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Life is a little more bearable with friends. Good friends will lift us up when we’re feeling down. They will give us sound advice or a round of scolding, depending on what’s needed. They, in many ways, make us who we are. Having just celebrated friendship day (July 30), I’m going to give my closest friends a book that celebrates the bond that we have. I might also sneak in a reread. Here are my top five picks.  

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This is an unforgettable story of the unlikely and tragic friendship between a rich boy and the son of his father’s servant. Not just friendship but also love, betrayal and redemption. Trigger warning though, it’s a bit violent at times and the story is disturbing. But it’s a hauntingly good and conscience-nudging story about the good and the bad that humans are capable of, and the lengths we go to for our dearest friends.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A book about four college friends as they navigate life in New York, A Little Life will break your heart. You will cry ugly tears but it will be worth it. Four friends Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB, help one another through the highs and lows of success, addiction, trauma and grief. You’ll see yourself and your friends in the characters, and thus it feels extremely cathartic. It’s a thick book but rest assured you will breeze through it as you won’t want to put it down.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

Set in small-town 1930’s Kentucky, the book is based on the real-life Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, or the Horseback Librarian program as it was called then. The program delivered books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s traveling library and ran from 1935 to 1943, making books accessible to over 100,000 rural inhabitants. The story is tender and heartbreaking and celebrates the power of books and female friendships.

Marley and Me by John Grogan

This is based on a true story about a dog named Marley, a yellow Labrador, who was, according to Grogan, the naughtiest dog in the world. Marley is hyperactive and destructive. That causes many problems for the family. The book is about how they learn to adapt to him and their grief after Marley’s death. His antics will make you laugh, cry, and hug your own pet a little harder. Marley and Me celebrates the bond we share with our four-legged friends and reminds us to be gentler with them.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Amy Tan writes good books with complex relationships. You couldn’t go wrong with any of her works but The Joy Luck Club tops my list of favorites. It’s a story about four Chinese women who are new to the city of San Francisco. They are homesick but they find comfort in one another. The book also explores the bond between mothers and daughters and the friendship that people of different generations can share.

Okay, with all the rain around, I accept that it’s not the perfect time for hiking. But what the heck, I thought? I could still do it.

So I headed towards Shivapuri National Park with a friend this past Saturday. It was a clear sunny morning (fingers crossed!), in what was near perfect conditions to go hiking in the hills surrounding Kathmandu Valley. 

We set out for Bishnudwar, the origin of Bishnumati River and a popular hiking destination.  

The hike begins in earnest from the main entrance of Shivapuri National Park at Budhanilkantha, and it can take up to four hours to get to the top. If you have a two-wheeler you can ride all the way up to the village of Dandagaun, from where you can reach Bishnudwar in about two-and-a-half hours.

Rain or shine, there are likely to be many hikers and cyclists along the trail, particularly on weekends, so you are unlikely to get lost. 

The way to Danda Gaun from Budhanilkantha is particularly beautiful with its well-preserved path that passes through a forest. 

There were many vehicles parked at Dandagaun. They had come bearing hikers and picnickers visiting Bishnudwar on this clear Saturday morning.  

If you are coming here for a hike, don’t bother to carry snacks: there are many eateries and resorts at Dandagaun. That way, you will feel lighter on your foot too. 

The trail to Bishnudwar from Dandagaun passes through more dense forest, and the path is decent enough for cycles and motorcycles.   

Weather permitting, you can also catch stunning views of Kathmandu Valley from some spots.   

The main draw of Bishnudwar are its forest stream and the waterfall. The place is generally crowded with selfie-takers and TikTokers during weekends.

You can climb further up towards the main waterfall, but the path can be slippery, so caution is advised. 

Many culinary enthusiasts may be familiar with ‘Kanchhi Kitchen’, a YouTube channel dedicated to traditional village cooking.  

The channel has over 281,000 subscribers and more than 48m views. But oddly enough, its creators, Kanchhi Maiya Bhandari and her son Prakash, never set out with the intention of creating content for the masses. 

It all started when one day Prakash, a tour guide by profession, decided to film his mother going about her daily life at their village home in Sangkosh of Dhading district. He was without a job because of the pandemic at the time, so he decided to utilize his free time taking pictures and videos of village life, featuring his mother. 

One of the earliest videos the mother-son duo made, remembers Kanchhi Maiya, was of her preparing a fish curry in her kitchen.

“I only agreed to make the video at my son’s insistence,” says Kanchhi Maiya, a self-described shy person. Her timid nature can be seen in her videos, where she rarely speaks.

Dressed in traditional Nepali attire of ‘Gunyu Cholo’, the 50-year-old is seen cooking various Nepali dishes on a traditional firewood stove in her kitchen and sometimes outdoors. But there are no voice-overs, no explaining of the recipe, no addressing the invisible audience.            

The crackling and hissing of burning firewood, the hissing and sizzling sound of ingredients hitting the boiling oil, and the weirdly pleasing noise of people eating give the videos ASMR and mukbang vibe.  

Kanchhi Maiya is doubtless a talented cook. She can rustle up anything from simple root vegetable and green leaf curry to more complex whole chicken roast and mutton ribs, all of which look mouth-wateringly delicious. 

Some of these videos are particularly endearing because they promote the communal bond and culture of the village, as they show cooking occasions during picnics and weddings and pujas.    

“I was motivated to make more of such videos after the picnic video became popular,” says Kanchhi Maiya.  

The 17 minute-long video with over one million views shows Kanchhi Maiya gathering fallen twigs and branches in a forest to make fire to cook a delicious meal served on traditional leaf plates for fellow picnickers. 

Most of the dishes she prepares on her videos are her own ideas, which she learned to cook in the village. But of late, she says, she also makes non-Nepali dishes like pizza and grilled chicken.

“My son suggests them after watching other cooking shows and I use my experience and skills to make them,” she says.  

Whatever Kanchhi Maiya cooks, she gives them her own touch and finesse. She feels her YouTube cooking journey has been both a teaching and learning experience.

For most part of her life, Kanchhi Maiya says, she spent her life in the kitchen cooking for her family. In the past, cooking was like an everyday chore for her, but now she finds it liberating and empowering.   

“I had never expected all of this,” she says “I feel very blessed and lucky.”

Buoyed by the love and support from her viewers, Kanchhi Maiya plans to start a homestay in her village one day.  “It is a request made by many of my viewers and I intend to fulfill that request,” she says.

It is not lost on her that her success at this stage of life is due to those millions of viewers who watch her videos regularly. 

“A simple gesture of support and guidance can turn a person’s life around,” says Kanchhi Maiya. 

“I have learned a lot from this journey and I wish many more women get the same level of support in their lives.”

Do you guys remember the Luxembourgish series ‘Capitani’ I reviewed back in March 2021? The second part has just been released on Netflix. I’d planned on reviewing it this week and watched the whole series just to find out that it had gotten a bit too slow and predictable. So I decided not to. 

Then I found that there’s another new sports drama from India on Netflix. I think we’ve watched one too many Indian sports dramas in the past few months but this one mixes magic with sports and love, hence the name ‘Jaadugar’ (‘Magician’). 

Written by Biswapati Sarkar of The Viral Fever (TVF) fame and directed by Sameer Saxena, ‘Jaadugar’ features Jitendra Kumar in the lead role as Meenu Narang, a small-town magician. Now Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh is no ordinary town. In this football-crazy place people from different colonies compete in an annual tournament to win the most coveted Dhabolkar trophy. 

Even though Meenu comes from a footballing family he is probably the least athletic person in town, with a deep disinterest for the global game. Unfortunately, he lives with his uncle Pradeep Narang (Javed Jaffrey) after his parents die in an accident. Pradeep is the passionate coach of a local football team from Adarash Nagar colony, ironically called the ‘Sikandars’. The team has not won a single match in years, and in the last tournament the only time they scored was in their own net. 

In order to make it big as a magician and avoid football, Meenu meets and falls desperately in love with Disha Chhabra (Arushi Sharma). Now Disha turns out to be the only daughter of magician Chhabra (Manoj Joshi), Meenu’s inspiration and mentor. He now has to impress both the daughter and her father to be able to marry Disha. And long story short, father Chhabra puts up a condition that he will only agree to their marriage if Meenu’s team reaches the Dhabolkar trophy’s finals. How Meenu uses his magic and charms to try and take his team of misfits into the finals is what makes up the rest of the film. 

Like most of TVF’s past productions, ‘Jaadugar’ is grounded and touches the roots of its setting. Even with the concept of magic embedded in its storyline, the film does not appear surreal. It keeps proceedings realistic, besides a few necessary scenes where a bit of gimmick is forgivable and even necessary. Biswapati Sarkar (look him up, please) is the true magician behind the film. Even in a lighthearted coming-of-age film, Sarkar manages to plant words of wisdom while not making life lessons overbearing for the audience. The writer, along with director Saxena, have also managed to capture the essence of a small town in Madhya Pradesh and the lives of the people there. 

Even more popular as Sachib ji in the ‘Panchayat’ series, actor Jitendra Kumar punches the right weight in this film too. His strength is that he can easily blend into any given situation. 

Although most of the cast puts up a convincing performance, the name Javed Jaffrey deserves a special mention because of the actor’s versatility. In the industry for almost two decades, actor Jaffrey always delivers. In ‘Jaadugar’, he is a former footballer, a passionate coach and a loving uncle. The actor adds both comic relief and serious intensity whenever required. He even gives himself a subtle speech impairment which is not immediately noticed but adds color to the character. 

My only qualm is with the film’s length: 2hrs 47mins! As I could not chop off unimportant parts and disposable tropes, the film gets tiresome at times. The mind starts wandering because of the loose ends in the screenplay, editing and direction. 

Who should watch it? 

Despite its length and production that could be called a bit too organic, ‘Jaadugar’ is a good watch. People who have watched TVF productions or anything the team has ventured beyond TVF will most definitely enjoy the film. Even otherwise, ‘Jaadugar’ is a fun movie on Netflix for a lazy session when you don’t have to use too much of your brain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7yFiUio0u0 

On Netflix 

Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Sports drama

Director: Sameer Saxena

Actors: Jitendra Kumar, Arushi Sharma, Javed Jaffrey 

Run time: 2hrs 47mins