Bargain eBooks #185:

Hits and Misses by Chinmay Hota

Genre: Humor, Essays

Price: $0.99

Where to Get It:

Amazon.com (Kindle)


The book is a collection of light hearted articles, which have delighted India's numerous newspapers readers. You will find many familiar and ordinary events, presented ingeniously by the popular author, Chinmay Hota.

Life is full of possibilities and pleasant surprises, just you need to have the eye to catch these special moments.

"Hits and Misses" is a book that makes you sit and wonder about the simple things in life. Chinmay has the ability to find magic in even common day-to-day events. The comparison that he makes between ATM and Atman is really thought provoking and I felt that he conveyed a deep message in a very subtle way. Looking forward to his next book now.

What they're saying about it:

"Chinmay Hota's collected articles in his wonderful book 'Hits and Misses' are compiled from "middles," short, humor-ous, and very popular essays he has previously published in his homeland papers such as the Times of India, and The Statesman. Obviously, his "middles," were placed between much larger, perhaps more 'urgent' global issues. But as I read his book, I began to see these "middles" as a welcome respite for his newspaper readers as they told of small happenings in every day India, an engaging way to let readers pause to catch their breath and perhaps get their bearings. For readers of his book, 'Hits and Misses,' his lucid and human way of rendering everyday events and musings is a brilliant way to bring India into our hearts, whether we live in Hawai'i, as I do, or London, or Botswana.

Hota's characters are universal, they are 'Everyman,' struggling to make their living in offices and public vehicles and in the streets. He relates to us the many moods and colors of contemporary India with humor and compassion and above all, gentle wisdom, describing the most ordinary events with a certain genius. He meditates on life's hits and misses, and how so much of it is unknown. But, he suggests, it is the unknown factor that makes this life unique. Nothing is certain, life is a miracle, and we are here to bear it, and to witness it.

I love his sense of adventure, of taking the road less traveled. And his ingenious philosophical departures, such as the impact of a slap as a way to express anger. This was quoted elsewhere , but I am compelled to quote it again. "A slap allows free play to man's innate aggressiveness, it does not harden his emotions into a set of techniques." A slap, Hota feels, is straight from the heart, and brings man face to face with his primordial self, so that he reconsiders the way he reacts to situations and people in his life.

I am an admirer of great contemporary Indian writers: Rohinton Mistry ("A Fine Balance"), Vikram Seth ("A Suitable Boy"), and of course Salman Rushdie ("Midnight's Children"), but sometimes their books have weighed me down with the chronicling of crippling poverty and hunger and disease of its outcasts. Yes, this is one aspect of life, but too much of it in one book becomes heavy-handed, leaving the reader deprived of the beauty and cultural richness of India and of insight into ordinary, every day people - like people everywhere - just trying to survive, hold a job, raise a family.

My wish would be that Chinmay Hota might give us a larger book next time, even a full-blooded novel or memoir, filled with the same quietly brilliant musings on his fellow countrymen. Till then we have the great gift of his book 'Hits and Misses,' a rich and varied spectacle told in flowing prose, showing the quirkiness and resilience of the human spirit. It is a wonderful book of familiar, ordinary things through which Hota illuminates India and its people."- By Kiana Davenport, author, HOUSE OF SKIN PRIZE-WINNING STORIES (Kindle)


"Hota's delightfully refreshing and humorous book will challenge you to reconsider the way you react to the situations and people in your life. The quote that comes to mind when I think about Chimnay Hota and his book, "Hits and Misses" is "carpe diem!" --Kathleen Stemke, Author