In The End, Karanvir Gupta spreads out a Huge Canvas for readers to Contemplate, Discuss and Debate Subjects that will allow them to Pause, Reflect, Reset and Restart

   

In The End, Karanvir Gupta spreads out a Huge Canvas for readers to Contemplate, Discuss and Debate Subjects that will allow them to Pause, Reflect, Reset and Restart

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi

The End by Karanvir Gupta

The End by Karanvir Gupta

Author: Karanvir Gupta

ISBN: 978-9354724213

Genre: Transformational Memoir

Length: 392 Pages

Publication Date: 11^th November 2021

Publisher: Bluerose Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/3Fxxs8Z

About the author:

Karanvir is a marketer by profession and author by passion. He loves to introspect and contemplate life. His characters and stories are inspired by the intricacies of today’s life. He is extremely moved by the emptiness of the times we live in. He strongly believes that life is not to be rushed but to be breathed in slowly and the world needs to connect for real with each other. He believes in the power of words for they can cause a rebellion and yet heal at the same time. He also enjoys writing poetry while sipping his cup of chai. He feels for nature quite passionately. 

Karanvir Gupta

Instagram: @karanvirgupta

Twitter: @karanvir_gupta

LinkedIn: @karanvirgupta

Disclaimer: This review is only intended for initiating discussions. The opinions and views presented in this article are my own and do not reflect anything about the book's author. 

REVIEW

The End is a Transformational Memoir by Karanvir Gupta that gives you the author’s perspective of the pandemic, the consequences and thoughts prevalent in that period of static chaos; comprising his own experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, interesting stats and insights, meaningful poems and his journey of processing his thoughts, the author has done a fabulous job at putting out his honest opinions, beliefs, philosophy and the resultant perception—his way of interpreting the pandemic and pre-pandemic world; the book provides you with a vast set of subjects ranging from moral science to GNH (Gross National Happiness) to work from home to existential crisis to coexistence to human irony and with that it gives you enough time and space to contemplate, discuss and debate what is written on the page; Karanvir’s transformation is your chance to pause, reflect, reset and restart, which will let us humans decide whether it is the beginning of The End or a new beginning with an end to our wrong ways.

Ever since SpaceX has launched its first batch of internet-providing Starlink satellites, the astronomers are increasingly concerned as the company continued to blast more small mass-produced satellites into the low earth orbit to grow a satellite internet constellation of over 1700 satellites. The astronomers’ community across the globe soon sensed the threat to the night sky started reporting the problems with this project following many mishaps. The headlines could be seen, such as “The night sky is increasingly dystopian” and “Starlink satellites might soon be involved in 90% of close encounters between two spacecraft in low Earth orbit”. Having internet everywhere is cool but are we willing to trade the sky against the internet despite that it could eventually lead to satellites crashing into each other, increasing space debris and light pollution for astronomers? It is depressing that it’s just the beginning and more individuals and companies are joining the competition with the mindset that we have to move away from the earth anyway so we should give up on the earth and move to mars. (This paragraph was purely my own attempt to explain the following point. Read Disclaimer.)

Before I completely digress from the subject at hand, let me come to the point—the State of Apathy, one of the many stark remarks on humans the author has made in the book. Now, you may ask, what is the connection between pandemic and being oblivious or a threat to astronomy, for that matter? Most of us would never reflect upon our lifestyles, our ways, where are we heading or how are we treating our planet until and unless we get hit by something directly. The Covid-19 pandemic impacted lives worldwide. It made us stop doing things we have been doing relentlessly for decades and forced us to think; what we have made of ourselves and the planet, what does our relationship with nature looks like, how are we preserving the biodiversity and the world ecosystems and lastly but more so—how coronavirus came to be? 

We soon got the answers to all the questions except the last one. It’s not like we did not know this before the pandemic, but during lockdowns, we literally saw that ‘nature was healing’. Everything was suggesting that we humans were to be blamed. It helped us realize and understand that we need to plan cities and towns in a better way to allow coexistence between us and all the other living, breathing beings. We need to make changes to our lifestyles to make way for environmental sustainability. Again, this doesn’t mean, all those people who were only working towards this for decades, their work is being disregarded. It’s just that this happened at such a scale that people couldn’t help noticing. 

"Why do we need a dash of ecstasy to bring out a dash of us? It takes a lot to live in the moment forgetting the vagaries of the past and fancies of the future. It is tough, to say the least, to be yourself." (Without context, just a favorite quote from the book.)

We humans get indulged in many economic, cultural, political and other kinds of activities that directly put the ecological balance out of the place. However important that may seem, we need to stop choosing ignorance. We have to put faith in ourselves and trust our abilities to solve these problems; how we have evolved through the last three decades only suggests that we can do it. But we have stooped to such a level that we are even ignorant of other human beings. If we don’t fix this now, we’re doomed for the good. Now, it’s not even surprising that the same person who created such a ruckus in space, his Tesla customers helped accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy by avoiding 5.0 million metric tons of CO2e (greenhouse gases) emissions in the year 2020. You like it or not, we are the flag bearers of irony.

The author began narrating each chapter with analogies and anecdotes from his life, which helped me better understand what he is trying to convey. The author talks about politics, the hustle culture, work-life balance, the importance of human interaction and that of meditation, uniting with family, testing positive, existential crisis, rampant consumerism, etc. That is how 35 chapters in this book provide you with and expose you to discussions on plenty of subjects.

While the book sheds light on a great many things, it is also heedless of many other things. In an instance, the author suggests that all the knowledge that we (Homo sapiens) have gained, all the discoveries we have made and things we have invented, all was rendered useless. This is definitely a sign of ignorance; excusing yourself saying that what is the point of anything if we feel helpless at the end of the day. Capitalism, consumerism, passive consumption, revolutions, digital content, social media, these all didn’t occur all of a sudden and definitely not for nothing. For better or worse, change is the only constant. It is irreversible and the only way is forward. The book lacks balance as it only shows you the negative side of what we have been doing to further portray how the pandemic made us realise these negative consequences. This is not wrong per se, but I would have liked a more balanced view. It is also the use of ‘we’ and ‘us’ that bothered me throughout, because it was attached even to the author’s personal views, thoughts and conclusions that were not based on any solid proof. 

All in all, The End reminds us of the time that should never be forgotten or ignored. It was horrific and overwhelming to all of us and so it demands us to pause, reflect, reset and start afresh.

Happy Reading!

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Pallavi Aiyar’s Modern Fable 'Chinese Whiskers' Traces Highly Changeable Nature of Humans

Pallavi Aiyar’s Modern Fable 'Chinese Whiskers' Traces Highly Changeable Nature of Humans

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi

Chinese Whiskers: The Adventures of Soyabean and Tofu in Beijing by Pallavi Aiyar

Chinese Whiskers by Pallavi Aiyar

Author: Pallavi Aiyar

ISBN: 978-9390351633

Genre: Contemporary Fiction (Modern Fable)

Length: 242 Pages

Publication Date: 15^th December 2020

Publisher: HarperCollins India

Cover Design: Aaryama Somayaji

Cover Designer: Website: highonmangoes.com | Instagram: @highonmangoes

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/3xi7brw

About the author:

Award-winning journalist Pallavi Aiyar has spent several years reporting from, and parenting in, China, Europe, and Indonesia. She is the author of Smoke and Mirrors, Chinese Whiskers and Punjabi Parmesan. Pallavi is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and a former Reuters Fellow at Oxford University. She currently lives in Spain with her family – human and feline.

Pallavi Aiyar

Instagram: @aiyarpallavi

Twitter: @pallaviaiyar

Website: pallaviaiyar.com/

Facebook: @paliaiyar

Disclaimer: This review is only intended for initiating discussions. The opinions and views presented in this article are my own and do not reflect anything about the book's author. 

"I started reading Chinese Whiskers when I was trying to cope with the Covid fatigue and anxiety because it seemed to me a feel-good, fursome book that could give me exactly what I wanted - joy and light. And since I have a cat visitor who everyday visits my home, it doubled my excitement and reading experience. I had not been reading for some time, but this book got me out of my reading slump. "

REVIEW

The novel coronavirus disease swept across the world recently, wreaking havoc in its wake to be coped with for the coming indefinite period of time. No sooner had the pandemic hit us than we made startling headlines such as this—“Our neighbours made us Covid-19 Pariahs” and this—“Doctors, nurses forced out of the flat by society”, and this—“Cleared by doctors, not by the public”. The social stigma during epidemics is nothing new because, for us humans, it is easy to blame or associate the fear of the unknown to ‘others’. From leprosy to Covid-19, the social stigmatization has posed a serious threat to the lives of health workers, patients, and survivors in the form of harassment and physical violence, making an already testing situation harder to fight with. If we can do this to our fellow beings, then animals don’t stand a chance to be excluded from such ostracism. Right, am I not?

 

The newly published edition of Pallavi Aiyar’s Chinese Whiskers—originally published in 2010 following the plotline based on the episodes of Chinese history such as the spread of SARS virus in 2003, Olympic Games, and tainted pet-food scandals—deals with the very idea of our coexistence with other living organisms, amongst a range of other subjects. Chinese Whiskers is a modern fable that throws us into the chaotic and ever-shifting landscape of early 21^st century China; told from the perspective of two cats belonging to different backgrounds who are eventually brought together when a foreign couple (Mr. and Mrs. A)—living in traditional style courtyard in Beijing’s hutongs—adopts them. So, they start their new, indoors, pampered lives, away from their biological families.

Soyabean used to live in the courtyard of the Siheyuan (historical type of residence commonly found throughout China) owned by the Xu (human) family, where he was pampered by the grandmother of the Xu household who personifies Chinese traditional and cultural values, which her grandson is least bothered to recognize. Soyabean is a plump, funny, energetic, and proud cat who is now beyond excited at the prospect of modelling for a cat-food brand—Maomi Deluxe’s ad. On the contrary, Tofu is a skinny, quiet, anxious, and clever cat who used to live with her stray cat mother and her four brothers in a dustbin situated on a college campus and in the backyard of a once-famous professor—Old Man Zhao, who was denied the permission to teach after he wrote a book, controversial enough to cause agitation among powerful people.

As apparent it may seem from these little extracts from characters’ lives, there are distinguishable motifs in the stories they tell—some concerning economic inequality, some concerning moral disengagement, and so on. Pallavi has so effortlessly incorporated such heavy subject matters in a light, witty and innocent narrative of the felines that children could handily comprehend and reckon these patterns in their surroundings. Once these furballs take up space in your heart, there is no way they’re meowing out. They’ll charm you to care about them just like you would feel for your real kitten friends. You would want to stick with them through thick and thin.

This feel-good contemporary fiction picks up the pace and builds up tension as Tofu gets warned by her brother, “Ren are walking around with great white masks tied over their mouths so you can’t see their lips when they talk.” There are three major themes intertwined throughout the book. The first one deals with the “Bing du” virus outbreak, its effects, and people’s reaction to it, especially to the part where rumours suggest cats are the source of this virus. Another one contributes to the subject of rampant consumerism and its macro-economic, social, and ecological implications; how it can be used by wealthy people to fool or exploit their consumers. Global inequality is one such outcome of consumerism, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor in the age-old saying, “The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.” The third theme touches on the subject—empathy and morality. It is literally that “moral lesson” that every fable brings along. Apart from that, there are adventures, there are victories, there is hypocrisy, there is government, there are migrant workers, and there are protests.

 

Pallavi has cleverly given voice to not just two cats but two separate classes of cats—indoor cats and alley cats. The amusing and heartening viewpoint coupled with a page-turning plot makes Chinese Whiskers a pleasurable read. Moreover, this edition contains pawful of adorable illustrations by Aaryama Somayaji that really pour life into the story. I learned many Chinese words also that I have gotten used to.

Illustration by Aaryama Somayaji ©highonmangoes

In the end what you can take away from Chinese Whiskers is—what really matters is how we are striving to become more inclusive of others, not just humans, but all the living organisms and what kind of legacy we’re building to leave behind for our future generations. We need to learn before we have to learn it the hard way that we humans cannot heal on our own. Many fragile ecosystems are on the verge of collapsing. We need to respect and preserve the biodiversity of our ecosystems to develop more sustainable environments. The least we can do is embrace the idea of coexistence, be compassionate towards Soyabeans and Tofus around us because we, together with the plants, animals, and other organisms, complete our life-sustaining planet. 

Happy Reading!

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Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Don't forget to subscribe for more content. Thank you so much for reading!

Will see you in the next post. Till then buh-bye. Take Care. Peace. ☮