Tag Archives: Ahmed Faiyaz

Book Review – The Karachi Deception

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‘The Karachi Deception’ is Shatrujeet Nath’s first novel. In the past he has delved into business journalism and was the Assistant Editor at Economic Times. This novel is published by Grey Oak Publishers in combination with Westland Books and seems to be another addition to the list in the growing and upcoming military thriller genre in India. Does it work? Let’s check it out.

The blurb goes like this -

Project Abhimanyu – an audacious plot hatched by the RAW and the Indian Army intelligence to assassinate Mumbai’s dreaded underworld don Irshad Dilawar, who’s hiding in Pakistan and assisting the ISI in its proxy war against India.

Major Imtiaz Ahmed is picked to lead the special ops mission deep inside Pakistan – but the ISI and Dilawar are several steps ahead of the Indians. Beaten at every turn, Major Imtiaz is faced with the horrifying realization that Project Abhimanyu has been compromised…and his men are being lured into a deadly trap.

Set against the backdrop of global terrorism, Shatrujeet Nath’s debut novel is a quintessential spy thriller where nothing is what it seems – and treachery is a constant companion.

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Book Review – Urban Shots: Bright Lights

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In a short period of time, Grey Oak Publishers have created quite a name for themselves in encouraging young authors, bloggers and giving a chance to debutante writers. Multi – story anthologies with works from a variety of authors maybe the best thing for first time writers. And this is where the anthologies like ‘Urban Shots: Bright Lights’ come in. This one has 29 stories from 21 writers across varied backgrounds.

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Book Review – The Newsroom Mafia

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“The Newsroom Mafia” is the debut novel of Oswald Pereira, a journalist with over thirty years of experience. Published by the Grey Oak – Westland combine, it was one of the most recently awaited novels off late. A racy crime thriller which promised to expose the unholy nexus between police, politicians, underworld and the press, the book garnered quite some interesting previews. Does it work?

The blurb goes like this –

When Supercop Donald Fernandez declares an all – out war against the invincible Don, Narayan Swamy, he fights back with a formidable Mafia – a private army of armed thugs and a motley gang of corrupt police officers, backed by powerful politicians. What follows is a battle of raw power, sleaze, wits and dirty tactics by both the law breakers and the law enforcers, blurring boundaries between good and evil. To save his skin, the Don fires his most lethal weapon, the Newsroom Mafia.

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Book Review – Scammed: Confessions of a Confused Accountant

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“Scammed: Confessions of a Confused Accountant” is one among the latest releases from the Grey Oak – Westland stable. Interestingly the author has decided to go with the pen name “Anonymous” rather than his real identity. On seeing that, I presumed the book delved into something really explosive – frauds, scams etc. which may shake the country and may have had the potential to give the author enough sleepless nights. So did it live up to the expectations?

The blurb goes like this -

Life is miserable for Hitesh Shah despite his coveted job in a top accounting firm. Labeled a nerd by colleagues, ignored by women and rebuked by parents, Hitesh cannot resist when offered a lucrative job as the CEO of an offshoot of the failing automobile company, Supreme Motors. So what if the owner Venugopal Reddy, a sleazy businessman with political connections, actually wants Hitesh to fix the company to save his skin? Hitesh’s drive and quest for success helps turn the Company’s fortunes around; he is seen a rising corporate star, he begins dating a model and is pampered by parents.

Championed as the poster boy of emerging India, Hitesh’s fairytale ends quickly. As his cursed luck would have it, he is soon on the run from the law – allegedly as the perpetrator of a financial scam and accused of defrauding thousands of investors! With his back against the wall, and growing public and media opinion against him, will Hitesh come out of the mess he finds himself in?

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Double Century of Blog Posts: 200 Not Out

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1.22 lakh + hits

Indiblogger Rank – 81

Google PR – 3

Followers – 900+

Initially when I began blogging, everyone used to tell me that you need to ensure you have more followers, more commenters, more readers, more RTs on Twitter, more likes and what not. Even these days there are many who keep writing blog posts just to make some easy money and improve the above mentioned statistics without worrying about content and quality. But today, as I write my 200th blog post, I believe that all these things are secondary.

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Mediocrity has become our standard! Do we care?

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The dictionary defines “Mediocrity” as something ordinary, par for the course or inferior in quality to something else. But then isn’t mediocrity a word created only by humanity? When we are taught at school during our early years, we are taught about excellence and failure. There is no middle ground for words like “Decent”, “Ok”, “Fine” etc. But then when we humans grow up, mediocrity percolates every part of our lives. Though what is considered as mediocre by some, would be considered as excellence by others.

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Down The Road: The first time when the world would notice my writing!

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After a pretty successful first two books – ‘Another Chance’ and ‘Urban Shots’, Grey Oak Publishers is coming up with their next short story anthology – ‘Down the Road’. While ‘Urban Shots’ dealt with life in urban India, ‘Down the Road’ deals with as the name suggests, life at school and college. Did you like the girl sitting next to you in class? Do you miss the time with friends in the college canteen? Do you miss hostel and school life when you had no tensions whatsoever? ‘Down the Road’ includes all this and more.

After my poor attempt at short story writing for Urban Shots where I was rejected outright, I was determined to do well and work properly on submitting a good short story for the new anthology. But this time too things didn’t work out too well though the story has been selected by Grey Oak to feature on d.ustb.in which is an interestingly named website for short story lovers.

But before I could sit down and wonder what went wrong and what I should improve on, Ahmed gave me a chance to contribute an essay on two decades of Bollywood movies on school and college campuses. And lo, after a lot of editing and re-editing it has finally been included in the book along with the other stories.

I would like to sincerely thank Ahmed Faiyaz and everyone else at Grey Oak Publishers for giving me a chance to get published. I would surely keep working on my writing over a period of time.

The book launches across India in the 2nd week of April

Order your copy @

Flipkart – http://www.flipkart.com/down-road-ahmed-faiyaz-rohini-book-8192040305?ref=aefd7bfc-bd4d-474c-abfe-3d88fdaee50c

Landmark Online – http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/books/down-the-road-ahmed-faiyaz-rohini-kejriwal/9788192040301

IndiaPlaza – http://www.indiaplaza.in/down-the-road-edited-by-ahmed-faiyaz-and-rohini-kejriwal/books/9788192040301.htm

Book Review – Another Chance

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Another Chance is Ahmed Faiyaz’s second writing venture after his bestseller “Love Life and All that Jazz”. This book has come out pretty close on heels to his previous book.

From the prologue itself you realise that this book can be right away made into a Bollywood flick. And that point is affirmed as one gets engrossed in the book. The story moves forward from where Love, Life and All that Jazz ended with the friends just out of college. Here it’s about how the protagonists are able to maintain a consistent work – life balance as well as give time to their loved ones.

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Guest post by Forum Parikh: Book review – Another Chance

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“I love you darling!….. I can’t live without you…. You are the reason my heart beats for you.” Well we all are sick and tired of hearing such cliché and boring filmy lines, aren’t we? Well who would want to read the same old romantic stories which have a predictable ending. But sometime or the other we would always indulge in a light sweet romantic read which would just take you to a world where you can live and flow with it.

Another Chance written by Ahmed Faiyaz took me to that world. It revolves around two main characters who fall in love but due to numerous reasons, they fall in and out of a relationship. If seen in comparison with others, it’s yet another romantic story but is a light read that compels a reader to know what happens next. And that’s what’s important for a story, isn’t it?

The story revolves around Ruheen Oberoi and Aditya Sharma who fall in true love. Ruheen Oberoi is the grand-daughter of a rich and protective Nana-ji . She is a person with modern views and always happens to make wrong choices regarding her soul-mate. Whereas Aditya is a strong career oriented person who would want to go to any extent to have a stable life for himself and his love. Both of them meet each other in college but destiny had separated them to reunite again after a gap when Ruheen tries to escape from her abusive and immature husband. Now that’s a movie story, isn’t it? I can hear someone say HUM TUM though obviously there the husband dies. But then the stylish narrative is what makes it different. It’s a story about two people who could go mad in love. Ahmed takes the readers to the land where his characters are, and one can feel as if they are in the situation and imagine themselves there.

Ahmed has succeeded in keeping the story simple and sweet, projecting every character with an individual identity and strong presence. It stands true to its word of taking the reader to a romantic world.

There are very few writers who could bring an international touch to their writing. But Ahmed takes his readers on a journey across various countries in Europe and India. And this is what brings a truly international feel to the book. It’s a blend of interesting style with a touch of emotions that would surely make one cry or rejoice.
A good read having interesting characters with a maze of relationships! Recommended!!!

My rating – 3.5/5

Meetup with Ahmed Faiyaz – Writer of Love, Life and All that Jazz & SIBM Pune alumnus!

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Ahmed Faiyaz is at the far left. This pic is from one of the earlier book launches and not of the event which I attended

For the uninitiated Ahmed Faiyaz is the writer of Love, Life and All that Jazz, a fairly recent novel about 6 friends and how their lives change after college. I had reviewed this book in one of my earlier blog posts (http://bit.ly/9LvqlS). It is a really easy and sweet read about friends and the best part about it is the fact that it doesn’t include any of the usual sex, intimacy and things like that.

I must admit that I did pick his book because he is an alumnus of SIBM Pune. The fact that someone after doing CA and MBA would get into writing excited me a lot. And I myself being an avid blogger, twitter addict and aspiring novelist, I was really interested to meet him. So when the opportunity came along, I grabbed it with both hands. A week back he sent me a direct message on Twitter asking to attend a discussion on the book at Landmark, SGS Mall, Pune on 23rd July if possible.

Finally I did reach the venue on time. Interestingly, that was the first time I had been to Landmark in Pune ;) . All the panelists in the discussion were personalities in their own way; Deepak D who became a children author at a pretty old age because he didn’t have his heart in his job, Abhijit who was in the same batch as Ahmed and followed his dream of becoming a musician, Sahil who has become an entrepreneur at the age of 21 itself with a restaurant called Yolkshire in Pune and being a part of Tossed Salad – Pune’s Lifestyle Portal and Ahmed itself.

The discussion started off with a few songs by Abhijit. Then it moved on to discussing Ahmed’s book. Things like how he came up with the idea of the book, about following one’s dreams, the biggest difficulty for a writer, which character he associates himself with etc were thrown at him by the different panelists and the small audience. Ahmed answered all the questions in a very affable and friendly manner which was the first thing I noticed about him when I met him. His way of communicating with the audience was as simple as his book.

On being asked as to how did get time to write a book despite having a very taxing Consulting Job with Dubai Health Authority (DHA), he replied that he used to take out nights and even weekends to write. That factor shows the determination in him to follow his dreams. He could as well have been happy with the amount he would be earning with DHA. Truthfully speaking I was surprised hearing his decision to get into writing full time. But I am sure he must have thought over it for a long long time before deciding it because it surely isn’t easy to leave a high paying job for something you don’t know whether it will succeed or not. One more thing I liked about him was the fact that he agreed to say that he relates to the main character of the book, Sameer. I doubt if many writers really tend to accept that. Instead they end up saying that it’s “A true story”. Now who really knows what’s true and what’s false?

All in all it was pleasing to talk to such a person. In India, it’s one thing to be allowed to follow your dreams and it’s another to really follow despite being allowed to follow. Whatever may be the end result of his books, Ahmed Faiyaz has aimed to be different and I surely believe he will create a legacy wherever he goes. It was awesome meeting you yaar.

Maan I really do look up to you especially for 2 reasons -

1. You are from SIBM Pune
2. Despite everything you followed your dreams of writing.

The best part of the evening!!! – As we were leaving, I asked him about when his next book is coming up. Instead he asked me, when’s my book releasing. :) :) :)