Pensha

With Bare Hands The True Story of a Real Life Spiderman By: Alain Robert Published by: Jaico Pages: 306 Price: Rs 350 With limited mobility of his hands, smashed bones, and close brush with death (twice), one can describe Alain Robert's escalation of Petronas Towers, Taipei101, Sears Towers, Shinjuku Center Building, Golden Gate Bridge and several other urban landmarks across the world as, “incredible.” Or perhaps not as Robert thinks that his urban escalations provide him with a different but respectable source of livelihood. And, since he is passionate about scaling cliffs and skyscrapers, a broken bone or two do scare him, but not enough to tie him down to a sedentary lifestyle or job. For those who do not follow adventure sports, or are not acquainted with the rush of adrenaline, the first few chapters of autobiography, which describe the Robert's transition from a rock climber to an urban climber and difficulty ranges of cliffs, might be a little confusing. One also can...

Reportage of Diplomat Pavan Varma's foray into fiction. -- Death. Much as we know that we are born to die one day, we hope that the “one day” is in someone else’s fate and not ours... and, when we realise that we are living on borrowed time, we lose all our bearings. Death or rather how to deal with death is the premise of Indian diplomat and writer, Pavan Varma’s first fiction, When Loss is Gain which is published by Rain Tree, an imprint of the Rupa Publications. The book was launched in Pune recently. Referring to the theme, Varma says, “It’s when the finality knocks at your door that you suddenly realise that all these years, months and days, you have been engulfed by the minutiae of life, tyranny of the trivia and fail to see the benediction of the feeling of just being alive. In other words, the book asks us how we treat our life.” The fiction is set in Delhi and Bhutan, where the capital and the nation state are the metaphors for Hinduism and Buddhism. Having lived in Delh...