Prakash Shenoy's Diary

या पुस्तकाची पहिली आवृत्ती १९६८ च्या सुमारास प्रसिद्ध झाली. अगदी शाळेत असल्यापासून ग्रंथालयात या पुस्तकाचे दर्शन घडायचे. पण त्याचे जाडजुड स्वरुप पाहता वाचायची हिम्मत झाली नाही. आता जेव्हा वाचन हा माझा नियमीत छंद झाला आहे, तेव्हा हे पुस्तक वाचण्याची संधी मी घेतली. मराठी कादंबरी लेखनाचा एक उत्कृष्ट नमुना म्हणून या कलाकृतीकडे पाहिले जाते ते योग्यच असल्याचा अनुभव मला ही कादंबरी वाचताना आला. रणजीत देसाईंनी अतिशय सोप्या आणि ओघवत्या भाषेत हे शिवचरीत्र मांडले आहे. कादंबरीचा शेवटचा १०% भाग वगळता कुठेही रटाळपणा आलेला नाही. हे चरित्र ६०% काल्पनीक तर ४०% सत्य या स्वरुपात मांडले आहे. त्यामुळे महाराजांच्या इतिहाची माहिती आणि कादंबरीचा रसास्वाद या दोन्ही गोष्टी साध्य होतात. तत्कालिन महाराष्ट्राची परिस्थिती अत्यंत गंभीर होती. महाराष्ट्रात बहामनी सुलतानांचे राज्य होते. वरकरणी सहिष्णू वाटणारे हे सत्ताधिश हिंदू जनतेवर अनन्वीत अत्याचार करीत होते. संपूर्ण महाराष्ट्राचे इस्लामीकरण हाच त्यांचा एक कलमी कार्यक्रम होता. दुर्दैवाने त्याला आपले हिंदु सरदारही त्यांना साथ देत होते. शिवाजी महाराजांनी स्वराज्याचा ...

The book is impressive and compact. The best feature of the book is author trying to train us to get motivated using small meaningful articles with his own experiences. A lengthy article would have turned down already depressed readers, smaller doses of advice does the wonder and bring them on the right track. This book is recommended to all those people who are depressed and think they are not motivated to do anything on this earth. The book teaches them step by step tricks not one or two but whopping 110 tricks, guaranteed to motivate any average person in this world. When we read the book, we start feeling that the problems discussed by author are also experienced by us. So obviously the solutions apply to us as well. We all have some misconceptions and phobias about ourselves. We think there is no solution to that and we have live our life with it. But this book is an eye opener for all of us, fearful of one thing or other, that there is some solution to every problem. ...

I lived in Mumbai since my birth. I also had opportunity to live in the most dangerous location of Mumbai, i.e Byculla in the vicinity of famous dons like Dawood or Arun Gawali. Hence I am quite aware of the ground situation of the locality and influence of these bhais on common man as well as police. The Zaidi have deeply studied these people himself and also had the taste of their bhaigiris. One cannot imagine the scale of this menace unless he himself becomes victim of one. The book is specifically focussed on the woman arm of Mumbai’s underworld. The writing is very good and fluent. It is quite focussed and compact on the subject, so the reader never gets bored while reading it. The subject is also interesting and thrilling. The book is very good and informative about infamous woman criminals of underworld in India. Author have made excellent research about every criminal and have even taken risk to his life to interview them in their strongholds. Some stories like that of Monic...

Dara Singh was my childhood hero. I have seen him in many cinemas of 60’s and 70’s and the famous Ramayan on Doordarshan. He was a legendary personality and a perfect character to perform as Hanuaman in the serial Ramayan. I was eager to know about his life so decided to read this book. I saw him last struggling to walk due to old age in TV show comedy circus and was shocked. I couldn’t believe that once a superman is crippled like this. Although his survival till his 80’s prove that fitness helps you to live longer. The author have written this book after his death and largely dependent on his autobiography in Punjabi and interviews with his relatives and friends. The book would have been better if it was written before his death interviewing himself. The book is written properly and the language is lucid. The author have written it in short and avoided unnecessary details. Also the book is about the good of the Dara Singh’s life and no bad side or controversy is dealt with. It did...

This book is about murder of Benazir Bhutto a liberal face of otherwise conservative Pakistan. The whole book is a running commentary of how Benazir Bhutto came back to Pakistan from her self imposed exile from the luxuries of Dubai to fight election and no wonder killed in Pakistan by the pawns of ruling Musharraf regime. The book unnecessarily digs into details of murder like full details of her post mortem which is very distasteful to read. One have to actually skip those dirty pages to avoid vomiting in disgust. Since author does not have much to write about the story he had to fill the pages with such garbage. Since throughout the investigations by various agencies no outcome have come, the book remains incomplete and inconclusive. The decision of Benazir Bhutto to return Pakistan was her greatest mistake. The Pakistan can’t hold on to democracy unless it ceases to depend on its military or ISI with its useless fear of India and unnecessary indulgence in Kashmir issue. If Paki...

This book is one of the best book I have ever read regarding human development on the earth. We take some things for granted in our life like breeding animals in large numbers for our consumption. But we never think what the animal must be thinking about us. The book is written with this third party angle, where we humans are also considered at par with other animals living on earth since millions of years. The theory is convincing if humans are considered as animals. But if we think we are different from other animals then we will not agree with the author. The book is biased on evolutionary ideas.  Author considers us humans as one of the animals and is not ready to give us the advantage of our intelligence, which is not developed in other animals, as our tool to rule them. Man who believes in god will not agree with the author as his views are atheist. He believes God and Religions are made by man to his own advantage, neglecting other animals purposefully. He do not Differe...

I saw this incident on TV in 1995. The television had entered cable TV era from age old Doordarshan and a dozen or so news channels catering to viewers ever hungry for hot news. The tandoor murder fed them well. Author have complete knowledge of the incident since he was himself a top cop involved directly in the case. The book is a thorough account of that infamous murder popularized by cable TV news era. The real story is quite small and straight forward caused the author a lot of pain to convert it into a commercial book. This causes the book to be unnecessarily lengthy with unnecessary details. The details of autopsy/postmortem is very dirty to read and unnecessary for a common non technical reader, but author had to do it to fill the book. The case was quite straight forward, that a criminal politician killed his keep and police, judiciary, government spend crores of rupees just to prove it in court of law though they had truckload of evidence with them. What a tragedy a...