Neeraj's Books

  Year of Publication: 2021 What does it take to make India a force to reckon with in the world of badminton? A man with the vision and the drive and a few youngsters hungry for victory!  Abhijeet Kulkarni's The Gopichand Factor: The Rise and Rise of Indian Badminton offers it's readers exhaustive information about how Pullela Gopichand, the 2001 All England winner, ventured into coaching to turn India into a badminton powerhouse like China, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea.  Abhijeet Kulkarni does not restrict the scope of the book to what Gopichand did for Indian badminton. The book also focuses on some well-known and lesser-known predecessors and contemporaries of Gopichand who played an instrumental role in helping India reach where it is in the world of badminton. Kulkarni does a great job by dedicating the first few chapters of the book to the 'unsung heroes' and 'erstwhile rising stars' who had to abandon badminton for various reasons.  The book builds...

Year Published: 2016 Oh no, another Shashi Tharoor book. But what can I say... This guy is unmissable!!!  History books in school have taught us that the British were terrible most of the time while occasionally good. But were they??  Shashi Tharoor's An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India is a thorough dissection of every act of the British in their lives over-two-hundred-year stay in India. He successfully brings out the cons of the pros of British actions in India. He makes the reader doubt whether the British did anything good intentionally for India.  Vivid description and an informative nature is the strength of the book. However, like Tharoor's other books, this book falls short on one ground- flowery language. Tharoor introduces words that an average reader may not be familiar with, forcing them to constantly switch between the book and the dictionary. Though there may be justifications that flowery language is used to convey the correct meaning and right...