characters are somewhat built upon the classic fairy tales but they are done very subtlety with an added darkness

Goldie (Goldilocks) is linked with Earth,can manipulate nature, she had a pet plant named juniper as a child which which kind of signifies her ‘mother nature’ characteristic, also she is the mother figure to her younger brother teddy and do whatever it takes to keep him happy. She is the one narrative starts with and her character follows the most dramatic character Arc I felt, we see her go from a petty thief to the most powerful being,
Also she has a romantic story line with the soilder Leo,whose whole life mission is to kill Grimm girls for his father, his commander,which he does very well but when he meets Goldie, he goes through a whole lot of inner turmoil himself.

Next sister is liyana,she has the power element of water and initially I thouth she would be like the little mermaid but hers is more of a Cinderella story in queer, she lives with her aunt and they are not doing well financially so her aunt is pressuring her in to marrying a rich guy for the financial security but she is a lesbian with a long term relationship with her girlfriend Koko. She constantly feels burdened and need to oblige her aunt,as she kind of raised her . We watch her grow as person immensely,from quite a self doubting young woman she turns around to be quite a self accepting confident person.

Bea (Beauty),Bea’s element is air, she can fly and manipulate it.
She is portrayed  as careless and independent and takes pleasure in her abilities to get what she wants, she is also the most aware of sinister future,as her mother kinds of nurtures it but she tries to put it off for as long as possible, this light and dark battle is constant in her mind till the novel ends and her character is the most unpredictable one.

The last sister is Scarlet (Red Riding Hood) who,as her name suggests is linked with fire and electricity, Scarlet for me was the most relatable girl of today, independent, hardworking and brave,trying to make the ends meet while running her cafe with her grandmother. Even during the drowning market,She is unwilling to sell out to Mr Wolfe’s offers to buy the cafe, due to her grandmother’s emotional attachment to the place. She is usually good at controlling her power but sometimes her anger comes out in explosive ways. Her over all tough outer shell kind of changes when we see her with grandmother(Esme),she is aware of her grandmother’s deteriorating health but is still unable to come to terms with it and constantly tries to make Esme happy.

I loved this book because how relatable the characters were, so many times I see women feel the need to oblige people and care for them and be accomodating to needs of others that we sometimes forget ourselves and our needs and happiness in the constant ‘is she okay? Is he okay ?’ the characters do the same. Also even in the fantasy world when I see the protagonists struggle to make the ends meet or liyana’s difficulty in coming out of closet it instantly makes me sympathetic towards the characters because me or people I love, have been there, also there are topics such as self harm, abusive parents, these characters,became people I cared for, I wanted them to come out victorious.And with such a diverse range of characters,from their ethnicity ,financial status and sexualities and with such diverse situations something or the other becomes relatable to every one.

The storyline is inspired by a few classic fairy tale elements but it is very submerged and does not go as I expected, kept me on the hook till the very end. The ending is just the one that stays with you after you finish the book, because I cared about the characters (infact the whole book is beautiful and kind of stayed with me even after I finished it)

**I was provided with an free advanced review copy of the book on request in exchange of an honest review, all the opinions are my own & honest all the pictures in the post are clicked by me and are copyrighted **

This book was definitely one of the best fantasies I’ve read past year and I’m so excited for the sequel.

Adeyemi’s debut novel was so highly rated even before it was released it gathered alot of attention,

The first book the children of blood and bone, follows heroine Zélie as she attempts to restore magic to the kingdom of Orïsha, following the ruling class kosidáns’ brutal suppression of the class of magic practitioners Zélie belongs to, the maji.

Summary

The novel introduces the land of Orïsha, where King Saran rules over two conflicting cultures: the maji, who have unique magical abilities, have always been oppressed by the elite kosidán, the nobles.

Most of Saran’s family was killed by maji to take revenge Saran ordered raids that killed the maji, rid the land of magic, and cemented kosidán rule. 

The Children of Blood and Bone takes place eleven years later, following Zélie Adebola a divîner(one who has magical blood) she is also one of three point-of-view characters.

Her mother was a maji killed in the raid and her father is a kosidán. Zélie is not a maji because magic no longer exists,however her white hair still marks her as a divîner & she is introduced as someone who could become a maji, and is being trained by a hidden divîner, Mama Agba.

Following an incursion by some guards demanding payment, Zélie and her family become afraid that she might be sent to the stocks, where maji who are unable to pay the taxes placed on them are sent to work in a kind of indentured servitude, sometimes to death.

Zélie and her older brother Tzain, an accomplished player in a popular sport called agbön, go to the capital, Lagos, to raise money to pay the taxes.

While there, Zélie sees a girl, Amari (second point-of-view character). She is Saran’s daughter but has fled the palace following the killing of her friend and servant, Binta, a divîner.

The trio of Zélie, Tzain, and Amari are encouraged by Baba, Zélie’s father, to seek out the temple of the maji, Chândomblé.

Though pursued by Inan (third POV character and Saran’s first born son), Kaea, and a contingent of guards, the group successfully finds their way to the temple. There they learn that a ritual must be performed once every hundred years to renew the connection between the maji and Sky Mother, the mother of all the other gods. In addition to the scroll, the group needs two other key artifacts in order to perform this ritual: a sunstone, connecting Sky Mother to the earth and the maji holding it, and the blood dagger, which the last remaining priest of Chândomblé gives to the group. He performs a rite on Zélie so she will be able to complete the connection, and then he sacrifices himself to hold off the guards as the trio escapes.

Using his newfound magical abilities as a connector (a maji who can explore feelings and memories), Inan enters a dreamscape and make a connection with Zélie, allowing him to track the progress of the trio. Kaea catches Inan using these abilities and in the confrontation which follows, Inan accidentally uses his magic to kill her before leaving to track the group to Ibeji. In Ibeji the sunstone is being used as a prize for slave games in a colosseum, so Zélie agrees to compete, leading a ship of slaves against 19 other ships. Tzain takes control of leading the ship, while Zélie uses her power as a reaper, or a divîner of the dead, to give them an advantage. Amari, who previously refused to participate in sparring matches staged by Saran pitting her against Inan, helps seal the victory by killing the last captain before he can kill Zélie. Now in possession of all three artifacts, the group continues on their way until Inan catches up to the group. In the chaos that follows, Tzain and Amari are captured in the forest by an unknown group. Inan agrees to help Zélie rescue their siblings. During the rescue, the pair learn that the group is really a settlement of divîner, some of whom have had their powers reawakened when they were exposed to the scroll before it was recaptured, including their leader Zu, a healer. Upon hearing of the group’s mission, they decide to hold a festival for the Sky Mother where the remaining divîner will be able to touch the scroll. By this time, Inan, who has developed romantic feelings for Zélie, has agreed to help restore magic, having come to value divîner, who are known by many kosidán as maggots. For Inan, this offers a way to unite his future kingdom and eases his self-hatred over being a divîner. When Tzain sees Inan and Zélie kissing, he leaves the camp in anger along with Amari, the two having developed their own romantic connection.

Saran’s guards find and destroy the camp, also capturing Zélie. During the fight between the guards and the divîner, Kwame, a burner, or divîner who can control fire, uses blood magic, a powerful but dangerous way for divîner to increase the power of their magic, to self-immolate and take out some guards with him. This display of unchecked magic scares Inan, who back in the palace with his father, once again goes to efforts to contain and repress his magic, knowing that his father would kill him should he ever reveal that he is a maji. Inan, to Zélie’s surprise, tries to get Zélie to reveal how to destroy the scroll and to find out its location. This session is interrupted by Saran, who orders Zélie tortured by having “Maggot” carved on her back.

Inan, disgusted by this and having lingering feelings for Zélie despite his overall distrust of magic, finds an opportunity to break her out of the palace; by chance this coincides with an attack lead by Tzain, Amari, and some divîner Tzain knew through agbön, who awaken their own powers using the scroll. Zélie, now free, finds that she can no longer use her powers, but does not share this with anyone else. Still believing it is possible to restore magic, this larger group heads to the free but lawless city of Jimeta where they hire a group of mercenaries, lead by Roën, a pickpocket from the divîner camp.

Through the mercenaries’ skill, they are able to infiltrate the island and temple to perform the ceremony. Once there, however, Zélie, Tzain, and the rest are ambushed by Saran and Inan, who are holding Baba hostage and have killed Mama Agba. Feeling helpless as she cannot use any magic, Zélie agrees to give the artifacts up in exchange for her and her father’s life. As Zélie leaves temple, Saran orders her father killed anyway. The spirit and blood magic of her father reawakens Zélie’s magic and she uses her restored powers to attack the kosidán. Inan uses her rage and magic to his advantage, as he provokes an attack which is able to destroy the scroll. But in the ensuing battle, Inan sees a mercenary who is about to kill his father and without thinking, Inan uses his magic to stop this. This causes Saran to turn on and kill his son. Furious, Amari then turns and kills her father.

Unable to repair the scroll, and thus complete the ritual to restore the connection with magic, Zélie uses blood magic and an incantation of her own devising to complete the ritual and which apparently kills her in the process. Zélie is then able to speak with her mother, speaking on behalf of the gods in the afterlife, who praises her and sends her back. The book concludes as Zélie learns that Amari now has magic.

While reading the novel and while researching about it both I felt the theme of the novel somewhat came from the spate of police violence against black Americans, in author’s own words “it had a large impact on her”; she wanted to escape the helplessness and fear she felt: “What is the point if my life ends at the barrel of a police officer’s gun?”

Also In the author’s note at the end of the novel, Adeyemi makes a call to emotion, telling the reader that “if cried for Zulaikha … cry for innocent children like Jordan Edwards, Tamir Rice, and Aiyana Stanley-Jones.”

Where the inspiration came from? Tomi Adeyemi graduated from Harvard before receiving a fellowship to study West African mythology and culture in Salvador, Brazil where she discovered Orïsha—deities belonging to the Yoruban people of southwest Nigeria—which became the inspiration for her breakout series,

My views ! I personally loved it , I love the fantasy genre, I loved how the book was told from four separate view points and they slowly intersect with each other.

I loved the physicality of the book too, the map, the fight sequences,deaths,torture sequence to the sceneries and dresses all are beautifully addressed,but i understand that all of this also can be seen as drawbacks like the four view points can be disorienting sometimes and the physicality demands a lot of imaginative capabilities from the reader .

Now coming to the sequel,the series will continue December 3, 2019 with Children of Virtue and Vengeance.

In this next instalment, Zélie has finally succeeded in returning magic to the land of Orïsha, but the ritual was more powerful than they could’ve imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too.

Now, Zélie struggles to unite the maji in an Orïsha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are. With civil war looming on the horizon, Zélie finds herself at a breaking point: she must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as Orïsha tears itself apart.