Friends Forever

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Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.
The meaning of friendship or what friendship means to you is one the hardest thing to explain or learn. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything. The glory of friendship is the inspiration that comes when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you. When someone stands by you, without asking a single question. When conversations without words make more sense than the ones with words in them. When you don’t care about the world walking out just because that one person walks in. The only way of having a best friend in life is by being one.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our souls, and we are never, ever the same. Those that go from having a small place in your heart, to owning a part of it. Those that make forever worth it.

Silent Conversations

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“I read her eyes like paragraphs and her tears like chapters, for she didn’t have much to say with words, but rather, silence. And never let them tell you that silence, isn’t beautiful. For silence is what happens when words fall asleep and you must carry the belief that one day they will wake up inside of you.”

Book Review: Lovers Like You and I

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Author: Minakshi Thakur
Publisher: Harper Collins India
ISBN: 9789351160298
Genre: Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 224
Source: Personal Copy

When the master of words Gulzar pens down a line for the cover, slaves like me pick it up without another thought. He calls it a novel with a rare ambiance of art and love. That put the book at a certain standard in my head. When I began reading, I was hoping it lived up to what I was expecting.

Lovers Like You And I is set in Delhi during the nineties. The book is a journey of young Nayan, born to an aloof doctor and an Assamese musician. It elaborates her experience of love as she transforms from a young girl to a woman. She meets men and women from varied backgrounds, generations and places, a film maker, a doctor, a student, a painter, who have at some point or the other in their lives, not only been in love but felt it and expressed it differently. It is through these encounters that she is exposed to the various faces of love. However, it is her own story with Salil, a drifter who alternates between poetry and backpacking that forms the core of the plot.
This is an unusual novel that evokes a lost era a time when people wrote letters and cherished the ones they received. With its effortless bilingualism and its seamless use of prose and verse, it challenges our notions of conventional storytelling to take us into a world where emotion rules and where time and leisure take on new meanings.

“Love is the magic word. Minakshi Thakur has revealed the hearts and souls of lovers like you and I. When love is real, the lovers are so unreal. Salil and Nayan never think of the thinkable and tangible. Its a novel with a rare ambience of art and love.” says Gulzar and I whole heartedly agree.

My favorite lines from the book are:
“The sweet delusion of my soul rises in ecstasy like a bubble in a champagne flute, only to kiss the brim and burst into a union with the fluid twilight within… I can see two gold bands swim towards each other, intertwine, then disengage and chase each other, play and frolic in that sea of intoxication. I can almost touch the momentary exuberance of the mad convergence of my world with yours. That joy, fleeting, yet so eternal in its brief permanence, is like the world’s last sea wave lapping at my feet and ebbing away.“

The book moves slowly into your bloodstream and makes you high on emotions. It is a must read if you are a romantic at heart.

Rating: 5/5

Love is..?

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Its that time of the year when everyone around me is talking about Love. It must be in the air or something! Some are madly in love, others are looking for the mad kind of love. Longing for the long lost love, or waiting for the new one to blossom, its keeping them busy. Its described as a profoundly tender, passionate feeling for another person. The red colour, the heart shape, roses are all things that show love.
I have found myself utterly confused as far as this goes. I don’t like the colour red much, I would pick black over it any day! I find the shape of the heart funny and in no way romantic. Roses are great, but what I don’t get is, how can something that dies in a day, convey eternal love.

I might sound like a cynic, but I am all for it. I have fallen in it, hurt myself and fallen again.
For me love is simple. Love is the hug, when you need it the most. Love is the tears in your eyes when someone is in pain. Love is his thoughts peeping through your clouded mind. Love is when you laugh at his unfunny jokes and yet your heart smiles. Love is when he taking your name, makes you skip a beat. Love is when he stays awake talking to you, because you cannot sleep. Love is the 4am good night message after chatting the whole night. Love is writing your heart out in letters to her and not sending them. Love is a state of hyper awareness yet complete loss of control. Love is when your differences stop making a difference. Love is getting lost together. Love is a kiss on the forehead. Love is when you fight with each other for each other. Love is a wish that floats on an eye lash. Love is his name on my pillow every night.

Love is magical, its pure and its divine. I have seen it surpass the boundaries of time, distance and even death. Love is the smile on my mother’s face when she takes my Dad’s name even after three decades of being away. Love is how he watches over her from high up in the sky. They make me a believer, and so I admit, I believe in love.  They are the stars of my favourite love story. If I get half of what they have, I will have seen love in all its glory.

Since its in the air, why not ride the tide! Go take a chance, Love is..definitely worth a fight!

Addiction

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Addiction is defined as dependence or commitment to a habit-forming substance to the extent that its cessation causes trauma. In simpler words when you cant do without something, you are addicted to it.
There are various things people get addicted to, but the most common yet the most dangerous drug out there is Love. It takes you high like nothing else can, makes a dreamer out of you. Sometimes a poet or a writer even. The classic give away of someone being under the influence is the silly smile on the face for no apparent reason. Its one of the side effect of the kick!
Like any other psycho active substance Love has its share of adverse effects. Its absence leaves you shattered and with scars that don’t heal. It makes you vulnerable and breaks you sometimes. The effect of it is such that you start loving what it did to you, even when it hurts,  still high on the last fix and craving another one desperately. Getting drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal your brokenness.
So some like it hot, some like cold, some like it shy, others like it bold. I like mine in deep red, almost charred black with desire. The ridiculous, inconvenient, all consuming kinda love. Its like a fire that burns yet keeps me warm. I am addicted!

Book Review: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

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Author: Chris Hadfield
Publisher: Pan Books Ltd.
ISBN13: 9781447257516
Genre: Non- Fiction
Pages: 284
Source: Flipkart

Chris Hadfield is one of the most seasoned and accomplished astronauts in the world. He most recently served as Commander of the International Space Station where, while conducting a record-setting number of scientific experiments and overseeing an emergency spacewalk, he gained worldwide acclaim for his breathtaking photographs and educational videos about life in space. His music video, a zero gravity version of David Bowies Space Oddity, received over 10 million views in its first three days online.
If you are one of those ( like me) who relentlessly followed his tweets this, book is a treat.

An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth is the journey of the writer from dreaming of being an astronaut as a kid, to being a very successful one. Its a story of falling, getting up, dusting yourself and walking again. He gives us a zero gravity way of looking at life. A new perception. The book is a memoir of a life spent working towards the ultimate goal.  Begins with the inspirational viewing of the first moon landing on TV, moves on into  boisterous childhood within a large, loving, southern Ontario farm family. He very sweetly describes his years as a test pilot, his marriage to his high-school sweetheart and  fathering of three kids. It gets down right to business with his gradual movement up the ranks, but the best part comes in where he describes the missions in all their glory.

Reading a detailed description of life in space from the master himself is a definite delight. Portraying issues like going the the bathroom in space using humour has worked very well, and so has the creative naming of the chapters. Once you are through a few you don’t want to stop reading it. He also wraps in life lessons like setting goals, of training extra-hard, of sweating the smallest details, of staying humble and ready to learn more, and of the importance of never being a drag on your team, crew, or organization, learnt from experiences in them.

The book doesn’t go on to my most favourite list but lingers just short of it. Its is a must read for av-geeks and space junkies. It gives hope to everyone who has a dream and wants to live it.

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Review: I Am Life

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Author: Shraddha Soni
Publisher: Random House
ISBN13: 9788184003581
Genre:  Spiritual Fiction
Pages: 192
Source: Personal Copy

“An edgy modern-day fable that takes you on a mystical journey with life.” is the best way to describe the book written by the pretty Shraddha.
The story revolves around Siddharth Khanna and follows him around through his journey of spiritual awakening.
It beings with the protagonist having an interesting conversation with his friend Andrea. His anguish of not being able to pursue his dream career as a pilot because of his father, is revealed. He travels to the US in search of a new beginning, instead finds Rhea. Spending time with her lands Siddharth in another trying situation. He is forced into marrying a pregnant Rhea. He joins her father in his business for sustenance. A forced  loveless marriage gets the worst out of him, making him indifferent to things around him.
The plot changes lanes when Rhea decides to divorce Siddharth. She also kicks him out of her father’s business, leaving him homeless and penniless yet again. He crashes at his friend Andrea’s for a while. Andrea instigates him to take a journey in search of inner peace. He begins his spiritual quest in Rishikesh. Surrounded with nature at its best, he meet Myrahh. She leads him through the journey that he has travelled a thousand miles for. Enlightening him with what life really means.

Spiritual fiction is an acquired taste. It does not mean the same to everyone, exactly what I felt while reading the book. It can be interpreted in many ways depending on what your mind throws at you. Shraddha tries to answer nagging questions like”who am I?” and “what do I want to be in life?” and is fairly successful in it. If you want to begin a journey of self discovery, here is where you start.

I loved the story, If you sat across Shraddha at your favorite joint sipping on sangrias while she narrated it, you would love it too!

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy I am Life from Flipkart.com

Love Story

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He loved her without desperation and needs and wants. With his naked soul, he loved her, and dreamt of her clothed in white dancing beneath the moonlight as the stars grew jealous of the way she moved.
Her eyes carried a certain kind of silence that begged to be understood and he felt as if he was a scientist, staring with eager, feverant eyes into galaxies that have not yet had the chance to be named.
It was rather beautiful: the way he put her insecurities to sleep. The way he dove into her eyes and starved all the fears and tasted all the dreams she kept coiled beneath her bones.
He loved her, not for the way she danced with his angels, But for the way the sound of her name could silence his demons.
He stood alone beneath the stars and shouted to the heavens at the top of his lungs and gazed at the stars  that shined beautifully when the sky swallowed her name.

*A story based on the poems of Christopher Poindexter