Thursdays With Tagore - March 18

Every Thursday, I shall read one of Tagore's poems as translated in this book or some other poem I can find. I shall post some lines from the poem and perhaps a detail of how I liked this poem or not. Any others who want to join in this meme are absolutely welcome to do so! 

This is an extract from a lovely poem called Sunday:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and others -

       grim-faced old stewpots!

They don't like little boys. With us

      they are always cross!

But as I get up in the morning

      at the end of  Saturday night,

who should I spy but Sunday,

      her face lit up by a smile!

How she cries when she says goodbye

      and gazes with yearning at us!

   Like you, Mum, she must be

   the daughter of a poor family.

It's amazingly simple and beautiful and dwells on the familiar feeling that Sunday runs away fast before we  realize it while the rest of the days crawl. Tagore has an interesting explanation for it, that of Sunday being the daughter of a poor family who delays reaching her destination probably because her house is farthest from the others and leaves fast because she has more chores than the others. 

I enjoyed reading it and will be sure to remember it every time I yearn for the weekend! :)

Nehru : The Making of India - M.J.Akbar

Rating : 10/10

Review:

There are some books I'm nervous of reviewing: books that are absolutely magnificent, epic and in every sense of the word, a brilliant read. There's always a feeling that my review will not do justice to the greatness of the book. That's the case as far as this book is concerned, but I'm trying my best to put to words my thoughts of a 584-page masterpiece most of whose pages have dogears as I over-excitedly marked pages I loved. Which soon turned out to be almost every page.

Jawaharlal Nehru's life is one that saw the birth and 'making' of a nation. He was, in many ways, the architect of modern India and his life is as complex, brilliant and complicated as it can get for any biographer. But M.J. Akbar more than handles it with ease. This biography is not an exercise in worshiping India's first Prime Minister. Rather, it analyzes with great sensitivity and impressive neutrality.

Akbar isn't afraid of criticising Nehru where the criticism is needed, but he is equally generous in praising the man who inherited a broken, poverty-stricken, injured India after partition and rejuvenated her considerably.

Some issues are dealt with in-depth, particularly the Hindu-Muslim ties that was an issue that persisted throughout Nehru's life, the wonderful relationship between 'Bapu' Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and of course, foreign policy issues, especially the 1962 China war. It is essential that these issues are explained well because most of Nehru's life dealt with it and Akbar does an admirable job of introducing the reader to some concepts and issues, without preaching to them.

But the book isn't just about the 'serious' side of Nehru. Akbar's witty writing style can hold his own in non-fiction, much like his earlier Kashmir: Behind The Vale. His eye for irony, detail and the unknown trivia that amazes you, is one of the greatest advantages of this book. 

Several witty incidents, interesting moments that reveal this great personality make for wonderful reading. I particularly loved how Akbar gave the reader a clear, important insight into Nehru's childhood and early time in politics which had several moments that inspired and influenced Nehru's later policies and life.

Enough emphasis is laid on the important people in Nehru's life,  like father Motilal, daughter Indira, colleagues like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many others. Akbar, ever the sensible journalist, draws quick insightful references from Nehru's life to the Nehru-Gandhi family that occupies an ever-significant place in Indian polity.

This book took me several months to read, though admittedly, this wasn't the only book I read. It was also because I wanted to take in and save in my mind whatever I was reading because this is by no means a light read. But it is a more than rewarding read which takes you on a journey through the great man's life and moves you tremendously at moments, while still clearly explaining the mistakes and flaws in his career. 

Nehru: The Making of India, much like Nehru himself, is inspiring, patriotic, wonderful, epic, complex and unforgettable. I shall go back to this book several times again and again because it's the kind of book worth cherishing. And if this doesn't make the book sound good enough, the fault is entirely with my review and not the magnificent book.

Unaccustomed Earth - Jhumpa Lahiri

Rating : 8.5/10

Review:

With this book, I have completed reading all of Jhumpa Lahiri's published books. When I read The Namesake, I immediately said she's one of my favourite authors. Interpreter of Maladies raised my appreciation to the level of awe, because some of her stories in that book made me cry. Every one of my blogger friends bet that I would love Unaccustomed Earth. And I did.

Unaccustomed Earth is darker, more tragic than her previous books, but Lahiri is magnificent as usual dealing with the overseas Indian experience. None of the stories in the book made me actually cry. Which is probably the one criticism I can possibly make of this book. But her stories have a knack of permanently settling to the mind and heart, so much that you recall her characters and tales several times.

The title story here, Unaccustomed Earth, is beautifully tender, very realistic and in its own way, tragic. I loved how the daughter re-examines her relationship with her father after her mother's death. Hell-Heaven is probably the best written of all the stories here. I especially loved how delicately Lahiri handled a tale of a married woman falling in love with a man who respectfully calls her his sister in law. 

Only Goodness, the tale of a sister who has to put up with her dear brother's drinking problems was perhaps too tragic. I was close to tears and even, angry at how unfair life was to the characters! When one can make the reader feel so strongly about a tale...that, I think, is the mark of a great writer.

Hema and Kaushik was interestingly written in three chapters, one told from Hema's point of view, the other from Kaushik's and the concluding chapter, with a powerful twist, is written from the narrator's perspective. This was very gripping and again, a wonderful, deep analysis of the emotions that the lead characters go through.

Lahiri's writing is definitely of the type I love. Her words have the ability to conjure vibrant images and her attention to detail, without being unnecessary or boring, manages to add so much to the characters and the plot. I'm definitely looking forward to whatever Lahiri writes in the future!

Thursdays With Tagore

Poems are not my cup of tea, most of the time. But I love Rabindranath Tagore's poems.  The few poems I've read so far have been beautiful, though some have gone over my head. 

Still, I'm quite determined to read as many of his poems as possible! I have the book I Won't Let You Go : Selected Poems of Rabindranath Tagore translated by Ketaki Kushari Dyson from the original in Bengali. I have read the wonderfully detailed introduction about Tagore, his genius and his life before and after the Nobel prize for Literature for his Gitanjali. Dyson also deciphers the roots behind the ideas in  the multi-talented genius Tagore's poems.

Every Thursday, I shall read one of Tagore's poems as translated in the book or some other poem I can find. I shall post some lines from the poem and perhaps a detail of how I liked this poem or not. I'm looking forward to this and any others who want to join in this meme are absolutely welcome to do so! 

Tagore is a wonderful poet whose poems, I think, should be read by everyone, perhaps just to know what you might be missing out on. 

This is one short poem I absolutely love. Very direct, very beautiful and it brought a smile to my face :)

Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes

and meditate to know if the world's true or lies,

may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile

with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied

shall take a look at the world in broad daylight.

Teaser Tuesdays - March 9

Grab your current read and let it fall open to a random page. Post two (or more) sentences from that page, along with the title and author. Don’t give anything vital away!

I'm currently 100 pages into Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, a book that I'm reading for my book club, and it's been captivating so far. Out of many witty lines and quotes so far, here's a good excerpt:

"The emperor Abul-Fath Jalaluddin Muhammad, king of kings, known since his childhood as Akbar, meaning 'the great', and latterly, in spite of the tautology of it, as Akbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory - the Grand Mughal........"

As you can see...Rushdie clearly likes his long sentences ;)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

Rating : 8.5 /10

Review:

Just about everyone I know had raved to me about the wonders of this book. And then of course, the are the fabulous reviews that it has got from just about every major newspaper. In addition, popular Indian magazine Outlook asked prominent personalities about their favourite reads of 2009 and Sonia Gandhi, Omar Abdullah and Aamir Khan had this book on their list.

If all this does not build tremendous hype, I don't know what will. So when I picked the book a couple of days ago, I really hoped I would like it. I needn't have been so worried. I just couldn't put this book down for the most part. I snatched minutes when I got back from work to read. I snatched coffee breaks to read this book. I had to force myself to put this aside for some time and get some work done.

In The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the first of the Millenium Trilogy, investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, after losing a libel case against a prominent businessman, is hired by Henrik Vanger, the head of a wealthy Swedish industrial family. His job is to investigate and solve the mystery behind Harriet Vanger's disappearance 40 years ago. A dangerous, disturbed genius hacker Lisbeth Salander helps Blomkvist in his investigations.

This is a very simple summary of a complex, long, detailed novel that has several parallel storylines that intersect at some important places. This book is, quite obviously, a page-turner. For a 544-page book, it is a surprisingly fast read. But it isn't flawless. Sometimes, the sub-plots seem too extensive and just when you're waiting for a crucial moment in one plot, another subplot interferes.

The book is detailed, sometimes far too much, especially when Larsson writes of journalistic ethics or the history of financial journalism. But that does offer valuable insights to the characters, speaking of whom, Lisbeth Salander is a most original, captivating heroine. Larsson's plot is fascinating and Reg Keeland's translation makes for an easy read. There are several disturbing moments in the book; there's nothing too scary as such, but disturbing, most certainly.

Among the several plot twists, there are a couple that I guessed, but it was still exciting to see the story unfold.  The placement of these twists are excellent too, because just when I thought nothing too exciting had happened in a while, there's something that makes me sit up and gasp.

If you haven't read this book yet and you enjoy thrillers and mysteries, I suggest you make some time for it. I'm looking forward to reading the sequels to this book. But not immediately. I need some happy, lighter reads for a while before I can go back to Lisbeth Salander and her dark yet thrilling world!

Teaser Tuesdays - March 2

  

Grab your current read and let it fall open to a random page. Post two (or more) sentences from that page, along with the title and author. Don’t give anything vital away!

" As a child, I would turn to the skinny 'V' section of Webster's and study the many words that referred to Mama. There was "vivid." which meant "full of life; bright; intense." And "vivify" which meant " to give life or to make more lively."

There were "vivace," "viva," "vivacious,"vivacity," "vivarium." and "viva voce". Mama was the source of all these words. She was also the reason for the phrase "Vive le roi" ( which she told us meant " Long live Vivi the Queen!"). All these definitions had to do with life, like Mama herself "

This is a long teaser but it was such a lovely paragraph that I wanted to share  it with you all. I'm about 55 pages into Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood which has been quite good so far. 

But I'm more excited and am feverishly turning page after page of Stieg Larsson's much-hyped The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The 350 odd pages that I've read have been so very thrilling  and the best, I guess, is yet to come!