Man or Salman

Good and bad reside inside a person.

If we see a lot of bad happening there is also an exceptional number of do-gooders in this world that kind of brings the world order at a par. Man will not desist from doing wrong as also some good. So it is rather a pesky thought to burden oneself over why people behave the way they do. If you know someone who has done something wrong and may be does so consistently, then apart from it giving you the gee bees you may also want to know his/her nature, compulsions, motivation, circumstance or the situation of that individual as to why a certain action took place. And after you’ve known the needful, you may still be restive in your mind with dissatisfaction of sorts as you mentally shrug with incredulity at the ridiculousness of the situation. A wrong can never be accepted as easily as a correct deed can be.

On the other hand if someone does good, it is taken as de rigueur and sometimes even acknowledged for what it is worth. That’s how nature ordains in its rule book.

However, we also seem to have contrived of ways to assimilate things that are not right and are untrue, into the web of our life and that has become de rigueur too. We are ready to forgive faults of those we think we like and whose image sits pretty in our hearts. We allow what our heart desires and pleases the eye to decide how things sway in the major play of elements so that the truth becomes a mere point in the agenda and the last one at that.

Whatever the repercussions: they will come as they come. There’s a very clever explanation in the Hindu philosophy for any good or bad happening in our lives and which btw transcends its communal limits to explain things to the general citizenry of our country and that is called ‘fate’.

If we have a bad turn of events it would mean simply that we did something bad (karma) in our previous birth or life and are now paying for it. Even if we are two goody shoes or boots as the case may be in the present birth, we may still have to suffer because of our misdeeds we did foolishly and spoiled our stay for the present.

The good we are receiving is similarly proportional to the goodness we’d done then. As you sow, so shall you reap....... in another birth. So you recharged your mobile phone balance but the money went to some other number by mistake. But you know what to blame it on. Same thing you pavement dwellers.

Image courtesy: spiritual-knowledge.net

What should a reader do to be a good reader?

It's a fad these days to be professing one's love for books when all around you see people deeply engaged in online gaming or surfing net. For all the love declared towards an act that takes such religious heights for some (and a small % only at that), you try forming an interesting, leave alone a learned conversation on the topic of books and it doesn't take more than a few minutes to abandon the effort altogether and start on another one involving a movie or an actor or mobile chatting or some such. Anything but the sacrosanct books that are something like a deity to be revered but not made close bonding with.
My 14 year old daughter  believes she is an avid reader and is happy to remain quite smug in that knowledge. So much so that she doesn't feel the need to go to the nearest library more often as she has her staple of Harry Potter, Eragon, Percy Jackson series that are apparently enough for her requirements. The vocabulary given therein is sufficient to help her 'Rowling' in clever English as she spreads her wings with 'wingardium laviosa' to 'ascendio' to the higher limits of knowledge sphere and many others.

But I digress. My point of writing this post is my alarm at the state of readership in the citizenry of present day India that is for some reason not able to devote him/herself to the written word but lives in the notion that they otherwise are devoted readers ie bookworms. Many older and well known authors have given their views on what they expect a reader to behave like to show he /she is a true blue follower of the word. Expectations aren't a one sided process you see. If a reader expects good, interesting or engaging writing from a writer, the writer too expects something out of its readers. Hummmm! Now that's a thought!

The renowned author Vladimir Nobokov had a rather straight forward requirement of a reader when he laid out the following 10 points of reference to be a good reader. Check yourself out dear how you fare in it! ;) Any four out of the lot makes you eligible at it.
Here goes:

1. The reader should belong to a book club.
2. The reader should identify himself or herself with teh hero or heroine.
3. The reader should concentrate on the socio-economic angle.
4. The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none.
5. The reader should have seen the book in a movie.
6. The reader should be a budding author.
7. The reader should have imagination.
8. The reader should have memory.
9. The reader should have a dictionary.
10. The reader should have some artistic sense. 

Not just this Nobokov also believed that a reader should be a re-reader to really appreciate the writing. he says:

'A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a re-reader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what teh book is about, this stands between us and the artistic appreciation.

But I guess if there is even a single time of reading happening, the writer should be grateful enough. that would be enough a discharge of his/her duty towards the book.

As Samuel Johnson says- 'A writer only starts a book. The reader finishes it.'

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Book Review: Crossed & Knotted

Crossed &Knotted

India's First Composite Novel

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The Blurb

Crossed & Knotted is India’s first Composite Novel, a book written by fourteen authors in close collaboration with each other. The chapters, each a story in itself, are knotted with one another through characters, events, settings and emotions. The result is a read that criss-crosses through a multitude of emotions bringing out deep rooted human desires. They narrate tales of love and betrayal, suspense and mystery, courage and dilemma, along with hope and resilience. Read it for a taste so tantalizing, that your mind will surely be craving for more!

My Take On It : 

Crossed & Knotted as a composite novel comes out as one whole bunch of flowers in a bouquet, varied in colours and design yet joined at a common point. This being an experimental genre gives a unique opportunity for creative writers to excite their creative juices and bring in an individual voice unique to each one of them. The novel is therefore naturally not a straight take off about a single story but has a different takes on the various characters as a separate entity with every writer’s imprint on them. All in all a very interesting and enjoyable read all through the 14 stories. Here’s a brief look at what the stories have to offer:  

Beginning with Sutapa Basu’s story ‘A Curious Dalliance’ which has Sudip Roy’s wife Megha dying of a curious disease leaving behind a daughter Shivi, in-laws and of course her husband. Shivi is a grown up girl in the next story by Ayan Pal- ‘The Diary of Joseph Varughese’ who is inordinately fond of collecting old diaries and which could turn into her undoing in this thriller-ish story with her boyfriend James emerging as someone we wouldn’t think he would be. The novel diverges into the lives of various characters not holding on strictly to the original characters or story line so that we have Shivi’s friend’s Siya getting a lead place in the next story by Sanchita Sen Das- ‘The Web of Life’ and we venture into the esoteric realm of karma and regressive hypnotherapy.  The novel takes an unexpected route into fatalism and rhetorical musing regarding the aim of writing a story in ‘The Real Fiction Of Illiana Braun’ by Arvind Passey as he effortlessly  merges real life characters of the novel within his own story to surprising results while also propagating the diary as a perfect prop to advance a story line. ‘A Burning Candle’ by Mithun Mukherjee has Illiana  make a new friend in Catherine and find her nemesis in her quest to find the truth about Lily Brown whose story took shape in Kochi and where Illiana found herself in on a trip to India for a workshop on Architecture. Her brief acquaintance with Illiana leads Catherine- a journalist on a mission to Afghanistan to cover a story on situation of women and children there in the next story ‘Relic to Ruins’ by Avanti Sopory. Through her, we get a peep into the life of people in present day Afghanistan as well as that of Jameela and her children. ‘Leap of Faith’ by  Bhaswar Mukherjee, moves the story of Jameela- a fiercely independent  and progressive woman in an atmosphere that encouraged the subjugation of women and the weak but who manages to fight it while her daughter Rukhsana is able to break free of  it all completely and make a life for herself in India. ‘Reclaiming Life’ by  Anupama Jain shows an aspect of women in India not really in control of things concerning themselves as portrayed by Poorni, who is a friend of Rukhsana aka Dimpy, and is helped by latter to gain her lost ground in a patriarchal society as ours. Kamu aka Kamala Devi is the ‘Dragon Lady’, also Poorni’s vampish mother-in-law who has been illustrated vividly by Deepti Menon  in this story that explains why and how she came to be called the ‘dragon’. Her scheming and machinations lead everybody become afraid of her and thus making her succeed in her plans. This is how she also manages for her under qualified son Pankaj to have a better educated and simple girl Poorni as his wife. Pankaj’s younger brother Binoy leaves his mother’s home to find his own bearings in ‘For a Speck of a Moment’ where Amrit Sinha brings to light the terrifying moments of the Cafe Leopold and German Bakery bomb blasts through Binoy who has reached Pune to make a life for himself. He moves ahead in life in ‘To Ma & Pa, Con Amore!’ by Monika Nair, managing to find a wife in Mona Lisa who brings out the struggle between two generations, one- her father Shankar preferring the small town while she her self, the city life.

‘Look Beyond’ by Amar Lakshya Pawar reconnects the lives of a happy couple namely Aditya and Meena, destined for a tragedy as Shankar tries to lend a helping hand in the melee. A recently widowed Meena tries to build a new life with Sudip Roy without knowing much about his past in ‘Dawn to Dusk’ by Bhuvaneshwari Shankar. This penultimate story brings around the story line to the cast of the first story and gets anchored in the end chapter called ‘The Last Act’ by Arpita Banerjee. It attempts to bring a logical closure and peace to the demons raised by Sudip’s actions although quite dramatically!

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ABOUT THE EDITOR

Sutapa Basu is an Honours scholar from Santiniketan and holds a Masters degree in English Literature. Her professional career has seen her as a teacher, editor, and publisher. She has worked with renowned international publishing houses like Oxford University Press and Encyclopaedia Britannica. In the last five years of her professional career, she has launched 111 educational titles, 33 CDs and digital products, a language lab and a website. She has also developed and edited over 450 books over the last thirteen years.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER : READOMANIA

India has traditionally been the land of storytellers and a lot of us have an inherent skill of creating good plots, stories and narrations. With a little encouragement and support, many more authors can be widely read. This is the essence of Readomania-an initiative that nurtures emerging stars of the literary world.

Readomania is an online content discovery platform that brings to life a whole new literary world, with stories, authors, books and a lot more. We also have a publishing house that takes the best of Readomania from the online format to print editions and launches debut authors. Our focus is to bring to the market, new authors and novel concepts, a composite novel being one of them. Our previous book, Chronicles of Urban Nomads, a collection of short stories, was also an experimental publication. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Readomania is the talent hunt in fiction that goes a step beyond, nurtures talent and showcases it to the world, in the process, creating a powerhouse of content.

Our website also has a lot in store for the reader. Since the content is edited and curated, by a strong team of editors, readers get quality reads on a platter. The variety on Readomania is impressively vast; we have romance, emotions, thrills, travel, humour and drama. 

Accessing Readomania makes for a perfect break of fifteen minutes from your daily grind. The website was launched in January, 2014 and is already very popular with about 3500 registered users, of which 300 members are active contributors and authors. The site also boasts of 800 online publications and more than three lakh page views till date.

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Book Review: And We Remained

And We Remained 

by 

Asad Ali Junaid

The Blurb

It is Bangalore in the late 1990’s. There are tremendous socio-economic and cultural transformations taking place as a result of liberalization. How would these changes impact a group of friends in their late teens? How would they cope, find opportunities and what of their original identities would they be left with, after western ideologies are brought in and bombarded into their awareness by cable TV and new media? 

Told through emails and first person account of events, And We Remained is a light and entertaining read of these friends as they experience love, heartbreak, prison, politics, drunken binges, strip clubs, sexcapades, US and Europe during their journey into adulthood


My take on it:

Junaid brings here a breezy and honest-as is where is account of life of an engineering student. This is such a sincere portrayal of a set of students and also their families coming from the middle class; their struggles and boys being boys come what may! It is a story told in a very simple and forthcoming manner.....yeah a no-holds barred definitely as you go through the untraversed territory of the male psyche and habits. :)
Five friends Sahir, Gopal, David, Sandeep and Anand give us a peep into the life in an engineering college where they share the back benches, pretty teacher's classes, a villain of a principal and even a girlfriend in a girl called Wardha, that forms a gamut of collective experiences throughout their seven semesters. This inspires quite some funny, light hearted moments in the narration like the time when due to paucity of money, Sahir and Sandeep end up giving a valentine's day card jointly to the same girl!
The various ups and downs therein form the basis of how they fare in the outside world which is not too great as they find out eventually. The tough life of the youth abroad while the families back home remain blissfully unaware of the hardships they face in the land of opportunity is also highlighted seamlessly into the story.
Since it showcases the lives of these students in the 1990s the emails emergence as the new tool of communication has been put to good use here as a means to relate the story from the various character's point of views.
All in all a light read to be enjoyed by all and also an enlightening one especially for the parents of budding engineering students to get a perspective! 

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Meet the Author

Asad Ali Junaid is a design professional in Bangalore working in the area of Human-Machine Interaction. He aims to resolve problems to enable humans interact and use technology efficiently.
Junaid writes whenever there is a compelling story inside him bursting to get out.  Junaid’s first fiction novel –And We Remained – started as a story which needed to be told… and one which needed to be told differently. He joined a three week in residence ‘Just Write’ fiction writing workshop where he got a chance to learn the nuances of and hone his story telling skills from authors Anil Menon, Anjum Hasan and Rimi Chatterjee. And We Remained then turned into a 52,000 word novel with an absorbing storyline and a unique narration style – the story is set in the 1990’s India and is told through emails and first person accounts of events.  Junaid is getting great feedback for the story depicting the mindset of engineering students in that era and the unique narration style it follows.
Junaid is married and his wife is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore working in the area of Molecular Biophysics. Their toddler completes their home while keeping them on their toes.

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Book Review: The Rozabal Line

Republished from wordpress blog with the same title:

Book Review: The Rozabal Line

Well! This is the Indian version of the famous Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. The discerning point here is that what Mr Dan Brown indicates not very emphatically, Mr Ashwin Sanghi bases this book on that very premise namely that Jesus  came to India after the crucifixion and lived as a messenger of God among the local people and in fact died here too. Mr Sanghi’s book begins by detailing a crypt in the depths of Kashmir mountains that is believed to be the grave of Jesus and is known by the name Yuz Asaf locally.

In fact the whole book is a continuation of factual details mixed with some fiction and simultaneously concluding how all religions are actually a derivation or have been linked to each other in some form or other. The prophecies at various times of the world coming to an end, the bloodshed, murders and all good or bad things are a consequence of one’s karma, is all interconnected with all the peoples of the world– is what Mr Sanghi tells us in this very descriptive and interesting book.

There is no single hero or heroine but the various characters whether a murderer or a priest in distant parts of the world, find themselves coming face to face as a natural process of their karma and actually a one and only one shared history that we have with each other although some links have become blurred with time.

I found the book quite engaging, well paced, and well researched work of historical fiction, one that will make you like history if you’d never liked the subject in the past.

Sonnet: Within a Moment

So much chaos within a moment

Spent in mono,dia & sometimes trialogues

What is good, better or best

Soundlessly sneaks out the rogue

Leaving the fretting, fuming & more

Keening heart with restlessness

Sinking into subdued torpor

Bind the shackl’d to the harness

Check the unreined! Faraway it gallops!

Tether the strain or you’ll strain the tether.

***

You delve in its whys and wherefores

Seeking answers if not the joys from it

Indecisions burden it as the clock keeps score

Burning & turning & roiling on the spit

Were you searching a better instant in a morrow?

For now is the future you waited for yesterday

There’s just so much further time to borrow

Do, please do- when sun shines make hay!

Einstein’d vouch; the time is relative

Be in the moment & the moment You’ll Be.

A Slick Life-- a story of Dehra Dun and its people and ONGC

Ruskin Bond isn’t the only one who has made ‘A Town called Dehra’ his home. His book by the same name apart from reliving his childhood days growing in this sleepy town is also an endorsement of the fact that there is something uniquely special about it. What? There’s the ubiquitous greenery, simple hill folk that flock it in search of jobs, a sort of unhurried pace of life; well! Sort of! And people still find time while on walks or scooters to say hello to that acquaintance you spotted on the road. Do people still want this kind of life? The answer is yes they do. But without losing out on the speed they’ve gathered in the fast lane. So we find many a city slickers homing in into the town for rest and recoup because the place gives a deep sense of contentment as well as the spiritual connect that is such an integral part of it.

Dehra Dun, the capital of the state of Uttarakhand (India) has always evinced much interest of people even since the olden times as the yellowed pages of history would tell of its renown as the place of ‘green hedges and grey heads’. Lush green foliage dotted the landscape of the valley and made it one of the greenest in the country. The grey heads- symbolized the retired senior civil and defence officials who chose it as their last refuge because of its salubrious climate and peaceful ambience.

Migration of people from various part of India had begun more than 200 years ago and gave it the cosmopolitan character that it bears now. Apart from the hill folks like the Garhwalis and Gorkhas, many disciples of Guru Ram Rai settled here. During the early 1950s, the setting up of the Oil & Natural Gas Directorate (now Corporation) brought in many Bengali families who took jobs in ONGC, Ordinance factory and the Survey of India. Needless to say, all who came to know the place and it’s people, embraced the place as their own and settled down here.          

 The times then saw a wonderful camaraderie, cultural and reassertion of Indian values in the society what with the call for freedom struggle gaining strength. Gandhiji had unified India like none other could have and the country and its people were nervously excited to see how the development of the country would unfold post independence. The many sacrifices, turmoil, thoughts, mental state of the common people during the struggle are something nobody knows about. We have been inundated with many books eulogising the contributions of political stalwarts time and again but nothing on the contributions of the common man.

  A Slick Life  is a story of a common man from Dehra Dun who joined ONGC as a driller. His life exemplifies the joys, laughter, difficulties, the wars that shook the country, the Dehra Dun of yore and most importantly how the oil industry took firm roots in India and the immense contribution of ONGC in it. The story is a never before explored subject of oil well drilling and an endearing look at the past at how people used to be once upon a time! Perhaps, you’ll recall things you’ve probably forgotten by now.

It is a must read for every Indian.

PS: A Slick Life is available on 50% OFF for the month of JUNE so HURRY....n grab your copy today.

For PAPERBACK of the book contact:  authoricha@gmail.com

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