Book Review: Family Life

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Author: Akhil Sharma
Publisher: Penguin Books India
ISBN13: 9780670087457
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 240
Source: Flipkart

“Family Life” revolves around the Mishra family, who move to the United States from Delhi in the 1970s. The eight year old narrator is in awe of everything around him from elevators to wall-to-wall carpet in their new house. Simple things like the hot water flowing directly from the taps also amazes him. He goes on to talk about the struggles and adjustments his family makes in order to fit in to the new world. Ajay narrates how his Father who works as a clerk in a government agency and mother who left her job as a high-school economics teacher in India and now works as a garment factory worker, are anxious about the acceptance of his elder brother in a reputed school. There is happiness and celebration all around when Birju wins acceptance to the Bronx High School of Science.
The twist in the story comes when the elder son of the family is in a unfortunate diving accident that leaves him severely brain damaged, blind, and mute. Only able to breathe by himself, otherwise incapacitated. The tragedy and the family’s response to it seen through young Ajay’s eyes touches the heart and leaves knots in the stomach.
Each member of the family suffers differently. His father becomes an alcoholic, his mother looks for cures through hoards of miracle workers while Ajay acts out trying to find an outlet for his feelings as well as his place in the world now that it’s been turned upside down.

The author relates the story with a view point of an eight year old, adapting a child’s sharp perception and simple language. The book makes you very sad and then smiles make sudden appearances on the childlike outlook of a grim situation. You sympathise with every character at all times. Its deeply unnerving and tremendously tender all at once.
This is Akhil Sharma’s second novel after the PEN/Hemingway Award-winning “An Obedient Father”. He is an Indian-American writer. A graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Public Policy. Sharma won a Stegner Fellowship to the writing program at Stanford, and won several O. Henry Prizes.

I read “Family Life” with a lot of sighs. Not everyone who reads it can relate to it, a few definitely will. Its one of those reads that shakes your core. This one does it with a large helping of sorrow topped with a kiss of dark humour.

Rating: 3.5/5

Book Review: Love among the Bookshelves

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Author: Ruskin Bond
Publisher: Penguin/ Viking
ISBN13: 9780670087341
Genre: non fiction
Pages: 200
Source: Flipkart

“It wasn’t a bookshop, or a library, or a great-aunt’s hoard of romantic novels that made me a reader; it was the week I spent in a forest rest house, in what is now the Rajaji sanctuary, between Haridwar and Dehradun” This is the first line I read and did not stop until I had read it all.
Ruskin Bond’s stories have amazed and inspired generations of readers. In this anthology, he presents the stories he grew up on, and the inspiration that he drew from them. In stories by authors such as P. G. Wodehouse, whose Love Among The Chickens is the inspiration for this book’s title, H. E. Bates, W. Somerset Maugham, Charles Dickens and Richard Jeffries, learn how young Ruskin Bond became the writer we all know and love.
Bond speaks out in this part-memoir. He draws readers into his past and reveals a process hidden in plain sight, yet one every non-writer wishes to understand. He gives out his secret to being the brilliant writer in a word: “reading”

The book is divided into chronological sections. From his childhood and school vacations, school days, the time he spent in Jersey with his aunt and his two years in London. Each section has a memory that has stuck by him, a book that belongs to that time of his life and an excerpt from that book. The best thing about the book is a list of Ruskin Bonds favourite books.

Ruskin Bond is a British-Indian writer. He is known best for his children’s stories. Some of his works are: The Room on the Roof, A Flight of Pigeons, The Sensualist, The Blue Umbrella, Angry River and The Parrot Who Wouldn’t Talk. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian literature. He now lives in in Landour, near Mussoorie with his adopted family.

Love among the Bookshelves is a classic Bond book. Its written simply yet there is something magical about it. It leaves you wanting more, much more.

Rating: 4/5

Book Review: Sita’s Curse, The Language of Desire

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Author: Shreemoyee Piu Kundu
Publisher: Hachette India
ISBN13: 9789350097809
Genre: Fiction/ Erotica
Pages: 344
Source: Personal Copy

It is the story of Meera, a middle class housewife, her life and sexual longing. A girl who is burdened by the weight of a dead marriage. Struggling between her own sexual needs and the non existent affections of her husband, she tries to hide her feelings and desires, managing to survive on her memories and fantasies alone for fifteen years. However, she cannot take the pain of her lusty, sensual body going to waste as her husband cannot make love to her. Her constant search for fulfilment leaves her unsatisfied every time. Until one cataclysmic day in Mumbai, when she finally breaks free. Bold, brazen and defiant, Sitas Curse looks at the hypocrisy of Indian society and tells the compelling story of a middle-class Indian housewifes urgent need for love, respect, acceptance and sexual fulfillment.

The plot is explicit and detailed. Erotic from the prologue itself. The authors weaves, lust, desire, sex and sexual frustration neatly around the narrative. she evokes emotions from the reader. You feel the need, want, sorrow and hatred the characters feel in the book. It makes you sad sometimes, but soon brings you back with a hint of hope.

The author takes up some of the things that are considered as taboo, those that are not discussed and that are usually not looked at or given a thought to like the sexual longings of a woman, impotence, and marital rape. She has also incorporated the Mumbai deluge in the plot. The ugly face of the society is brought up front, and in very ironic manner.
The books makes you sit upright and take notice of things around you. It challenges the everything that has been taken for granted. Faith, Love, marriage, sex and desire are all dragged to the questioning.

Sreemoyee Piu Kundu is an Indian erotica writer. She has also written under the alias of Aranyani. A former Lifestyle editor and PR head, she has also written: A Pleasant Kind of Heavy and Other Erotic Stories, You’ve Got The Wrong Girl and Cut!. She is currently working on her next book, a political tragedy entitled Rahula.

Its about time that erotica makes its presence felt on the bookshelves in the land of Kama Sutra. Sita’s Curse is erotica with the classic Indian flavour being one of the foremost there. The book needs to be read not only with open eyes but also with an open mind.

Rating: 3/5

Chaos

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Chaos

It’s possible to find order in chaos, and it’s equally possible to find chaos underlying apparent order. Order and chaos are slippery concepts. They’re like a set of twins who like to swap clothing from time to time. Order and chaos frequently intermingle and overlap, the same as beginnings and endings. Things are often more complicated, or more simple, than they seem. Often it depends on your angle. I think that telling a story is a way of trying to make life’s complexity more comprehensible. It’s a way of trying to separate order from chaos, patterns from pandemonium.

Book Review: The Treasure of Kafur

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Author: Aroon Raman
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN13: 9789382616122
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 400
Source: Personal Copy

The story begins before the Mughal era, with a tale of Kafur, Khilji’s trusted lieutenant. The bounty that they have won after waging war in different regions has accumulated and transporting it through the desert is a dangerous prospect, as the threat of an attack is imminent. So, Kafur is instructed to hide the treasure in a place that no one can ever find it. With that the legend of  the treasure of Kafur begins

It then leaps forward to the Mughal era, where Akbar is reigning over India. He is a practical, pragmatic and a visionary ruler. He has managed to get most of the country under his control. Asaf Baig of Khandesh loathes Akbar with every breath and he knows that to win the allegiance of all anti-Akbar troops, the treasure of Kafur is his key. It will make him indestructible, presenting him with the largest army. Only an old woman called Ambu knows the whereabouts of this treasure that Asaf Baig seeks, so he kidnaps her, leaving her grandson Datta alive. Datta begins a quest to find is grandmother  and prevent Asaf Baig from acquiring this treasure. And only ally he can count on is Akbar.
In between the quest for the treasure, the characters are caught in a whirlpool of events which will forever change the course of their life.

This story has fiction and fact, with a layer a fantasy over it. The book, as the author mentions, is partly true when concerning the facts. The treasure itself is a fact of history. Akbar’s character is kept true, and details such as his marriage to Jodha and his illiteracy are true, as are the threats from Khandesh. Each character is well etched out and nicely detailed.

The author Aroon Raman’s first book The Shadow Throne, is a national best seller. He is a Bengaluru based entrepreneur. His research and innovation company works in the area of materials science and has won critical acclaim for developing scientific talent at the grass-roots level. He divides his spare time between trekking, advising and supporting NGOs and travel.

The Treasure of Kafur is a perfect blend of history and mystery, with adventure added to taste. Makes a good weekend read.

Rating: 4/5

Pain

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People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.

Solace

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solace

 

She got back from work just before dawn broke. Odd timings came as a package deal of having a job she loved. The day had been particularly unforgiving. She had worked a twenty hour shift with an unfading smile on her face.
She unlocked the door as silently as she could, knowing the two men she loved, would be sleeping in peace. One of them met her as she entered, smiling and wagging his tail at the same time. She put her finger on lips, signalling him to be quite, then sat down to meet him. One hug from the old boy and she was already feeling better. Both of them walked in to the cooler section of the house.

She saw him sleep under the white sheets.
The indigo light from the window was making his face glow. His breathing was soft and calm like he was far away in his sleep. She slipped out of her clothes and slipped in beside him. She felt his bare cold skin against hers calmed her soul down. He put his arm around her, still sleeping, now with a smile on his face. He moved comfortably into her space.

She had everything that made her life perfect right there. A content heart, arms that waited for her and the music of the heart she lived in coming from the chest she slept upon.