Book Review : Family Matters

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Author : Rohinton Mistry

A story about a Parsi family living in Bombay. As the author puts it, the most accepting and giving city of the world as it keeps welcoming people and embrace them in its arms. In return, the city endures for the ones coming into its folds everyday. There is a brief mention of the Shiv Sena people who are trying to control the natural flow of the city by putting their claims on its fabric whether it is in the form of changing the name to Mumbai or not allowing people to celebrate festivals that do not go well with them. The nostaliga that Mr. Kapur feels for his initial period in the city tells us how the author loved the older version of Mumbai.

The story revolves around the head of the family - Nariman Vakeel, family of his married daughter Roxanne and Nariman's two step-children - Coomy and Jal. When the story begins Nariman is living with Coomy and Jal in a 7-rooms flat but Coomy has not fogiven him and she has her heart full of anger for her step-father. Nariman is struggling with Parkinsons and osteoporosis. But the complicated situation arises when Nariman gets a fractured ankle and Coomy and Jal find it too hard to take care of him and dump him at their step-sister's small two-bedroom flat without prior notice. Because of this sudden happening of events Roxanne has to face some problems and unpleasantness with her husband Yezad. But she looks after her father, taking care of his personal needs also, very dearly. Yezad on his end is struggling with the fact that he is not able to provide enough for his family and there is always the financial crunch even more now when there is an addition to the family.

In an attempt to keep her step-father out of that house forever Coomy thinks of an evil plan and gets trapped in it herself.

As far as the writing style of the author is concerned, I think he seriously should edit the story to remove the unimportant parts from the narration. Totally unnecessary details make it a little too long and a drag somtimes. He is successful in making readers see the perils of old age and how with this phase of life comes the feeling of being unwanted for even the dear ones. An average story but should have been a little more crisp.

Book Review : 2 States - The Story of my Marriage

Author : Chetan Bhagat

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Another book by Chetan Bhagat. Having read his earlier three books (Five point someone, One night @ call center, 3 mistakes) already, I am not a great fan of his writing but still I picked this book up as I was looking for a light reading after having read some serious books for past few months. Surprisingly, I found this one much more interesting than his earlier books in the sense that it is funny at many places and narration is engaging. This is an autobiographical take on intercommunity marriages.

It starts with a typical scene at IIMA and Krish, a Punjabi boy falling for Ananya, a "Madrasi" Iyer girl. The things were under their control till the time they were in college. But when they decide to take the next step of getting married, the insurmountable task starts. The hard part was not the decision to get married but how to convince both the families to like their future son-in-law and future daughter-in-law, who do not belong to the same culture and how to make their families like each other. The book highlights the point that marriages in India are not just restricted to a boy and a girl, it involves the extended families of the boy and girl too. The parts where the cultural differences and dissimilarities are pointed out are really funny and if you are from one of these two states or have some idea about the same, you can easily relate to the things and can nod your head along. Some comparisons were really witty and neatly put.

His earlier books have already become the inspiration for Hindi movies and this story has all the ingredients to be one too. I think Chetan Bhagat wants his books to be typical masala movies only, no substance that can satisfy the literary interests. Overall a time pass book, a typical "one day book". Read it, enjoy it and toss it away. Definitely not a keepsake.

Book Review : Have A Little Faith

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Author : Mitch Albom

Just happened to see a new book by Mitch Albom in the bookstore last week, which had arrived a day before my visit to that store. I got tempted to purchase it, and purchase I did. How could I leave a Mitch Albom book when I have liked his three earlier ones so much.

This book starts with a query which the author's rabbi - Albert Lewis, puts him - Would Mitch do the rabbi's eulogy when he dies. Rabbi is 82 years old at that time. Mitch was a little unsure why he was being chosen, he wants to know the Rabbi better in order to write on him later. Initially Mitch expected it to be a two-or a three-weeks project but it went on for eight years. This exercises made him come closer to the faith which he had lost long time back and had not made any attempt to revive it. It would have continued like this, had it not been for this request of Rabbi. Almost at the same time, he gets involved with another man of God - Henry Covington, following a different religion, who, in spite of having a dark past himself was trying his best to bring people to the world of faith. Mitch realizes later that he is on a journey of learning some life lessons himself, believing that there is peace in keeping faith in some bigger, higher power than us. The author gets to talk to both of these men of God about different challenges and hard times that humans go through and how the faith is tested in such times. Eventually he concludes that faith is the one thing that can bridge the gap between people.

A well written book. I enjoyed reading it but still it could not replace my personal favourite among Mitch Albom's books - For one more day.

Book Review : The Notebook

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Author : Nicholas Sparks

This is also one of the titles from the list of "must read books", that was published in the newspaper - Times of India.

A very mushy typical love story where it is evident that the souls are meant to be together. A story about Noah and Allie. Their first meeting was magical, got to spend whole summer in each other's company but got separated to finally get united after fourteen years, during which they kept longing to be with each other and kept remembering their summer together. They get to spend a fulfilling life together, sharing common interests, encouraging each other all along. Allie starts showing signs of Alzhiemer and the story is about how Noah stays with her inspite of his own old age and other physical problems. With great love, commitment and affection he does get some rewards when Allie comes out from her own dark and lonely world and reaches out to him.
The story has a good flow and these kinds of books manage to grip the attention of the reader. But I think my interests are changing in the sense I do like nicely written books but they should offer more than a simple, compelling love story. Many times while reading this I was reminded of another such book - Bridges of Maddison County.

An average timepass book. Such books come under my category of "one day books" when you want to take a break for a day in between some heavy reading. I had heard a lot about this author so wanted to read atleast one of his books.

Book Review : My Sister's Keeper

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Author : Jodi Picoult

I came to know about this book from a list of "must read" books, which was published in the newspaper - "Times of India", a few weeks back. I had put this title in my wishlist too and bought it when I got the next chance to go to the bookstore. I bought it on one Friday and could not keep it down during the whole weekend and managed to finish it in two days. That is enough evidence of how good the book is.

Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, come to know that their two years old duaghter, Kate, has a complex kind of lukemia and their elder son - Jesse cannot be a match to be the donor of bone marrow for his sister. Sara and Brian opt for a genetically designed child to save their dying daughter and thus Anna comes in their lives. Anna goes through lots of medical procedures to keep her sister going, right from her birth for thirteen years. But it all changes when Anna decides to not being Kate's donor anymore and she wants the legal rights on her own body. The author vividly describes the struggle of all characters involved here, the parents, who, while taking care of their sick daughter and trying to increase her life with every possible effort, loose touch with their other children - Jesse and Anna. Jesse trying to grab the attention of his parents, gets himself into difficult situations. Anna suffers the most as even winning the case would mean loosing her own sister without whom she could never imagine her life. They all go through some very difficult and strange choices which are forced upon them in their lives. There are no obvious easy answers to all the queries which get raised in the book as we go along.

Along with this family's struggle there is a side story of lawyer Campbell and his past with Julia. Towards the end, when we think that everthing is taken care of, there is an unexpected twist and I could not read the last 3-4 pages without struggling with fuzziness in my eyes. This is the first book which actually made me cry.

The story and the whole sequence of events to narrate it make it a wonderful reading experience. The story is very touching and my mind is still full of all the characters of the story. One think I liked about the author is that she could portray the turmoil in the minds of the characters really well. When handling an emotional topic and close realtionships, this part becomes really important.

I would strongly recommend this book to those who like emotional and sensitive subjects.

Book Review : The Hundred-Foot Journey

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Author: Richard C. Morais

I think its really been a long time since I came across such a bad book and surprisingly I managed to read it full - cover to cover, while waiting for the plot to build up all through the book. In my opinion, the authors should first see if they really have some good plot before starting to write a book and I am surprsied what did the publishers see in the written matter that they agreed to publish it too. The only attractive part of the book was the cover page which drew me towards this book when I bought it.

Anyway, the book is about a Hajji family, a family running a restaurant in Mumbai and after a certain unfortunate incident the family moved out of India and finally got settled in a French village. The Hajji son - Hassan has natural talent for cooking which a famous French chef Madam Mallory identifies and she selects him to pass on her culinary skills to. Hassan's destiny takes him to Paris and then finally he attains the far fetched dream for any foreigner - of attaining a 3-star status.

I still do not understand what was the purpose of this book - to walk the readers through the journey of an Indian chef to become a 3-star top French chef or to reveal the inner workings of French cuisine world.

My recommendation - stay away from this book.

Book Review : Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time

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Author: Mark Haddon

Christopher, who is fifteen years old is an autistic person. He has extraordinary picture memory. He is very good in doing complex mathematical calculations and understanding the concepts of science but finds it extremenly difficult to understand human beings and human feelings.

One night he notices a dead dog in his nighbourhood. While trying to investigate the murder of this dog, on which he decides to write a book, he gets to unravel many more mysteries concerning his life. His whole secured world comes crashing down when he stumbles upon some facts which were deliberately kept hidden from him. He struggles to save himself from the dog killer.

It is a good attempt by the author to give a glimpse of an autistic mind, how they see things in black and white and the grey portions are beyond their comprehension. Everything has to be logical with either a 'yes' or a 'no' as an answer without being able to understand the reason behind that answer. There is no problem with the IQ of such people, its just that the finer human feelings go unnoticed for them.

Book Review : Eat Pray Love

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Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

The book begins with the time when the author is going through a long and bad divorce seeking process followed by a not very promising another relationship, which leaves her in a very depressed state of mind where she has to take anti-depressants to retain her sanity. After a very pricey divorce settlement, she decides to dedicate one whole year to travelling to three countries - Italy, India and Indonesia. In these three places she finally ends up eating alot, praying alot and then loving alot, in that sequence.

In these three countries, she witnesses totally different cultures and lifestyles. She comes to Italy to satisfy one of her cherished dreams to learn Italian. She notices how Italians are masters of appreciating the beauty of doing nothing. They are hard working people but behind all the work they are actually working towards fulfilling their "doing-nothing" ideal. Whereas Americans need the convincing for the pleasure after hard work. They simply do not know how to do nothing. It is not uncommon that Americans go for regular stress relieving vacations but end up not feeling fully relaxed there too.

Then she comes to India for finding and making peace with her inner self. And ultimately she does attain that peace and enjoys the state of meditation. She has narrated this journey of hers very vividly, her inner apprehensions and questions and dislikes for some of the routine things. But ultimately everything falls into place so nicely that she ends up spending the whole time of her India visit in the ashram whereas she had set aside half of her time for travelling within India and visiting different places. She understands that the misery of all humans is love and control and how the solution is so simple to just let go. It is simple yet very difficult to practice every day.

What all we keep searching every day in the outer world is somewhere deep within ourselves. We fail to recognize our deep divine character. We do not realize that there is eternal peace somewhere within ourselves and that is the supreme Self. A guide or a Guru helps us realise our dream of attaining that divine peace. A Guru, with the aid of his own merits reveals the hidden greatness in the disciples.

After successfully spending her time in the Ashram she reaches Bali. She learns another path of peace from an old medicine man, she helps her new best friend realise her dream of owning a house there and finally finds love of her life.

The author has written this book very sincerely without trying to hold back her thoughts or questions anywhere in the book. That makes it an interesting read. Personally I liked the part when she is on her spiritual journey in India whereas her time in Italy was least impressive as most of the time she has written about what she was eating and how good that was. I understand, that part was anyway devoted to "eat" of the title "eat pray love.

But overall a very transparent portrayal of her feelings throughout the book.

Book Review : Sister Of My Heart

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Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

As I had promised to myself, I went ahead and read another book of Chitra Banerjee. I am really impressed by the author's style of writing and narration, her books are too gripping and it is hard to leave them unfinished once you start them. In both the books the high point is the beautiful portrayal of human emotions.

"Sister of my Heart" is a story of two girls who are cousins - Anju and Sudha. They are born in one household on the same day. They have different temperaments and different dispositions but inspite of all these differences they love each other dearly. A bond, which can not be compared to anything else in this world.

Sudha's life appears to be a little more complicated than Anju as she comes to know the half truth of his father and his crime, and how she has to endure that pain alone. The guilt that her family has been responsible for the misery of Anju's family makes her sacrifice her happiness for Anju's sake without even letting her know about it. But later when Sudha needs support, Anju silently does her part to help her and while doing that she loses her unborn child.

The detailed account of how their lives change slowly as they grow up and some mysteries like their driver Singhji's story makes it an interesting read.

But personally I would recommend "Palace of Illusions" to this book.

Book Review : Palace Of Illusions

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Author : Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

In simple words - the story is that of a great epic, the Mahabharata, which we all grew up listening to. The story in itself is complex and its characters even more complicated. Compared to another major Hindu epic - Ramayana, this one is too intricate with endless (almost) side stories of each character. The incarnations of God Vishnu in both the epics are also very dissimilar - Ram with his simple and truthful ways leads a much simpler life compared to Krishna who comes across as a very cryptic personality.

In this book, Chitra Banerjee has narrated the story of Mahabharata, from the eyes of one of the main characters of the story itself - Panchaali or Druapadi. The book starts with the story of birth of Panchaali and his brother Dhristadyumna through a yagna which was performed by their famous father - Dhrupad to take revenge from his one time bosom friend - Drona. Both these siblings knew right from the beginning that they have been brought in this world for a special purpose. In the course of time Dhraupadi comes to know through Vyasa himself, about the future that awaits her. How she will be instrumental in making history. While telling her so, he gives her advice to

- hold back your question
- hold back your laughter
- hold back your curse

when you desperately want to do these at some points in your life. But as she becomes part of destiny, how the same moments come and she does the same as has been destined already.

I appreciate the author's attempt to peep into the mind of Draupdi and narrate the incidents from her perspective. How slowly with time she comes to realise the essence of life - the freedom she feels towards the end in finding out that one was not as important as one had always assumed. She learns quite a few lessons that the great ups and downs in her life teach her. While undertaking her last journey, she remembers all the goodness of the dear ones in her life and how she had the chance to appreacite the goodness while she spent the time venting her dissatisfaction on them.

She dearly loved her "Palace of Illusions" but as she is taken by destiny through different times, she realises that actually all places are palaces of illusions and like every other home, the body is also a crumbling palace.

Throughout her life, she feels the presence of one of her closest confidant - Krishna with her, till her last moments on earth. He had always been there with her, sometimes in the forefront, sometimes just blended in the shadows of the life. But all through her experiences she does not miss noticing that even though Krishna takes care of her dearly, she does not get anything if she does not deserve it - like the Virat form that Krishna reveals to Arjun only and not to her even though with Vyasa's boon she chould see everything happening on the battlefield. This makes me think, the divine justice is so fair and no short cuts are possible.

A really engaging book and personally I liked the way it makes the readers also realise the common follies that we get entangled in while on this earth. A lot of material to ponder upon. Compliments to the author for such a well written product. I haven't read any of her other books but would love to read some soon.