I've reached an­oth­er mile­stone: I have fin­ished read­ing In­di­an Mag­ic by Bal­raj Khan­na–my first e-book that is not a Kin­dle book. I wasn't quite sure if I could read an en­tire book on a com­put­er screen, but it turns out any­where is a good place to read an en­joy­able book.

The world of books is open­ing up to in­clude e-read­ers and au­dio books that can be down­loaded on iPods and com­put­ers. The e-book mar­ket has cre­at­ed a whole new space for small pub­lish­ers.

In­di­an Mag­ic, pub­lished by HopeRoad Pub­lish­ers in Lon­don, is a hu­mor­ous look at an In­di­an im­mi­grant named Raavi who ar­rives quite un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly in Eng­land. With mas­ter­ful ver­bal and sit­u­a­tion­al irony, Khan­na cap­tures Raavi's tri­als and tribu­la­tions as an im­mi­grant.Raavi cross­es the sea from Bom­bay to Genoa, and trav­els by train and sea across Eu­rope to make that Eng­lish Chan­nel cross­ing. He ar­rives with an em­ploy­ment vouch­er is­sued by the British con­sulate in Del­hi.

From the be­gin­ning of his sto­ry it is clear that Raavi is a well-round­ed char­ac­ter with many per­son­al­i­ties. First, there's the dreamy new­com­er lit­er­al­ly just off the boat; then the bungling tourist-like im­mi­grant. There's the strug­gling im­mi­grant grap­pling with nos­tal­gia and won­der, and the em­bar­rassed im­mi­grant who sees the stereo­typ­i­cal im­ages that de­fine his peo­ple in a brand-new set­ting. They're all rolled in­to one con­flict­ed char­ac­ter, awk­ward and res­olute in his goal to fit in­to a new so­ci­ety.

www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers