Posts

Book review - When A Crocodile Eats The Sun by Peter Godwin

-
    The reasons for picking up this book are two. First, I have always been curious about the lives of the White Africans (an oxymoron I realized later). Second, the passing away of Heath Streak, my favourite Zimbabwean cricketer, in September 2023, rekindled the desire to pick up a work of fiction/non-fiction on the subject. In “When A Crocodile Eats The Sun”, Peter Godwin weaves the deeply personal and the political together through his gripping narrative in this work of non-fiction set in his beloved Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe of his childhood is gradually falling apart, the Whites are no longer welcome, many have left as a result, yet him and several others like him can’t sever the umbilical cord. He keeps longing for Africa despite having settled in New York with partner and kids. He oscillates between a journalist and a memoirist. As a journalist he is very objective when writing about the deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe. For example, he gives a balanced view of
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - Grandma’s bag of stories by Sudha Murthy

-
  What better way to laze around on a rainy Sunday morning than to pick up a book on grandma's stories and relieve those childhood days. A family member had bought it and was lying in the corner of the bookshelf. As I spotted it I decided to take a walk down the memory lane. Story after story, this book is a simple and effective way to impart important human values into children. One quality, in Sudha Murthy's writing that stood out for me is that it shows and explains but never preaches. From stories of being money- wise to stories about the perils of blind faith to being too cunning and taking advantage of someone else's sorrows, they retain their timeless appeal. The stories are not just happy stories, there are sad ones too. For example, the story of paan (betel leaf). There are lessons for respect and conservation of nature too. As the book came to an end I wondered whether children of the digital age and smartphones understand the significance and fun in grandparents&
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - Wake Up, Life is Calling by Preeti Shenoy

-
  Preeti Shenoy's book Wake Up, Life Is Calling stuns the reader into silence as one turns the last page over and the author's words sink in gradually. The book, a narration of a girl's struggle with mental illness and depression is very relatable for those readers who have experienced such illness themselves or have known someone who has gone through the ordeal. Ankita, the protagonist's constant everyday struggle to deal with her painful past and stay in the present is an eye opener for those who are blessed with a " normal " life.That bad memories can creep in at unexpected times and manifest itself in ways such as sweaty palms, insomnia, throwing ups and other forms of anxiety attacks are part of Ankita's existence which friends and family may fail to understand often times. Preeti Shenoy is a wonderful storyteller who succinctly conveys the pain across through use of simple yet piercing language. Her writing style is a combination of topical and analy
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - How to be a Writer by Ruskin Bond

-
  The most compelling reason to write is a desire to put one's thoughts into words. People may write for a variety of reasons, both commercial and non-commercial, but the basic desire to put thoughts into paper is what drives a person foremost. Bond gives a practical tip when he says aspiring writers should find a familiar setting such as one's home town or neighbourhood, places we know well. Writing is something one should do as a matter of habit, a few sentences or a paragraph in a day preferably or every few days, if one wishes to get better at it. He makes a pertinent point about avoiding stereotypes which may be a result of one's upbringing. The characters in our writing, according to him, should be original and based on real people or place. Use of simple words is the way go. For example, Mr. Knight, his English teacher at school, taught him to use simple words and not mystify the reader. He has dutifully stuck to it for seventy odd years. One should read multiple gen
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - Glimpses of Bengal by Rabindranath Tagore

-
  Through these letters written over a decade, an eloquent Tagore observes nature with its minute details making him ponder over deeper meanings of life and universe. Reflections on random thoughts and incidents shed light on the philosophical side of the bard, then an aimless wanderer in his late twenties, as he captures the little joys of village life and life itself cruising through the undivided Bengal countryside in the family barge. What may come across as mundane to most of us moved him deeply. Written at a time when he was more of a reluctant zamindar and an obscure man of letters, he touches upon his inner contradictions of a rootless existence as against being rooted to a place. One thing stood out for me in these letters. His patriotic zeal and the desire to see his countrymen free from the colonial yoke which he poignantly summarises with the example of an earthen pot as against a metal one. It is a memoir of sorts.
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - Spell Of The Flying Foxes by Sylvia Dyer

-
  "Spell of The Flying Foxes" by Sylvia Dyer is the family saga of an Anglo-Indian family encompassing four generations. Although Anglo-Indians, generally speaking, are an urban community but this family lived in a rural plantation estate for successive generations. Champaran in rural Bihar close to the border with Nepal is where the author's great-grandfather arrived from England in the mid 19th century and made fortune as an Indigo planter. A story about lives and times long gone by, a moving account of growing up in British India in the 1930s alongside native Indian peasants and rural folk who worked on the plantations. Despite this being her first published work, Sylvia Dyer comes across as a charismatic storyteller. Her prose is what I found the most remarkable quality of her writing. For example, her opening sentence "Nobody would ever forget Dhang, though after all these years it seems to me that it never really existed, and was just a long-ago, stretched out
Post a Comment
Read more

Book review - Selected Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

-
  Tagore has wider acclaim as a poet and novelist but he was no less a master storyteller and these dozen stories are ample proof of it. This book shows the power that storytelling once had on children and is still a wonderful medium in times of smartphones and modern gadgets. His stories convey a range of human emotions and traits such as love, compassion, longing, belonging, loyalty, false sense of vanity, sorrow, separation and reunion which seem like a roller coaster ride as the reader goes through these emotions as well. Two things appear fairly consistent in his stories, the rural surroundings and that a child's imagination transcend boundaries and is not constrained by a sense of logic that adults have. The stories point to Tagore's highlight of society of those times such as class and caste stratification and conditions of women who remained in the confines of the house. Those who have read his " My Boyhood Days' ' can see the reflection of Tagore's chi
Post a Comment
Read more