Book Review: You Can Achieve More: Live By Design, Not By Default by Shiv Khera

Title: You Can Achieve More

Author: Shiv Khera

Publisher: Bloomsbury India

ISBN: 978-9386349064

Pages: 296

Genre: Self Help

Source: Flipkart Review Program

Rating: 4/5

If you want to stand out, then you need to do something outstanding, stated by Shiv Khera, an author and motivational speaker.  He recently launched his new book you can achieve more under Bloomsbury publication.

With a strong message this book put readers onto the journey of inner self. Although, Shiv Khera has already marked a tremendous reach in this genre before, yet this book give you an insight to work on your life in an interesting way.

According to publisher, they have sold around four million copies of Khera’s You Can Win into sixteen different languages. Now Author comes with another work of wisdom—You Can Achieve More: Live By Design, Not By Default.

Basically this book talks about three pillars of life which need to be strengthen—Health, wealth and good relationships. If any one of the three goes missing, it would be hard to imagine a happy world around us. In this book Khera studies lives of many successful people and tried to decode the way leads to achievements.

With 23 chapters, this book covers topics that resonate with every person’s life. You can find many books about self help but this book you can achieve more effectively helps in learning not only the principals of success, but also in avoiding mistakes, it works like a mentor in life and helps in developing confidence with a rewarding path.

Sometimes, we feel left out in the race called life, I think this book can be your support system on that we can rely. Book is written in such talkative language it seems you are meeting with your trustworthy friend. And you really want to hear his life experiences, and share your own meanwhile. It feels really relatable to know about some famous personalities and the way they cope up things and emerged as a winner.

You can’t read this book in one sitting, this is not a capsule of success but it requires a practice, a slow reading on a daily basis. Best thing about this book is, it might work as a magic but it won’t ask you to take an appointment first.

Khera Says:

Most people see opportunities, but very few seize them—Often one of the most painful moments of our life is when an opportunity knocks on our door and we find ourselves unprepared.

If you are not willing to pay the price for success, then whether we like it or not, we will have to pay the price for failure, a price has to be paid, no matter what.

We need to cleary understand that success does not only depend upon special skills, formal education or superior intelligence.

Achievement do not come by default, they are first learnt and then practiced.

Life is funny, for as long as we are alive, we keep learning how to live life.  

When something bad happens, it can break you, define you or strengthen you.

Don’t make your mind a dumping ground for someone else’s trash.

Achievers realize pride in performance is not an act = it is a way of life.

Achievement lies in practicing excellence in the smallest details.

The different between doing right and doing almost right is same as the difference between being dead and almost dead, almost is not good enough. Nobody at the Olympics gets a gold medal for 99 percent achievement. Almost done is not done.

It’s a moral obligation for every honorable person to be prosperous because money in good hands does good and money in evil hands does evil.

All in all, this book doesn’t preach you like other books of this genre, but it gives you a different perspective to live a life. With logical explanations it encourages you like a mentor, and inspires you to do work towards excellence, nothing less.

If I have to select my favourite chapters from this book then I would suggest— Invest in Yourself, Choose Character, Finding Balance, Pride in Performance, The Wisdom Truth.

About Author

SHIV KHERA is the founder of Qualified Learning Systems USA. An Author, Educator, Business Consultant and a successful Entrepreneur, he is a much sought-after speaker.

He inspires and encourages individuals to realize their true potential. He has taken his dynamic personal messages to opposite sides of the globe, from the U.S. to Singapore. His 30 years of research & understanding has put organizations on a path of growth and fulfillment.

He is the author of 15 books including the international bestseller "You Can Win", which has sold over 3.7 million copies in 21 languages. His other books are creating new records. 

Book Review: Do Log by Gulzar

 

लकीरें हैं तो रहने दो,

किसी ने रूठ कर गुस्से में

शायद खींच दी थीं

– गुलज़ार

 

वो लोग ये जानते थे कि देश का बँटवारा होने जा रहा है। हिन्दुस्तान का एक टुकड़ा अब से पाकिस्तान कहलाया जाएगा। बॉर्डर क्या है, रिफ्यूजी कौन हैं, कौन सी राजनीति खेली गयी, वे सब जानते थे ̶ नहीं जानते थे तो सिर्फ़ इतना कि, अपना घर, अपनी ज़मीन कैसे छोड़ी जाती है?

 

“हम एक थे, एक चला गया - अब हम दो लोग हैं”

 

विभाजन पर लिखी गुलज़ार साब की यह  किताब, कई किरदारों के बीच लुका-छिपी खेलती हुई, राजनैतिक गतिविधियों से ज़्यादा, बँटवारे का दर्द झेलते लोगों की मनोदशा को दिखाती है।

 

किताब ने बाजार में आने के साथ ही साहित्य जगत में ज़रा सी हलचल पैदा की। कंटेट की वजह से नहीं, अपनी लेंथ की वजह से। कुछ साहित्यकारों व समीक्षकों ने इसे नॉवेल मानने से ही इंकार कर दिया। कहा गया, किताब छोटी है। इसकी कहानी कुछ ही पृष्ठों में सिमट गयी। हाँलाकि देखा जाए तो “दो लोग” एक नॉवेल होने के सारे क़ायदे पूरे करती है। किताब के पब्लिशर हार्परकांलिस ने जब इसका पेपरबैक संस्करण  लेकर आए तो गुलज़ार साब ने खुद कहा “हर छोटे क़द का आदमी बौना नहीं होता”

 

हाँलाकि मुझे किताब में किरदार कुछ ज़्यादा लगे। जैसे ही आप दो किरदारों के बीच रिश्ते के डायनेमिक्स को समझते हैं, और उनसे जुड़ाव महसूस करना शुरू करते हैं कि तभी कहानी में दो किरदार और जुड़ जाते हैं, इससे किताब तो आसानी से आगे बढ़ती जाती है लेकिन कुछ किरदारों की जिंदगी को, थोड़ा और जानने की इच्छा वहीं पीछे छूट जाती है। हो सकता है किताब शुरू करते वक़्त ये बात आपको थोड़ा परेशान करे, लेकिन कहानी का यूँ परत-दर-परत खुलना नयेपन का अहसास करवाता है।

 

अगर इस किताब  की पृष्ठभूमि पर गौर करें, तो कहानी शुरू होती है,  पाकिस्तान के कैम्पबैल्पुर में।

 

1947 की सर्दियाँ, धुंध भरी रात और कच्चे रास्तों पर धूल उड़ाता एक ट्रक। ट्रक  में बैठे लोग, फज़ल और  करम सिंह, जो कि स्कूल मास्टर हैं। ट्रक ड्राईवर फौजी, और  उसका दोस्त लखबीरा। थोड़े खडूस लाला जी और उनका परिवार। अपने बूढ़े दादा को संभालता एक आठ-दस साल का बच्चा। एक तवायफ़ और भी कई ऐसे बाशिन्दे जो इस बात से बेखबर बैठे हैं कि ये बंटवारा मुल्क़ ही नहीं उनकी जिंदगी भी बदल के रख देगा।

 

सब इसी सोच के साथ घर से निकले हैं कि ये कुछ ही महीनों की राजनैतिक उठा-पटक है, और कुछ नहीं। अपना घर भी कभी छोड़ा जाता है, फिर लौट आएँगे। एक लकीर ही तो खींची है। लोगों के मन में चलती यही उलझन, सीनों में दबा विस्थापन का यही दर्द पात्रों को वास्तविकता के करीब रखता है।     

 

किताब का पात्र करम सिंह, अपने दोस्त फज़लू से  पूछता है कि क्या देश कोई स्लेट है जिसे जिन्ना तोड देगें? कहीं देश भी बंटा करते हैं?

 

गुलज़ार  ने अपने अतीत में गहरे उतरकर इस किताब को लिखा है। उन्होंने विभाजन के उस दर्द को भारी भरकम शब्दों के नीचे नहीं दबने दिया। बहुत ही सुलझा हुआ लेखन है। आम बोल-चाल की भाषा में संवाद लिखे गए हैं, हर शब्द सामने एक दृश्य खींचता है। यही लेखन शैली इस  किताब को दिलचस्प बनाती है।

 

ऐसा नहीं है कि गुलज़ार साब ने पहली बार, विभाजन के बारे में कुछ लिखा हो। उनकी अनेकों नज़्में अनचाहे बंटवारे का दर्द बयाँ करती हैं— आँखों को वीज़ा नहीं लगता, सपनों की सरहद नहीं होती।

 

इसके अलावा उनके कहानी-संग्रह ‘रावी पार’  में, पहली कहानी ‘खौफ’  इसी विषय पर थी। एक यासीन नामक लड़का शहर में हालात बिगड़ते देख, खाली ट्रेन में चढ़ता है और ट्रेन में घुसते हर इंसान को संदेह से  देखता है। अजीब बात ये थी कि उसे भीड़ में इंसान नज़र ही नहीं आते, दिखते हैं तो सिर्फ़ हिन्दू या मुसलमान। कहानी का अंत आपको एक अजीब कशमकश में डाल देगा।  

 

गुलज़ार साब के साथ-साथ, विभाजन पर  कई लेखको ने दिल खोलकर लिखा, जैसे मंटो, कमलेश्वर, कृष्णा सोबती। फिर भी गुलज़ार साब का लिखा ना जाने क्यूँ सीधे दिल पर महसूस हुआ, शायद इसलिए कि वो घटनावी ब्योरों को कभी  अहसासों पर हावी नहीं  होने देते।  

 

अपनी किताब  ‘दो लोग’ के जरिए गुलज़ार साब ने,  अरसे से जमी चुप्पी को आवाज़ दी है। किताब खत्म होने के बाद पाठक के अंदर एक सवाल छूट जाता है कि,  1947  में  राजनीति खेली गयी, देश का बंटवारा हुआ, उस दिन क्या सिर्फ़ देश बंटे थे, लोग नहीं? एक  लाईन खींच  देने से जब देश, लोग ज़मीनें  बाँटी  जा सकती हैं,  तो आँखों में पलते ख़्वाब क्यूँ नहीं ?

 

गुलज़ार  साब  को विभाजन के इतने दशकों बाद ये नॉवेल लिखने की ज़रूरत क्यूँ  पड़ी? 1947 में उन्होंने ऐसा भी क्या देखा होगा, जो अभी तक उनके अंदर किसी कील की तरह चुभता है। सवाल मुश्किल है। जवाब शायद इसी किताब के जरिए मिल जाए।    

Picture Credit: Google 

किताब को पब्लिश किया है हार्पर कॉलिंस ने और भूमिका तैयार की है पवन के वर्मा जी ने। 

Book Review: A Day in the Life by Anjum Hasan

Title: A Day in the Life

Author: Anjum Hasan

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

ISBN:  9780670090402

Genre: Literature, Fiction, Short Stories

Pages: 256

Source: Flipkart Review Program

Rating:  4.5/5

A  Day in the Life by Anjum Hasan, is a collection of short stories, fourteen tales of human conscience transport you into another world where you meet with different characters. They are going through many experiences, they questioning themselves, and exploring their life simultaneously.  It’s fascinating how Hasan placed her characters into different states of India, yet each character shared a sense of strangeness.

As far as writing is concerned, I don’t want to make any comments as I underlined most of the paragraphs and simply treasured them. It felt like, as Hasan has worked on each sentence with great sincerity. I could visualize the characters and their aura, and I loved how Hasan applied the poetic touch to create the surroundings of protagonist.

A Day in the Life by Anjum Hasan, begins with “The Stranger” — I am like some old time explorer who has located the object of his search and having found it, now wants nothing more than to live among the natives, sending our dispatches celebrating his discoveries— It is a story of retired accountant who comes to a small town to experience if he could live in a hilly drenched area after spending his life in a metro-city.

Hasan writes “But I know this to be true, despite all the hulking new constructions filling the air; it is actually memories that form a deeper permanency.”

Second story of this collection, Sisters, explores the complexities of female friendship; Hasan initiates this with an enigmatic line that says “the sick and the healthy have nothing in common”

Main protagonist of this story, Jaan had left her village in Andhra Pradesh and came to Bangalore on the promise of making more money than the pittance she earned wearing her back out on the fields every day.

Here she had been leading her life. Suddenly she found herself sick with some unknown disease; then she met with Janaki, her maid. A special kinship developed between them, and story took some twist and turns, although these stories are about ordinary people still Hasan created her characters with so much depth and beauty, I found them extraordinary, and each story ends with some uncertain conclusion.

In an interview with Firstpost she says “I am often preoccupied with that German word – and idea – the zeitgeist. How to find it in fiction? One element of the zeitgeist is certainly this sense of inconsequentiality – the feeling that the important things are happening elsewhere, in the news or in other people’s lives, but not to us. There is something poignant to me in this sense of uselessness; I am fascinated by characters who feel wasted or out of sync with the times” 

In Another story Yellow Rose, Gulfam, 23 years old girl, quit her job and decided to employ herself, She rarely looked out at the view. Infact, having moved house so many times, she had more or less forgotten what the prospect from living room balcony or kitchen window was like . I found this story weird in a good way. It tells the complex nature of a person who continuously struggles amidst reality and her thought process. Where she actually live?

There are many Voices in Anjum Hasan’s A Day in a Life, yet you find them related to each other, in terms of lack of direction, purpose of life, identity, and belonging. 

At last, I want to mention, My most favourite story, titled—ELITE, It begins with “Each of us, the guiltily innocent, has own means of getting away from the news” Story placed into a bar, which reminded me  of Nirmal Verma (Master of Short stories)

Magic begins when Protagonist finds a girl, sitting alone into a bar. 

It goes something like this “I want to ask what brings her here but I am enjoying this enigma. A woman in a bar, sharing her table and her cigarettes, not self-conscious not waiting. This town is easy with a lot of things but this is still weird.

Anjum Hasan added something for food lovers, the final pages of book filled with mouthwatering tale “A Short History of Eating” it is a story of couple, shared the same passion for food of love.

Hasan writes “My husband and I often make salted porridge for dinner. We don’t eat French fries more than once in four weeks. We still speak of food — remember the risotto in Verona, that bag of smoked prawns in Waxholmen, that dumpling soup in the old quarter of Beijing, remember that…? We go out for a meal now and then. We order a plate of something and a drink or two. We share a main course, we skip the sweet. And after we have finished, paid the bill, are walking home through the drizzle, it occurs to us that we are full. That is, we realize we are no longer hungry.”

All in all, it is a powerful compilation of short stories, nobody wants to miss. Do meet with these quaint yet familiar characters. Highly Recommended.  

ABOUT AUTHOR  

Anjum Hasan is an Indian poet and novelist. She was born in Shillong, Meghalaya and currently lives in Bangalore, India. She has also contributed poems, articles and short stories to various national and international publications. She is the author of three novels, The Cosmopolitans, Neti Neti and Lunatic in My Head. As well as a book of short stories, Difficult Pleasures.  

Short Story: Joycee (The Neelesh Misra Show)

शाम के पाँच बजे थे। बालकनी से धूप सिमटते देख, मेरे हाथ और तेजी से चलने लगे। एक-एक कपडे की पॉकेट चेक-कर, मैं उन्हें वाशिंग-मशीन में डालने लगी। तभी सरसरी निगाह से मैंने कमरे में देखा। बिस्तर पर कुछ कपडे छूट गए थे। मैं अंदर आयी तो कमरे में फैली खामोशी ने घेर लिया। मैंने बैड पर लुढके रेडियो को ऑन कर दिया।

दिल्ली FM पर कोई पॉप-सांग चल रहा था। अगर गाने, मूड के हिसाब से ना बजे तो कितने बेसुरे लगते हैं। रेडियो ऑफ करके, मैं वहीं बिस्तर पर बैठ गयी। कमरे में फिर खामोशी साँस लेने लगी।

चादर पर पडी सलवटें निकालते हुए, मैंने हाथ बढाकर सिरहाने रखा कुशन उठा लिया। उसपर बने चेहरों को देखकर, पाँच महीने पहले की वो भीगी शाम याद आ गई।

Short Story: Do Dilon Ke Beech (The Neelesh Misra Show)

वो मेरे घर की छत पर खडी थी। आँखो से अक्टूबर की गुनगुनी धूप सेकती हुई। उसका एक हाथ कमर पर था और दूसरा हाथ दाँतो पर ब्रश घुमाने में व्यस्त, वो खुद में इतनी डूबी हुई थी जैसे दाँत साफ करना दुनिया का सबसे जरूरी काम हो। पीछे गर्दन पर झूलते जूडे से कुछ बाल निकलकर आगे कंधे पर आ गए। जिसे उसने ऐसे ही रहने दिया। वो कभी दो-कदम पीछे जाती, कभी चार-कदम आगे। कभी झुककर मुंडेर पर रखे गमलों को देखती तो कभी आँखे मिचकाते हुए मेरे घर के चारों ओर फैली पेड़ो की लम्बी कतारों को। 

इधर-उधर डोलती उसकी नजरें इस बीच मुझसे टकराई। वो थोडी असहज हो गयी। उतनी ही जितना मैं हुआ, उसे अपने घर में देखकर। 

Short Story: Hone Wale JijaJi (The Neelesh Misra Show)

मैनगेट पर होर्न की आवाज आते ही मैं भागकर घर के अंदर आ गया। एक नजर ताईजी को देखते हुए मैं जल्दी-जल्दी सीढीयाँ चढने लगा तो वो साड़ी के कोने से चश्मे को रगड़ते हुए बोलीं वासु सुन तो

आया ताईजी कहते हुए मैंने उपर मेघा दी को आवाज लगाई। मेरे पहुँचने से पहले मेरे शब्द कमरे में पहुँच चुके थे।

पूरी की पूरी बारात आई है...दी हाँफते हुए मैंने पर्दा हटाया और एक नजर कमरे पर डाली। हर चीज बिखरी थी, बिस्तर पर कपडे थे, तौलिया नीचे फर्श पर, कबर्ड खुली थी, पंखा फुलस्पीड पर लेकिन इन सबके बीच वो नहीं दिखी जिनकी आज सगाई थी।

Book Review: Letters to My Ex by Nikita Singh

Title: Letters to My Ex

Author: Nikita Singh

Publisher: HarperCollins India

ISBN:  9789352776580

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pages: 138

Source: Flipkart Review Program

Rating:  3/5

It’s an exciting idea to read letters in a form of book. When I first heard about “Letters to My Ex by Nikita Singh” I imagined a world instantly around two characters, maybe they are going to exchange letters and as the title says EX. It makes the book more gripping. Although I want to mention that book is not all about letters, you will get to read small talks, self talk, written in a form of monologue.

Basically, the story revolves around two main characters—Nidhi and Abhay. Due to some undefined reason Nidhi left her engagement ceremony. Things were not so clear initially. Not to the reader and someway not to the Nidhi too. Eventually she started writing letters to her Ex, with an intention of not sending them to respective person, i.e. Abhay. She thought at first that putting down her emotions is a great idea to healing herself. And it did work, she could fathom many unsolved puzzles of their relationship. Meanwhile she met with Abhay, She thought of moved on. And… Hey, I am not going to spoil the whole twist and turn here. You have to read this emotional tale into letters only.

I loved the idea though, how Nikita Singh explored the perspective of Abhay as well. Author didn’t take anyone’s side. She just wrote the story full of emotions. Yes, I agree with the fact that I found some repetitive sentences, and it makes you feel stretchy, but as I told you this book is more about self discovery and solving the unending questions of love and separation.

Within hundred something pages, Nikita Singh accomplished to make a bond with her reader, like she always do. Writing is simple yet communicates with reader at once. I loved few sentences a lot that I couldn’t resist myself from sharing it here. It can be your perfect weekend read.

READER’s MOMENT

I know what it was, I’m afraid to say it because once I do, it becomes real. I don’t want it to be real… and I know the first thing you will say, but please hear me out first. The reason I had to leave was because I knew, and it had become clearer and clearer to me in the months leading up to the engagement, that you didn’t love me anymore.

As much as I’d like to move on, I can’t feel anything about anyone, even if I tried. I don’t know if I ever will. When I try to imagine a time where I would be able to place all of my faith in another human being, and trust them with everything I have, I simply cannot see it happening again.

I gave you everything I had, every piece of me was yours, but you didn’t want it. It seemed like you did, you know, when you told me a thousand times that you loved me, and wanted to build a life with me and couldn’t imagine living without me. When we fought everyone and everything that came in our way in order to be together, but then, it turned out that you didn’t actually want any of that.”

If I had to, could I live without you? Yes. I would be unhappy for a while, but I wouldn’t die. With time, things would get better, and I would move on eventually. But do I want that? No. I don’t want a life without you.

ABOUT AUTHOR  

Nikita Singh is the bestselling author of ten novels, including Every Time It Rains and Like a Love Song. She is also a contributing writer to The Backbenchers series and the editor of two collections of short stories, 25 Strokes of Kindness and The Turning Point. Born in Patna and raised in Indore, Nikita worked in the book publishing industry in New Delhi for a few years before moving to New York for her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at The New School. Nikita lives in Manhattan, where she does digital content and marketing for a solar energy company.

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BUY ONLINE: Letters to My Ex by Nikita Singh (Flipkart) 

Book Review: The Nine Chambered Heart by Janice Pariat

Title: The Nine Chambered Heart 

Author: Janice Pariat

Publisher: HarperCollins India

ISBN:  978-93-5277-379-4

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 200

Source: Flipkart Review Program

Rating:  5/5

INTRO

Since science says that beating organ exists in our body is a four chambered muscle, but Janice Pariat took the pen and transformed the whole theory. And I am glad she did so.

In her book, the Nine Chambered Heart, Janice has woven an unnamed character, and described her by multiple point-of-views. In simpler words, one character met with nine narrators, and this way generates nine different perspectives. Backdrop of every story changes with respective narrator. So we could perceive the personality of main character into different angles. Vivid and striking at once.

BLURB Says:

You, though, are as beautiful as light splitting through glass.’ Nine characters recall their relationship with a young woman – the same woman – whom they have loved, or who has loved them. We piece her together, much as we do with others in our lives, in incomplete but illuminating slivers. Set in familiar and nameless cities, moving between east and west, The Nine-Chambered Heart is a compendium of shifting perspectives that follows one woman’s life, making her dazzlingly real in one moment, and obscuring her in the very next. Janice Pariat’s exquisitely written new novel is about the fragile, fragmented nature of identity – how others see us only in bits and pieces, and how sometimes we tend to become what others perceive us to be.

STRUCTURE

As Book begins with a fascinating relationship between a student and her art teacher, while in other chapters she meets with a stranger and spend five days with him, and I loved the part which depicts her relationship with a musician.

Janice writes in a story “We feel it’s the right time to be in love...the right age...the right season...and the person is incidental”

In an interview with Firstpost, Janice talks about central character that “I wanted to keep her distant. She remained distant. There was nothing I could do, or wanted to do, to bring her closer to me, to the narrators, to the readers. It was also necessary because this book is about the subjectivity of perspective and its splintering. Having her voice in the narrative would make her the 'authority' so to speak, while this way we're left to imagine what it is she experienced, much as we must do with the people in our lives”

“I wanted to replicate how it is in life, with the people we're with, and love. We never have access to them entirely. Neither them to us. We know each other in fragments and slivers. I guess the book then is about both. The absent central character and the nine who conjure her,” Pariat says. 

As far as writing is concerned, It is smooth and poetic as well. Here, I want to praise Janice’s craft, how she observes such small details of life that binds her reader completely. I liked just how glimpse of love and despair projected in this book. It is so refreshing to know about central character through nine different narrators, who unravels the depth of her identity bit by bit. It silently depicts the truth that somewhere we can’t know someone whole at once, we present in someone’s life, just as bits and pieces. I loved it when reading goes on with pauses only.

This Gem of a book not only makes us entertained but asks a important question, if one person romanticize the relationship same as the other? When two person falls in love, haven’t they carried different memories?  Why did we tend to love those we can’t have them? When we fall in love with someone, we create a perspective about them, and we don’t want them to change, isn’t it selfish to do so?  

Janice Pariat’s Nine Chambered Heart tries to solve the puzzle of human heart which dangles between need and want, and eventually how a personality evolves. The Nine Chambered Heart by Janice Pariat, is totally engrossing and a type of read which should be checked by every reader. I relished it and put it into Highly-Recommended-list!

JANICE PARIAT

ABOUT AUTHOR  

Janice Pariat is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories and Seahorse: A Novel. She was given the Young Writer Award by the Sahitya Akademi and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction in 2013. In 2014, she was the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury. She studied English Literature at St Stephen's College, New Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Her work - including art reviews, cultural features, book reviews, fiction, and poetry - has featured in a wide selection of national magazines and newspapers. Currently, she lives in New Delhi.

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Book Review: Memories of Fire by Ashok Chopra

Title: Memories of Fire

Author: Ashok Chopra

Publisher: Penguin Random House India

ISBN:  9780670090341

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 420

Source: Flipkart Review Program

Rating:  4/5

But, nothing it seemed had changed at their old haunt. Even after a gap of over five decades. The wilderness was a hidden gem- quaint and unique. It had not lost any of its charm and was still, in more ways than one, a place of pilgrimage, which evoked a spiritual longing, was it just the well preserved….the treasured emotions of the days gone by that had resurfaced? Was it just nostalgia?

Memories of Fire by Ashok Chopra, is a life journey of five childhood friends, who first met at boarding school in Shimla, in 1950s. All were the same age, with a difference of just about a month or two between each.  There had never been a time when they had not been together like a bunch of quintuplets. But life would take them along separate paths.

Although the story runs in flashback, the first chapter begins with a meeting of these four friends,  after a gap of five decades, and they indulge immediately into memories of past, school day-offs, their beautiful as well as ugly truths and bits of love flings. It is not some contemporary fiction but story embedded with such real incidents, related to Indira Gandhi’s era.    

Here, I want to mention the thing I loved the most about Ashok Chopra’s writing, He has surprising skills of observing small details, Memories of Fire is full of such nostalgic words and scenes, I could almost see those images, as Author mentioned Wooden Phaatak, Atlas Bicycle, Binaca Geetmala on Vividh Bharti, jane eyre’s thornfield hall and many more, It is really fascinating to read about Bishnois Samaj and their rituals, Plus that small part of Begum Akhtar. While reading the book I could tell that Ashok Chopra has lived richly experienced life.

There is not a single protagonist in the story, every character comes with its own past and journey. If I am going to discuss about those five friends then Vijay Thakur was only a Day Scholar among them, Rest were  boarders, and Vijay is so unclear about his life goal, and living in some haveli. At one place, author has woven a scene around Vijay’s thoughts, I could visualize that part, where  Vijay stood in his favourite room of the haveli, that scene filled his heart with resurgent hope, “if the haveli could resurrects itself from its dead past into a life in the present, there was hope that it could step into the future too.”

Apart from the story, if anyone wants to learn, how to draw an character sketch, this book would be a perfect read, As author summoned of Vijay character in few lines — Vijay thakur , help everyone and was ever willing to share their problems. Yet, another unsolved mystery about him was that he never seemed to have any problems of his own, friend would describe them an impenetrable carapace, somewhat of an enigma.

Coming on other friends, second is Deepak, god gifted with phenomenal memory anything he ever read he could easily recall and quote. Deepak would get most upset if an author quoted incorrectly or translated poorly. He was in regular correspondence with eminent writer historian, Khushwant Singh, that part was really fun to read.  

Third one, Reza Ahmed who would really interested to know more about Bishnois- the member of small religious group who are mostly concentrated in the western Thar Desert, which overlaps the area of Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan and runs along the borders of India’s Rajasthan with Gujrat and Punjab. It is really interesting to know how Bishnoi word derived. As Reza’s friend told him that preservation of the environment was their religion. Their rituals, this is a common practice there Bishnoi women are known to suckle young orphaned animals to save their lives.

Forth one, Balbir Singh, Author tried to put some humor with this, he writes, Punjabis have strong sense of their genealogy. If you bring two Punjabis – total strangers- together you can be sure that within five minutes they will have traced each other’s family trees back to at least four or five generations and what’s more in the process would have discovered the kinship between them and if they for some reason failed to find a relationship, they would surely make one up, which would seem very convincing.

And Fifth one, Radhey Shyam, who ends up in Jail, He seemed somewhat daring though, In that conventional environment, he took courage to fall in love with his young female teacher, while he was just a much younger male student. I was curious at one point to know how deeply ingrained faith and arising issues impacts their whole life.

Basically Author, depicts the life of that era when communities were close knit and people come together in each other’s joys and sorrow. Each treat the children of the other as their own, and they spend more time in each other’s homes than in their own. When old tradition and values exist, people share almost every moment of success and failure, happiness and pain.  

As blurb says Memories of Fire is inspired by true events and interspersed with the dark contemporary history of India and Pakistan along remarkably realistic characters who tackle prejudice, prestige, privilege and even prison head-on. It also asks the epic questions: What makes for happiness? Why do people make certain choices and not others? And why do men and women willingly make tremendous sacrifices for those they love?

Ashok Chopra has created an authentic, densely peopled universe with a distinctive period charm. Memories of Fire is a vast, colourful, emotional, political and social journey, with a cast of characters that is interesting, sympathetic and lifelike.

ABOUT AUTHOR  

Author of the bestselling Of Love and Other Sorrows and A Scrapbook of Memories: My Life with the Rich, the Famous and the Scandalous, Ashok Chopra has occupied some of the hottest seats in the Indian book trade-executive editor of Vikas Publishing House, vice president of Macmillan India, publishing director of UBS Publishers, executive director and publisher of the India Today Book Club and Books Today as well as chief executive and publisher of HarperCollins India. Currently, he is the chief executive of Hay House Publishers India and is working on his next book, The Lovers from Rampore. He lives in Gurgaon, near Delhi.