Love Beyond Social Confines by Laxman Rao My rating: 3.9 of 5 stars

Love Beyond Social Confines

I have never come across anything like this book. It is a rustic, raw, heartfelt and honest novella. It was an extremely different experience as compared to what I have been having for a long time, reading. Let me break it down to you.

First of all, I finished this book in a single sitting. The entire plot played like a docudrama in front of my eyes. It felt like I had somehow discovered somebody’s old journal and had to devour it at warp speed lest I should be found out sneaking.

It was only after reading this book that I realized how much I had missed the good old Indian writing. I am glad that people like Laxman Rao are still carrying on the legacy and doing it so brilliantly. That brings me to the author himself. I literally had goosebumps reading about his life struggles.(Yes, I like to know my authors.) It also felt like this story was a part of him, and not just something he conjured up in his mind one fine day because he decided to write a book.
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Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

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“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne with an ‘e’.”

Oh Anne! What a treat you were. This novella is so refreshing and innocent, it actually takes you back in time, and if it is in anyway possible, makes you ten years younger when you’re done! I was so bewitched by this ‘ravishing’ Anne that I dreaded the idea of finishing the book at all.

I never met such a girl. I could never ‘imagine’ such a girl either. What a torpedo of delights! This is one of the best coming-of-age stories out there. I would admit though, that if such a ‘scrumptious’ tiny girl really existed, she would be more intimidating than sweet, for Anne of Green Gables talked and she talked a lot and the only thing she did more than talking was imagining. Every character in the book is so relatable and unique that I cannot imagine a better way to put this story through. This girl is so prudent, yet laced to the roots in an unbelievably commendable fashion. There are so many strong messages throughout the book, yet you never feel them being rubbed on your face. There is something about this story which is simply pristine in its charm and charisma. Continue reading “Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars” →

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 

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“Every heart has its own skeletons.”

A scandal never gets old. It’s crazy how the human society works. We are trained consciously and subconsciously right from our birth to put up this facade of righteousness around us, while all we covertly scavenge for and relish is the darkness and the fall of anyone but ourselves.

Anna Karenina is a satire on the society, politics, war and the human character. It is also a love story and a hate story. Anna is not perfect. Anna is not righteous by the book. But, when has perfection attracted us so much as the flaws? Anything or anyone who has that power to lure our inner demons, make us feel vulnerable and in danger of melting down the facade we have been building so ardently since we can remember ourselves, is the thing we try our best not to confront and when we do, more often than not, we surrender. Continue reading “Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy My rating: 5 of 5 stars” →

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

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“Bah,” said Scrooge, “Humbug.”

This is a story that became the seed for so many stories, Carols, adaptations, television series, movies and what not! What Dickens conjured with three ghosts and a stingy inveterate senile miser, was never done before or could be equaled again with all the elves, fairies and Santa to the rescue.

The tale is spun so seamlessly through the shortcomings and sheer disregard of Christian feelings exhibited by the protagonist Scrooge, the hideousness of his actions, the tastelessness of his selfish attitude and his ultimate redemption in the face of death and fear. Continue reading “A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars” →

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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#18th longest novel of all time.
# “One of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world”- Upton Sinclair

“Liberation is not deliverance.”

Have you ever experienced the satisfaction that comes from reading or watching something so complete that your own life comes full circle to you thereafter?
If you haven’t, read this book. If you think you have, read this book imperatively. If you have, in fact, read the book, pat yourselves on the back.

Les Miserables is Continue reading “Les Misérables by Victor Hugo My rating: 5 of 5 stars” →

Walden by Henry David Thoreau My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”

Walden!

Well, I love it and hate it. But, probably I love it more. The book is so pluralistic, yet singular in the underlying idea. There are tones and undertones and overtones, yet it is the simplest thing I have ever come across.

This is one of those unwonted books that I have struggled to sit through. But, this is also a book that keeps me haunting back and forth days after finishing it. It actually makes me cogitate and think about things I had given up thinking long ago.

This book is not timeless, at least in my opinion, like the other books in this genre are. I remember myself getting so worked up with some of the ideas Thoreau planted in my brain and I could not see it materialize in the present era. May be it is just me, and technically his ideas are not impossible to execute altogether. But, I don’t find it pragmatic or rather beneficial to anybody today. “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

I will break it down to you.

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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

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This book is unique in a way that two lines in and the book had me completely. That’s new, because I’m a skeptic and I normally take pages or chapters to finally make up my mind about a book. What Mr. Gatsby did to the people he met, probably this book did to me. Pay attention here, I haven’t said that I liked the content yet. I only said the book had me and my undivided attention. I do not imply that I hated the content either. The book, just somehow, managed to draw the kind of attention foreign to its genre. When you delve into a “great book”, a “classic”, you normally go in slow and give it time (at least I do). But, with this book, when I got in, I was devouring everything wolfish-ly, as if I were reading a thriller or solving a mystery.

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The Carnival

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“So, did you ask him? What did he say? What..tell me!” chimed Kiara excitedly.

“Umm..yeah.” replied Diya avoiding Kiara’s piercing gaze.

“So?”

“So…umm…he said he likes you…kind of, I mean.”

“Really? He said that! Did he say he likes me?” Kiara could barely suppress her exhilaration at this point. Her heart was racing like a juggernaut.

“Yes. Now, shush and get back to your seat. Matthew is a sneeze away from thrashing us out of the class.”Diya said that mechanically, trying her best to look anywhere else, but at Kiara.

“Oh come on! Don’t be a chicken. Just tell me everything he said and I’ll be gone. Promise!”

“But, there’s nothing more..”

“You know what Diya, look here…You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

“Well, I…” Continue reading “The Carnival” →

The Bucket List

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“It was still dawn when I stepped out of the cab and walked towards the entry gate of the Delhi airport. The early morning February air was pleasantly cold.

I was travelling to Bengaluru to attend a college friend’s wedding. It had been four years since we graduated from the same college. This wedding was also going to be a reunion of our batchmates. But what I didn’t know was that the reunion would begin much ahead of time; right in the queue in front of the airline counter.

I was almost sure it was she. Same height! Same long hair! Same complexion! Curiosity had my eyes glued to her. And then about 60-odd seconds later, when she turned, she proved me right. My ex-girlfriend stood two places ahead of me in that queue. We had never met after the college farewell. Continue reading “The Bucket List” →

A Requiem for Transcendence

old-couple-holding-handsI often wondered what love was; it took me a lifetime to discover you were in love, when there’s no going back from loving. That minuscule split of the second when it hits you and you start looking at them differently. You just love them even when they become a different person altogether. You might start disliking them, you might even start hating yourself for loving and disliking them at the same time; but when you take their name, even in your mind, you say it softly and you feel warm. You never fall in love for the sparkle of the eyes or the kick of humour; you fall in love with the chemistry you share. You fall in love with that energy, that aura that wraps you and them. There are no proofs for a few things. All you need to have is a little faith. Continue reading “A Requiem for Transcendence” →

My Blatant Plea

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It was a wintry December morning of 2012. I lay snug inside my hillock of blankets. I hated winters. I detested the chills, the piercing stroke of the raw freeze. I would give anything to stay there, inside my cozy hillock for the rest of the day.

Not long ago, there used to be a time when I would sleep like a baby. That day, there was a click and a strangled monotonous beep and I thrust my hillock away sprinting for the fax machine, forgetting my slippers, my sweater and the chills. Desperately, I hit the buttons and finally I had the fax in my hand. I ran with it to the balcony of my dingy one-bedroom apartment and began reading. Continue reading “My Blatant Plea” →

Femme fatale

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There were holes in heaven and humongous ice towers swelled earthbound. Chic-clad men, women and children lurched out of tight spaces dug in the tower, belching thick tar and it rained in the realm. There was no land anymore, only bogs of currency soused in oil and blood. The marshes sucked everything in, till the quagmire softened into a decisive reality- a perfect corporate ghetto. The Heaven was hell and the Hell was heaven.

“Silent night, holy night…”, she hummed as she scanned the wall with a scalpel in her left hand. It was almost time, she must hurry. But, the perfectionist that she was, she continued the sgraffito and mellow undertones squinted out. The painting was complete.

“All is calm, all is bright….”

The exhilaration in her sprightly gait reiterated through the quiet mansion. A warm shower later, she donned a blush-coloured gown playing off her skin-tone. There was something very calm about her demeanour. It would not scream glamour directly into your eyes, but kick you in the face in your own sweet time and leave you to gasps. T-strap shoes and a turquoise necklace sealed the deal. That deconstructed extravagance and careful insouciance created a definitive idiosyncrasy, just the drama that makes you want to know the woman more.

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The Vitriol

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I held her tightly, her face right next to my heart. I held her strong in a perpetual grip. It was only a ball of my bedspread that I had curled up in a frenzy, but that felt right. That felt like home. That felt like myself again. With the dying flicker of the lamp, I drifted a world apart, in times bygone, another lifetime. Those were wistful times, endearing times.

I found myself in my parents’ house again. Moonlight sieved in on the bed through the window, hugging my skin. The room boomed with the illustrious laughter of my sisters. The littlest one clung on my back and her teddy clung onto her. The five of us began our little tea-party. I just loved adorning them, making dresses for them and styling their hair, just like mother did. I was fourteen again. I might not have been an absolute angel, but I was prim nonetheless. I laughed and laughed and just laughed. In the darkness of that fetid night, I had found my beacon once again. I danced around it like the psychedelic moths. I let that moment own me. She was me. I was her. I felt safe. I had found the place where I belonged.

Desperately,

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