2018

I resisted reading this book initially.

When I finally laid my hands on it, I devoured it in two days.

I cannot explain my feelings. My initial reluctance arose (unfairly) from scepticism and my subsequent reading, from the simple and honest way in which it is written.

The book is a factual account of Anita Moorjani’s fight with cancer. The relentless progress of the disease and the irrevocable prognosis of imminent death.

Yet, she survives, against all odds.

The book describes her ‘Near Death Experience’ and all the insights it gave her. This is the part when eyebrows might be raised. But she ploughs along diligently.

Ms. Moorjani explains the reason why she got the disease and how she healed… It makes for fascinating reading.

Had her experience of disease and recovery not been backed by credible proof from hospitals, this book would not have had any staying power at all.

She explains the biggest dilemmas in life in the simplest of language.

“We are here to discover and honour our own individual paths…”

“I am at my strongest when I let go, when I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs and leave myself open to all possibilities…”

“The very act of needing certainty is a hindrance to experience greater levels of awareness. In contrast, the process of letting go and releasing all attachments to any belief or outcome is cathartic and healing…”

So, what’s new? You might say, and you won’t be wrong … But it’s not in my place to allay your doubts.
It’s yours. 

Give me a book that has a story weaving around art and nature and you have my unswerving attention !

Once again, it was this cover of watercolour tablets spilling their paint that attracted me to this book. The fact that it is written by Anuradha Roy just added to its allure, having read most of her previous novels as well.

This is a novel in which fiction and history overlap.

Set in the 1930’s when the world in general and India in particular is going through a surge of patriotism. Into this backdrop wanders Gayatri, a vibrant, beautiful free spirited artist, whose heart wants to soar and travel but feet are shackled deeply into domesticity. The tug of war within her has been vividly portrayed by Anuradha.

The novel captures her angst, and that of her son Myshkin, in a staggeringly beautiful way.

How everyone is affected by the decisions we make… How lives change because of them… How you live to regret… How life always remains incomplete, despite our hardest struggles… All this has cemented this beautiful book into what it has become…

‘All the lives we never lived,’ is also a travelogue of sorts. Lovingly creating a space for the reader to bask in, be it in a small hamlet in Bali or a small town in India with its surrounding villages and vibrant culture.

While the language is poised and graceful, the sentences crafted with elegance, it is the underlying skeleton of the story that never leaves you to enjoy every word. There is an ache created, that is palpable… This is a book that is ‘put-downable’ not because it is boring… But because one needs to surface up… To breathe, before plunging back into it again…

I have two adorable pugs, but that is not why I bought this book .

The story about a little stray dog latching on to a runner during a gruelling 155-mile ultra marathon run in the Gobi Desert piqued my curiosity.

The fact that she matched stride for stride with an elite athlete for nearly 80 miles made a stunning picture in my mind. I couldn’t wait to find out more about this tenacious little pup.

While the book is about Gobi, the stray and Dion, the runner, it is also about falling desperately in love with an animal, in an alien country and not have the heart to leave her there, it is about learning new emotions within oneself. It is also about how sometimes animals choose us rather than the other way round.

I have always enjoyed reading about athletes who push their bodies and mind to the utmost limit and survive to tell the tale. Here, Dion has done a remarkable job of capturing what long distance elite runners endure, what motivates them, and why they do what they do.

The book made for an easy, interesting read. I loved going through YouTube videos about these two amazing beings after reading the book. Just type any of their names and up they pop!

I was surprised that a story that captured the collective imagination of millions was missed entirely by me.

The book is heartwarming, like hot tea on a cold winter day. Read it for the real life love affair between man and his best pal! It is not a tear-jerker like many pet books but a delightful, peppy read that might inspire you to reach for your running shoes and put in a few miles !

Heck! If the mutt can run 80 miles, we can surely do a few!!

Phew!

It must be fun being an author with a vivid imagination … To make up characters and give them characteristics, to decide their quirks and idiosyncrasies. To walk the reader into your imagined locations, where they unquestioningly follow….up the mountain or down by the sea.

This book, narrated in the voice of a thirteen-year-old boy, takes us into the innocence of childhood and also its acute helplessness. It takes us into a small town by the sea, where a child, uprooted from the city tries to find his bearings through a very difficult time of his life.

There is refreshing use of language here. The sentences are beautifully and meaningfully woven. The scene of a chase left me breathless as I ran with the protagonist and his friend Bilal through narrow lanes and rugged landscape, willing them to escape to safety.

As the story takes shape in an unhurried manner, one is lulled by the pace of the small town sea. While it looks innocuous, this book has deeper layers that invite one to introspect. Children become unhappy pawns in the games that adults play. Quite often swallowing the screams and questions that arise…
I did take time to get fully involved in the story and many a times my pug got his teeth into it faster than me… But I persevered and was richly rewarded!

Ever swallowed a bitter pill that lodged itself in the throat, melting into a sour fluid with every agitated swallow? Well, this book is one such pill.

In its very existence lies the truth about how terrifying life can be. Every page that gathers to become a chapter, holds within its words acute pain, humiliation, anger, hunger, violation…

The story of Revathi, born Doraiswamy is written with precision and candour. There are no embellishments, no paragraphs to make the reading light. It is one tightrope journey that keeps one glued to the story of how a boy desperately wants to be a woman and wants the world to understand this overwhelming feeling.

This is where she is completely let down… By Family and society. The life of a ‘Hijra’, it’s secret community and tightlaced hierarchy, are worlds into which very few might have a glimpse. This book is a peep hole.

How little one understands the millions who share this planet… Under garish makeup and a manly voice, lies a wounded soul, that still smiles because till death happens, there is life to be traversed.

I bought this book for Rs. 10/- from a second hand book store. It is a signed copy. The reason for my curiosity could be Rama, the eunuch who visits me near Diwali time every year, she leaves a list of things that her people need for the winter.

Over the years, I have learnt to calm the fear that irrationally arose when I was around them. It could be because Rama visits me alone and is not brash… Or it could be that I have grown….