From her Birth to the Passing: The Life of Bakuli

  

From her Birth to the Passing: The Life of Bakuli

by Dhiraj Sindhi

Dedicated to those who don’t get enough time and space to grieve for their animal companions

Few words before you begin. I don't think I know and can create the art of poetry, as I do feel with other forms of writing. While grieving the loss of this little one, I had to express and let it all out. But, for better or worse, I eventually chose poetry. Feel free to comment. Would love to hear from you all readers.

The Mother-Daughter Duo

 

That was the night, her mother was meowing louder than ever

A huge sign for the little life that could not wait to see the world

As if she knew that her house was set up days before we came to know of her

That that Peti of Alphonsos and that Washing Machine were meant for her

Not us humans. She knew, being a single child, she’ll get all of it to herself

Love, care, comfort and compassion that we would die to protect her

Only if you could tell your future that you won’t be able to do so

That I need to be more vigilant and be on my toes to be able to do so

The morning rays were spreading happiness more than light

Because the Lord Ganesha had blessed the family with a child

After some twenty-two years, we were to witness the magical world around the new-born

Where your worries and thoughts would perish the moment you saw the new-born

Like mother like daughter, the same number of black stripes squeezed into her tiny stretch of skin

A glimpse was enough to lose your heart to the fresh pink glow and her smell, like a baby shampoo

For the next few days, we wouldn’t touch the baby, ravishing the view from afar

Because we need not breach the privacy of the duo, relishing intimate moments of their lives

For the coming week, the cat mother won’t budge from her tiny abode in the attic

Caressing and grooming her daughter with licks full of affection

It could be the rains that she didn’t carry her daughter anywhere else

On Anant-Chaturdashi, we were away at the gulf, getting drenched in rain

And the baby was fast-asleep against her curled up mom’s tommy

Camouflaged, you couldn’t tell where the baby rested amid the fur of her mommy

Finally, as they say, it was time to move the kitten through seven houses

In our case, she took the kitten through four different rooms and moved twice in the same room

A tiny frightful gasp would leave us stricken, whenever the mother decided to shift

The shifting would involve a lot of meowing at first and then that scary sight

The wrapping of jaws around the neck of her kitten, swinging from side to side

Walking through many doors, springing up on and down from the parapets

She once tried to carry our heart away through the shared courtyard

Enclosed from the all four sides, eventually, she had to return

Climbing up the three storey building, leaping across roofs in the dead of the night

The baby intact, clasped in her jaws, finally, got to breathe as she again put her to sleep

When in her second house, Bakuli opened her eyes that had world of its own

Whiskers and eyebrows growing faster than ever, as if to compete tigress of her mother

Her tiny little claws sharper than her mother’s, snagging out stiches already

Soon she started imitating her mother, licking her paws, as if to launch on her preys already

That’s when we started talking to her, and her foxlike ears would perk up in response

She would raise her head to look up at us, with all the attention she could muster

Her flowery black eyes staring deep into our souls, with slightly tilted head

Pure innocence flashing into your eyes, you couldn’t resist but caress with the back of your hand

Now, she dared coming out of her little abode, stumbling down every now and then

But it was not long before she began scampering up and down the rooms

We needed to be extra careful now that she could greet our legs any given time

Even while sleeping, you do not turn sides without ensuring she’s indeed inside her space

In the early morning the duo would wake us up from deep slumber

We would agree to all their demands, chasing them around the house all day

In the evening, after a much tiresome playful field day with her

We would tuck her into her mother’s furry bosom like our own daughter

There were some days difficult for them, but the duo endured them like warriors

The Gulaab cyclone struck the coast of Cambay, completely opposite in nature

It gave us and the duo some of the most life-threatening thunderclaps ever heard

Heart-stopping sound effects, as if divine energy of the Dancing Three-eyed God 

Had been released from the sky, cascading down the steps made of cloud

The mother-daughter duo sat in darkness, chin up and calm as ever

Warrior queen and the warrior princess were the reason we felt composed these days

Not realizing how incredibly blessed are those who’ve got someone to check in on every few seconds

In her fourth week, she had truly grown up, slits visible in her big blue eyes

Chewing on things and biting our toes and fingers now that canines were developing

She had now chosen for herself the favorite spots where she would spend most of her time

Jumping up and down the threshold between hall and kitchen became her most favorite activity

Second was to hide under the fridge and the washer, making the mother anxiously meow with agony

Pacing backwards and pouncing on us humans, you couldn’t tell who’s more like her mommy

Twisting her body and licking her tail, climbing was another of her ambitions

She conquered all the cartons she ever lived in, descending on the same courageous paws

Then, the fateful day arrived that had been looming over us since long

The clouds of worries that had been contained till now had broken lose

The morning greeted us with distressing sight of kitten all shriveled up 

Puking every now and then, getting thinner than before, her steps getting weaker

Seeking solitude, she would sit alone in the middle of a room, refusing to eat

Gleaming eyes, staring into void or maybe conveying how bad she felt, crying for help

Can’t even bear the memory of that sight; the following day, minutes before she was pouncing around her favorite place

And that was the noon, the daughter ceased to meow, forever; the mother in deep slumber, and us, wailing

The medicine and the dropper that she left behind had been souvenired

Did the vet know this was coming? Was it the Sunday Holiday?

Or the lack of vets? Can it be the evil eyes?

Or was it us who made this happen?

We should have been more careful, but that’s that.

The mother had been searching for her in every corner

But now, the grieving mother is back to normal, though one thing has changed since

The nameless mother has naturally acquired the name of her daughter – Bakuli.

To the eternal memory of most precious thirty days with the bravest paws to walk on earth.

17th Sept. 2021 – 18th Oct. 2021

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Kala Krishnan’s Lyrical Prose in Mahasena Harmonizes the Novel’s Striking Elements, Creating an Undying Ode in the Reverence of the God of War and Victory

 

Kala Krishnan’s Lyrical Prose in Mahasena Harmonizes the Novel’s Striking Elements, Creating an Undying Ode in the Reverence of the God of War and Victory

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi

Mahasena: Part One of the Murugan Trilogy by Kala Krishnan

Mahasena by Kala Krishnan

Author: Kala Krishnan

ISBN: 978-9390679133

Genre: Myths, Legends & Sagas

Length: 264 Pages

Publication Date: 19^th July 2021

Publisher: Context – An Imprint of Westland Publications Private Limited

Cover Design: Saurabh Garge

Cover Designer: Website: theaoi.com/ | Instagram: @garge_saurabh

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/2YaUKS8

About the author:

Kala Krishnan works in Bengaluru. She is the author of two books of poetry, He Is Honey, Salt and the Most Perfect Grammar and Offer Him All Things Charred, Burned and Cindered, in which the god Murugan appears in surprising versions.

Kala Krishnan (PC: Kinshuk Rawat)

Instagram: @poetkala

Website: poetry.sangamhouse.org/

The Hindu Article: ‘I see Murugan as language’

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

Not long ago that I came to know of the associations between my hometown and the young lord Kartikeya. While there is only a single prominent temple in Gujarat that is dedicated to Balamurugan, one of the Mahapuranas tells a wholly different story. According to the local legend, as mentioned in the Skanda Purana, a golden pillar was fixed at the place along with the Shivaling (Stambheshwar Mahadev, a temple in Kavi that hosts thousands of pilgrims after its redevelopment, on the full moon and the new moon of every month) on the battlefield where Tarakasur was slain by Kumara—the young God of War, to celebrate the victory. This place was then a much-revered pilgrimage region called Kumarika Kshetra where the Mahi River met with the sea, thus Mahisagara-Sangam Tirtha, also known as Gupta Kshetra, which is now represented by Khambhat—a town on the coast of Gulf of Cambay, Kavi—a town on the other side of the gulf and the neighbouring region. That is how Khambhat has received its name, after applying phonetic laws with contraction, assimilation and elimination; the Sanskrit name ‘Stambhtirth (The Pillar Shrine)’ was transformed into modern-day Gujarati name ‘Khambhat’. I’m saving the details for some other blog, now, let’s see how the poet and author, Kala Krishnan pays ‘a homage to a cherished boy-god’—as Sharanya Manivannan says—as well as to the language of the South in a unique way and probably the perfect way for the modern world era, something that is essential to preserve and uphold the cultures cascading through centuries of generational changes.
 
Mahasena by Kala Krishnan—a mythological fiction, is a synthesis of several literary and non-literary elements that are emphasized to achieve an effect, a sense of high regard and admiration for the Lord Murugan and everything he touches in his lifespan; woven together as one lyrical phenomenon that flows rhythmically like a river, gushing down from its source at higher altitudes to the plains where it’s much needed, cutting through the grounds, rocks, valleys, mountains called Skanda, Kartikeya, Guha, Mahasena, Kandhan, Murugan, Kumara and ceaselessly thrives not knowing how many lives depend upon it in myriad aspects; it is thus the exceptionally beautiful, written in rich prose, a musical story of the God of Tamizh from his birth to battlefield, from Kumara to Mahasena, and most importantly from ‘ the Kumaras’ language’ to the fully-developed rich culture of Tamil people.
 
Let me now shed light on the five major elements that are seamlessly ingrained in the text and into one another, which bursts open the floodgates for lively imagination and even wilder creativity.
 
Nature: The free-flowing nature, something that is boundless and limitless, the flora and fauna, the earth, the sky, the fourteen worlds in the universe, the rivers, the mountains, the seasons and the likes of it, all are depicted as natural it could get. It is quite responsive and sensitive that it reacts to everything the Gods do. While it is not bound by time, space or any living being, the very presence of the divine being comforts nature and it starts moving as if dancing to the rhythm of Murugan’s heartbeats. This is because, of course, Murugan treats himself as an inseparable part of it, which is evident by the breath-taking scenes where the boy-god is shown playing with snakes and where “Kandhan was mud” and the creatures—“worms, bugs, caterpillars, bees, butterflies, dragonflies—were swimming into him, passing through skin and swimming out.”
 
Music: Music and the art of writing and reciting poems, verses, and the likes is the second thing that is given utmost importance in Mahasena, the first being the language of the South, Tamizh. The music is accommodated in the storyline as well as the writing style from the very beginning before the younger brother of Ganesha was born. The music comes to Lord Murugan as naturally as Dance comes to Shambhu and Shakti to Parvathy. Murugan always has the anklets of music wrapped around his feet and gravely condemns any flaw he recognises, which he always does. The author has cleverly ensured that the two leaders on the battlefield are equal, no more, no less. The Dashagriva Ravana also plays a small part along with the opponent of Murugan—Surapadman. As these Asuras are depicted as engineers and experimenters, they also have achieved perfection in the art of music.
 
Tamizh Language: The Tamizh language is one of the most prominent aspects of the novel. This language is portrayed as the most natural language that can occur to any being; that also goes hand in hand with everything from people to objects. The grammar, the words and the phonetics of this language are such that the words or noises a child barely a year old would make on seeing a newborn and that would be in none other than Tamizh. Murugan makes the language perpetual and never-ending by teaching it to Kuru Muni Akaththi, also known as Agastya or Akattiyam, who in turn, spreads it across the land of the South with the help of grammarians, poets, bards and scholars, where it “grew surer and more adventurous, it sank roots, and like a giant tree…and on its branches perched the mighty-winged birds of poetry, grammar and music.” And thus Kartikeya gets yet another name—Tamizh Theivan means the God of Tamizh.
 
Magical Realism: It is debatable that whether to treat the fantastical elements in mythology as pure miracles or as elements of magical realism. Well, I have chosen to call it magical realism because even in the set boundary of mythology some things go beyond comprehension and reasoning. Some of the magical realism devices are communication via dreams, epiphanies, the very birth of Kartikeya, his ability to speak to the anklets as if using a similar mellifluous sound.
 
Reconstructed Myths, Legends and Sagas with Freshly-developed Characters and Unique Working Mechanism: The author Kala Krishnan has developed her own mythology world that has its own creation story and own way of functioning. I am utterly in love with how she has presented the enigmatic images of the gods and goddesses; they are depicted as human-like as they can get and at the same time, they never lose or stop radiating the god-like aura of divine energy. It is also absolutely remarkable how the author has detailed the relationships between the siblings—Ganesha and Kartikeya, Murugan and Aambal, and one that has no equal in the universe—Shiva and Parvathy, the Mother and Father of Creation, whose relationship is just as Kala Krishnan describes it—“you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.”
 
I will be eagerly waiting for the next part in the Murugan Trilogy to uncover the secret behind ‘Mahasena’, a name given to Murugan by Indra’s daughter Devyani, also known as Devasena or as Murugan calls her, ‘Theivanai’, which is also the title of the next book.

Happy Reading!

Thank you @vivekisms for the review copy!

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A House Full of Men by Parinda Joshi | A Book Review

 

A House Full of Men by Parinda Joshi

Book Review by Dhiraj Sindhi

A House Full of Men by Parinda Joshi (Cover design: Sudeepti Tucker)

Author: Parinda Joshi

ISBN: 978-9354227011

Genre: Contemporary Fiction 

Length: 357 Pages

Publication Date: 8^th September 2021

Publisher: HarperCollins India

Cover Design: Sudeepti Tucker

Cover Designer: Website: platform-mag.com/ | Instagram: @sudeepti.tucker

Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/2ZtAiwj

About the author:

Parinda Joshi was born and raised in Ahmedabad and later immigrated to Los Angeles with her new husband where she navigated the challenges of starting life from scratch in an unfamiliar milieu, enriching herself with an MS in computer science, testing her limits and redefining herself. She now resides in Silicon Valley where leads growth analytics for a startup in the fashion industry, is mother to her precocious mini-me, a budding screenwriter, a lover of modern poetry, fitness enthusiast, an avid traveler and photographer and a humor junkie. She is the author of two novels, Live From London and Powerplay. She has also contributed to a short story anthology, The Turning Point: Best of Young Indian Writers, and several online publications including GQ India and The South Asian Times (New York).

Parinda Joshi

Instagram: @parindajoshi

Twitter: @parindajoshi

Website: parindajoshi.com

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

Hooking its readers from the very first page, A House Full of Men by Parinda Joshi—a contemporary fiction novel, introduces you to its complex protagonist with a complicated past that is weighing her down with anxiety laden with overthinking, misgivings and trepidations. After the demise of her mother some 10 years ago, she takes it upon herself to fill in the void that her mother has left in the Pant household and the lives of her grandfather—‘High BP’, her father—Ravi and her twin & younger brothers—Shamik and Nishant. Maybe because of the deep-rooted patriarchal mindset, she thinks, if not her, who will? Thus, she is the only woman in a house full of men, including a male dog—Bark Twain and a frame of PG Wodehouse in her bedroom.

The novel gains tremendous pace after 100 pages of the establishment of characters and the situation as in where the protagonist stands in her life. The spirit of this book is its characters that are either highly relatable or straight out of your screens that your mind actually associates the faces of actors to these characters. My favourite character is the soul of the Pant household—Kittu’s grandfather, who is portrayed as mostly witty and sarcastic, still the wisest of all. His humour is the best from what I have read recently. The novel, for a significant part, seemed to be inspired by Bollywood and Indian Television tropes, which makes that part completely irrelevant yet funny at its best. 

Kittu’s life is getting rough by day as her relationship is dying and she thinks she has got no one by her side to listen because her family members are mostly busy arguing with each other, and if not, dealing with their own issues. Kittu cares for everyone in the house but because of gender differences, no man of the house addresses or recognises her problems, be it long-persistent anxiety issues with regards to travel or her love life. This leads to Kittu closeting her feelings and emotions and out surfaces her personality that is obsessed with setting things right even if there’s nothing to fix, which makes her a complex character, a blend of pure concern and love for everyone, ambitions, a dozen troubles and unwanted thought spirals. 

Considering the overall story, there are quite many adventures, moments and dialogues that I loved reading. The relationship Kittu shares with other characters in the novel is crafted cleverly to induce a sense of attachment, which readers will happily subscribe to, instantly. The climax and the end are pretty satisfying as the author manages to wrap everything up smoothly. On the other hand, there are some references and details that don’t fit the narrative. Lastly, the author has tried to address the issues of name-calling and bullying. While the author may have achieved the effect she wanted to produce, although a part of it also encourages the internalization of such practices as well as homophobia. The said passages may be intended to be a mirror to the world or to tackle the very subject, but that would be incomplete or unfair unless of course, condemned the right way. 

Lastly, in A House Full of Men, I found a character with whom I could relate at many levels. Illustrious writing style along with some brilliant characters, this novel captures how holding grudges and prejudices can turn you into a different person altogether.

Happy Reading!

Thank you @vivekisms for the review copy!

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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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Book Review: The Part I Left with You by Rahul Saini | Contemporary Fiction

    

Book Review

The Part I Left with You by Rahul Saini

The Part I Left with You by Rahul Saini

Author: Rahul Saini

ISBN: 978-9353451585

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Length: 236 Pages

Publication Date: 30^th March 2021

Publisher: Juggernaut Books (Sales and Distribution - HarperCollins India)

Cover Design: Amit Malhotra 

Cover Designer: Website: https://www.amit-malhotra.com/ | Instagram: @gul_e_abbasis

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

About the author:

Rahul Saini has a master’s degree in English literature. He is the bestselling author of many novels, including Those Small Lil Things: In Life and Love and Paperback Dreams.

Rahul Saini

Instagram: @writingrahul

Facebook: @rahul.saini.1213

Twitter: @writingrahul

YouTube: Writing Rahul

REVIEW

“Love feels like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.” – Slavoj Žižek

The Part I Left with You by Rahul Saini is a light-hearted, chucklesome and unputdownable contemporary fiction novel that dives deep into the waters of love; while exploring varied opinions on and experiences of love, relationships, break-ups and moving on, it strives to close in on the realities of this ‘ugly and cruel world’. The book narrates the stories of three main characters – one mostly witty, another melancholic, esoteric and the third who is turning over the page she was stuck on for long in order to start afresh.

The narration of this book involves all these three characters’ POVs. It is a fine and balanced mixture of different kind of narrative techniques, including first-person, third-person (limited omniscient) and epistolary style, which in my opinion, completes any piece of literary work because using these literary devices in the non-linear narrative writing keep us readers hooked and emphasizes on little themes of the story and it is what makes a truly gripping novel such as this. Rahul Saini has handily achieved this. On top of everything, the cozy contemporary writing style worked like a charm on me.

“Artists’ lives are just endless struggles and that struggle ends only with their last breaths.” – Rahul Saini

Talking about the content, each of the 34 chapters seemed to me like a separate short story discussing a distinct subject, idea or viewpoints, or narrating a subplot, backstory or (my favorites from this book) completely different short tales – story within a story – fascinating and magnificent. What I mean to say is that these chapters have something very unique to offer from craziness to drama to dreams to arguments to philosophy to romance to thrill to sorrow…you name it. These all short stories are linked together by these three characters and what they are seeking out.

Having said that, let me briefly introduce you to the characters. Ratna is in love with her favorite author, Ronit Sukhdev. The book opens with this amazing poem titled ‘Not Gibran, On Love’ written by Ratna (honestly, I recorded this poem several times day after day, but like most of you, I hated my recordings, so it only made to one of my best friends), for she is a literature and journalism student and for this fact and a little lie, she gets an opportunity to stay with the love of her life for a few days. While ecstatic Ratna wants Ronit to be a little cheerful if not as much as her, Ronit‘s life has come to a standstill as he hasn’t yet gotten over his break-up with Nitasha. He has completely isolated himself from the world and does not wish to publish his work anymore. It has been a year since the break-up and Nitasha is finally coming to terms with her choice of letting go of her relationship with Ronit and she’s carving the way out with newfound hope.

“To learn an art is an act of meditation. You can’t keep jumping around, running all the time, trying a hundred things, understanding nothing and pretend that you are learning everything.” – Rahul Saini

The best thing about this book is that it has books everywhere. In every alternate chapter, you can find book titles, quotes, bookstores or other bookish stuff. The author has expounded a lot of powerful arguments, opinions and statements on love, life and the world that are worth knowing by heart. I would like to quote a few such lines here. However, it doesn’t make the book downright ‘serious’. Nope. Rahul Saini has totally wrung out the essence of comfort and amiability from the writing style. Ratna’s character is a witty character, for she can turn anything into humour, be it because of her lack of wisdom or her childlike behavior. She’s a humorous character indeed, but not a caricature at all! I loved everything she did and how she behaved around her crush, for whatever reason, because I can’t imagine staying with my crush and not messing up. She made me laugh and some lines made me emotional too.

The primary theme of the book is what the title suggests. While it’s not appropriate to reduce any work to a sentence, it represents an idea that ‘when two people spend a lot of time together, they lose themselves and gain each other’. This is what is happening in the book. Now, I won’t go in-depth regarding this. There are plenty of other subjects discussed and tackled in those individual short stories I talked about, forming minor themes and elements that hold the potential to make a real difference. There are also things that you would want to ignore, which are just characters being themselves.

“If creative people were happy with the world around them, they would never feel the urge to create anything new.” – Rahul Saini

Anyway, my favorite take-away from this book are those unforgettable, significant stories/chapters that provide you the food for thought. Some of these are – one on Slavoj Žižek (yeah, I copy-pasted that), another on the mirror phase, and the third titled, ‘The Shark in the Pool’. Apart from that, I liked Ratna’s relationship with her father and the depiction of how differently books are important to the lives of authors and readers. Not eulogizing, but I can’t express my admiration enough for the illustrious writing style that really got me high; I relished it, of course except for a few parts.

Lastly, ‘The Part I Left with You’ is a charming, cozy contemporary book and an absolute page-turner that you would want to read around this time to feel lighter; it has way more tales and joy in store for you than what its synopsis promises. 

“When two people spend a lot of time together, they lose themselves and gain each other.” – Rahul Saini

Happy Reading!

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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.

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