Book Review #101 : Milk and Honey

Book - Milk and Honey
Author - Rupi Kaur
Genre - Poetry
Publisher - Andrews McMeel Publishing
Hit the shelves on - November 4, 2014
Pages - 204

This heartfelt collection of poems hit the shelves November of 2014. I saw milk and honey in the local bookwalah shop and decided to embrace my poetic side and purchase it. Needless to say, I was baffled with what I found folded into the pages. I was expecting an inspirational slightly tacky read much like how I viewed poetry prior to this. What I found was vulnerability, startling bluntness, and a pure and raw story laced into the pages of Rupi Kaur's poetry.

Kaur breaks her book into four parts; the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing. The poems open in a bit of a dark aura. The hurting depicts the author’s experiences with sexual assault and the struggles of overcoming family issues. This section is a bit chilling.

The next section, the loving, is a more uplifting read. The poems are sweet and idealistic. These are the ones that couples want to read to remind themselves of why they are still together.

The breaking returned us to a darker place in Kaur’s life. Any girl that has ever endured a break up after a long term relationship could find a relatable poem in this section. While these poems were sad, they were also very realistic and relatable.

The last section of milk and honey accomplished exactly what I think the author was aiming for. These poems empowered women to embrace themselves and to value who they are regardless of the turmoil they have endured. I would recommend this section to anyone going through a break up or just yearning for some comfort.

Overall, I really enjoyed this compilation of poems and would totally recommend to anyone who is looking to heal from a bad experience in life or breakup.

Btw - Upon publication, ‘milk and honey’ sold over 1.5 million copies, defying expectations of modern poetry’s popularity. In an age favouring easily digested thriller novels and celebrity biographies far above verse, this collection of poetry is certainly the exception to the rule. Perhaps this is due to Kaur undercutting the impersonality of a modernist aesthetic with accessible, simplistic language. Kaur does not subscribe to the belief that poetry must be difficult to be meaningful, championing a direct and inclusive register that unites her personal experiences with the reader. Combining a first person perspective with the repeated second person pronoun ‘you’, Kaur further bridges the gap between her poetry and her audience. She forges a link that causes the reader to imagine themselves not only as author, but as muse. Pointing beyond the page at ‘you’, Kaur rejects the division of the reader from the writer, assimilating her own experiences, memories, and subjects with her audience.

VERDICT - ‘milk and honey’, is a ‘modern classic’, worthy to be read out loud, written in texts to loved ones, and learnt by heart. The reminder to appreciate yourself and to embrace emotion is timeless.

The book teaches you that life is filled with terrible and heartbreaking moments but within those moments you can find great things. Great things that you might have missed if you were not looking. There is so much meaning and emotion behind every word, and it is even relatable. Several of the poems deal with situations that many face today.

RATING – 5/5

Book Review #100 : The Perils of Being Moderately Famous

Title: The Perils of Being Moderately Famous

Author: Soha Ali Khan

Publishing house: Penguin Random House India

Pages: 207

Price: Rs 299 

In the book’s first chapter, ‘Big Shoes, Small Feet’, Soha (meaning star in Arabic) speaks of people sometimes knowing her as ninth Nawab of Pataudi and brilliant cricketer Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and versatile actress Sharmila Tagore’s daughter or Saif’s sister. 

The book, containing 9 chapters, begins by saying that if you bought/borrowed/shoplifted this book in the hopes of finding out the secret behind Kareena’s glowing complexion or what Bhai really meant when he talked about nepotism and eugenics, then unfortunately this is not the book for you. Here she mentions, to her credit, that she is content to bask in reflected glory while seeking out her unique destiny. Her self-deprecatory humorous streak shines through in a comparison of her paternal grandmother’s rigid daily routine as compared with that of her own on a non-working day. 

Writing about her father, she mentions how if he went shopping in London for a pair of socks, he would buy just that, without falling prey to consumerist temptations. After a car accident, he said, “I lost sight in one eye but I didn’t lose sight of my ambition.” Even after he’d retired and was hospitalised, surrounded by tubes, masks, drips, pills, syringes and doctors he refused to make a fuss and was always polite, ever-charming – making every technician feel comfortable, despite his own discomfort. 

In ‘Wakeful City’, in something most people can connect with, she candidly mentions how financial jargon of investment banking can be akin to googlies. She adds that for bankers SLB is Securities Lending and Borrowing and not Sanjay Leela Bhansali, just as PC is P Chidambaram and not Priyanka Chopra. 

About the 2005 floods in Mumbai, she recollects how she was stranded after her car stalled on SV Road and how warm total strangers were in going out of their way to give her directions, offering drinking water and the use of their phones. At one point, when she sat shivering on a stationary BEST bus, two women across the aisle glanced at her and whispered to each other, making her think of getting off the bus. But one woman said, “It has to stop sometime, don’t worry.” Here she candidly admits that they were not judging her, she was judging them. She ended up chatting away amiably with two women for two hours and for those two hours they were comfortable companions of circumstance. This bond with the city, its people, their resilience and compassion made her keen as per her own words, to do Tum Mile, the 2009 love story set against this very deluge. 

A disturbing recent phenomena she flags attention to, is of how people misuse social media to revel in hate and troll people they have never met and know nothing about. In this context, she cites two examples of the time she was targeted on Twitter for having expressed regret over former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan announcing his exit in 2016 and then on another occasion when she had worn a sari. 

About relationships, she opines that many seem to survive only on the surface, with an emphasis on having fun and living in the moment. It is too tedious to share our deepest feelings, too hard to commit to being there when things get too tough, too demanding to learn from our mistakes… so much so that people have stopped really knowing each other or impacting each other’s lives. It is more of an existence and less of a life, a life more empty than full. And love is not the absence of irritation, conflict or disappointment. It is hard work and there is always room for improvement. 

This breezy read with reader-friendly text font sizes is based on her personal experiences and has warmth, candidness, humour, offers insights and features never-seen-before images of her family, childhood and her daughter Inaaya. It is hoped this book will help clear up people’s misconceptions about her and add to her fans in the days to come. 

Only Soha Ali Khan should write a memoir. Because what other woman, even on the peripheries of contemporary Bollywood, would get away with writing that her husband frequently "does something that makes me want to get up and punch him in the face." This follows a sentence where she is half-admiring, half-mocking husband Kunal Khemu’s arms which are so sinewy that she can see his muscles flex when he types something into his phone. 

Most chapters in this book have the easy quality of early 2000s personal blogs. And if ever Khan had a noble mission in writing this memoir, it is frequently sidelined by her desire to make a joke. Frequently the jokes are about herself. Like discovering as a full-fledged adult but half-baked Bengali that the Kolkata journalist who referred to her mother as Sharmila Thakur was not wrong; she was just not using the anglicised version, Tagore. 

Perhaps it’s because Khan is not selling anything right now that the book has this bright, genial and extremely enjoyable quality. 

Soha has written crisply about her life so far. Knowingly or unknowingly, she has made sure that the readers do not get bored of her anywhere in the book. This kind of regulation comes in writing only when people are comfortable in their shoes. 

I am in awe of Soha’s writing skills. I don’t know if she can ‘flirt’ with the camera or not, but I do think that Soha Ali Khan can trifle with words. In about 200 pages, she has written on genres like travel, cricket, cinema and romance giving a glimpse of what all she is capable. Though she might not be very popular, undoubtedly she has lived a life full of stories and adventures. 

I really wish though that the cover of the book was more appealing. The land we live in does judge a book by its cover and it’s time that Indian publishers take notice of this. 

It is, a well-written book as well. It doesn’t bore you with unnecessary anecdotes, everything has a purpose. Soha talks about her grandparents, parents, brother, husband and her new bundle of joy with utmost candidness. With an extremely fluidic writing style, which is simple enough to understand but doesn’t score low on finesse. 

I would recommend this book to all those readers and non-readers too who just want to read and spend some time in reading book written with sheer honesty. It is enjoyable. 

RATING – 4.8/5

Book Review #99 : A Cage of Desires

Title - A Cage of Desires
Author - Shuchi Singh Kalra
Genre – Fiction (Erotic)
Publisher - Penguin
ISBN – 978-0143441625

Finally, a book that talks about women, their desires and dreams! It is such a refreshing read. It focuses on an aspect of the Indian culture that so many people choose to ignore. Women are not puppets to be tossed around, but deserve to be treated with respect. The story is a manifestation of how the men use women for their own lust. It felt so real and not fictional, with a strong message that if women are taken for granted, they will not spare anyone and you can’t escape its consequences.

COVER- The cover of the book is lit!

TITLE - It suggests the book must be based on physical desires but it turns out to be a sensitive, riveting and engrossing story, elegantly presented.

THEME OF THE BOOK – It portrays the mundane, middle class life of the protagonist Renu, who, is reckoned as a liability on the society. She also has to deal with acute loneliness despite having a family with two beautiful children and a shrewd husband. Their marriage misses the spark of romance and she often feels the lack of emotional and physical understanding. To make her life more miserable and unnecssary, there is an old father-in-law, who keeps a sarcastic vigil on her and treats her like a machine. She craves for: love, freedom, companionship, and physical satisfaction.

REVIEW - It was really interesting to read each and every page with utmost care as it brought out untold emotions which was overflowing from Renu. But, she had another face. Despite being a mother of two, a typical housewife, she was never given the place or freedom she always had yearned for in her life by her spouse. Her journey from a lost homemaker to a liberated, strong, and independent woman is nothing short of inspiring. How she finds solace in fulfilling her physical desires in secrecy and in doing so she explores the hidden desires of her heart is satisfying to read.

The book is a heady mix of love, sex, lust, greed, betrayal, drama, revenge and secrets… a middle-aged Indian woman openly expressing her desires, needs, wants and dreams.

Story is perfectly paced, and speeds up as the story unfolds. The writing style is very beautiful, poignant. Though there are some intense intimate and erotic scenes, they are placed subtly. Shuchi has a strong grasp of her writing - there is no cheesiness in the erotic parts and the story flows flawlessly.

The raw emotions and the portrayal of Renu's inner turmoils have been beautifully depicted in the book. This book is empowering, while still touching upon the taboo subject of a woman’s sexuality in our Indian society. Renu's philosophies will clutch on to your heart. She shows us what a determined woman with unwavering spirit can really do in life by breaking the stereotypical norms.

VERDICT - Shuchi Singh Kalra writes on bold subjects, that raise a lot of questions on our society. This book too does. Totally recommended! 
 

The book has certain expressions which seriously made me screenshot them & share on my social media! Check my Instagram and Twitter!

Rating – 5/5 
 

AUTHOR - Shuchi Singh Kalra is the Amazon bestselling author of two novels - Done with Men and I'm Big. So What!? Her short stories have appeared in Love across Borders, Stories for Your Valentine and NAW Anthology 2013. In her freelancing career of over a decade, Shuchi has written for major print and online publications such asFemina, Good Housekeeping, Hotelier International, Huffington Post, and Home Review, among others. She has also been listed among the top women authors to follow on Twitter.

You can purchase A Cage of Desires by Shuchi Singh Kalra here.

WHY ADULTING SUCKS!!

As a young adult, you wonder why anyone would want to go back to being a kid. You can make your own choices, have independence, etc. But then there are plenty of occasions, as you proceed through this adulthood, when all you wish is to go back to a time with zero responsibilities. Adulting has its benefits and pains. Recently, I have been experiencing the frustrating reality checks that life is so good at giving us. I thought, why not write about it? Let me know below in the comments below, if anyone of you is experiencing the same!

Few of my reasons, why I feel “Adulting” is OVERRATED!

• Having to take responsibility for everything you do – good or horrible. At home, at work, in life. It was so easy when you could just blame your mistakes on being a kid. Now, there is just a lot expected of you.
• Everyone kind of expects you to be in a relationship but my love life is non-existent and it get’s harder and harder to find a proper guy. Disney completely lied about love. I swear. My Facebook timeline is full of people getting engaged, married, having children. Meanwhile, I’m living back home, and just really love to dwell in self-pity, on certain days.
• Paying random, multiplying bills and really having to take care of your money. Or when you realize how much you're actually making after those taxes are slashed off your salary.
• When you go to a networking event because every real adult in your life is like “YOU MUST NETWORK and meet NEW people!!”
• When you try to convince potential employers that you're qualified for a job, even though you’re enough talented.
• When you have to figure out how to make friends in the "real world". Because everyone wants to connect to you to get something out from you. Zaalim duniya!
• When your life achievements aren't exactly how you pictured them back in school. I remember, being a topper throughout in school and college, I had almost believed that these marks are going to guarantee me an amazing life ahead. I was so wrong.
• You constantly have to figure out your life and where to go next. Most of the time, it feels impossible.
• Your’re expected to act your age which is pretty much the most boring thing ever. Because I am childish. Quite.
• Making doctor’s appointments and taking care of your health, getting mental “Exercise” reminders.
• Getting your own place is so expensive.
• Having to listen to things like “your clock is ticking.” Seriously, mind your own damn business, aunty.
• That feeling of panic you get, when you see all the great things other people your age have achieved, and you start questioning all your life decisions.
• You realize that school didn’t really prepare you for anything real.
• You get judged for everything you do.
• That “damnit, my parents were right, after all” kind of feeling.
• You get a lot more noise sensitive. And, earphones come to your rescue!

Book Review #98 : I Owed You One

Publisher: LiFi Publications Pvt. Ltd. 

ISBN: 978-9386191281 

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 258 pages 

Book Blurb: 

Dev Khanna has a perfect life with his loving wife Radhika and son Neel in Melbourne, Australia. But there is something from his past that keeps gnawing him, an open wound that is a reminder of a debt. His present is very flourishing and future promising but what happens when the past comes knocking? As the skeletons begin to tumble one after other from the cupboard it is now threatening his present. 

Join Dev on a journey that spans across the tall skylines of Melbourne, the royal Dilwalo ki Dilli to the dingy streets of Moradabad as he battles love, religion, politics and fear questioning his own beliefs at every step. Will he be able to make peace with his past and save his future? Will humanity lose this battle against everything else? 

About the Author: 

Dr. Madhu Vajpayee- the writer is born somewhere in those hospital corridors where she has spent the last two decades of her life. Witnessing life at such close quarters pushed her to capture the enigma of life in her words and slowly it became her passion. After writing several medical papers and chapters in books, she started her journey in the literary world. Seeking Redemption was her first fiction book which is now followed by I Owed You One. 

Having done her graduation, MBBS from King Georges Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow she went ahead to pursue her post-graduation, MD from AIIMS, New Delhi. She was a faculty at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi having been associated with management of patients living with HIV/AIDS. She is now settled in Melbourne, Australia with her family, where she is devoting most of her time to writing, the passion that she couldn’t pursue earlier because of the demands of medical profession and commitment it requires. When not creating stories, Madhu enjoys reading and traveling. 

REVIEW: 

The cover of the book is also very striking and suits the title and blurb flawlessly. 

I Owed You One by Madhu Vajpayee has a well thought plot and beautifully united to form an extraordinary read. The story has every emotion known to the human race. The language used in the book is simple which makes it easy to understand and connect. Also, the author had made sure that her readers stay hooked page by page till the end. 

One thing that I liked the most about this book is that it is very natural and the story is not solely based on love. It displays other interesting life events of the protagonist too, which will add spice to your reading. I Owed You One has to be the most realistic fiction that I read this month. 

The central character of the novel is Dev Khanna, a chemical engineer based out of Australia. Dev is happily married to his wife Radhika and has an adorable son named Neel. He is very well to do and his life is progressing at a steady pace when suddenly he receives a mysterious letter from his hometown in India. What is inside the letter and how this small piece of paper changes so many lives is what is answered in the novel I Owed You One. The letter results in a series events of self-realization which form the crux of the story. 

Relationships and how we handle them decide our happiness in the future. Growing up in one such dysfunctional family, where Dev’s parents are not close to each other and where he often feels neglected by his father, when he grows up into a man, it leaves an adverse effect on him. 

I Owed You One is a fascinating read and sends a very important message that irrespective of the amount of wealth a person owns, he cannot buy true happiness! 

Madhu has chosen a male character and she narrates from his POV. From the beginning, it never felt that the character was a male character and if you somehow skip on the author’s name, I doubt you’ll be able to know that is a woman. Entering into a man’s head and thinking like him and expressing his behaviours and emotions is commendable. 

This book is a medley of drama, mystery, suspense, thriller with a tad bit of love and friendship. It explores the family relationships and shows how important it is to bond with your children and how it can affect your children when you’re not emotionally involved with him/her. 

The best part of this book are the characters. I would definitely say that it is a character-driven plot because they have been portrayed with such finesse and the author has managed to put all the nitty-gritty details. The book is definitely emotional because when you are exploring such familial bonds, you have to dig down deeper. Dev’s emotions have been very well expressed. I could feel his pain, his angst, his anger, his embarrassments; each and every of his emotions. The supporting characters have also been portrayed well. Each character plays a vital role in shaping the story. Removal of one, will make the story look incomplete. 

The shifting of the scenes has been carried out well. The difference in the scenes could be easily understood and they didn’t get mixed up. Also, the switching between past and present is managed well in the book. Often times, it gets confusing when the story runs parallely in the past and the present, but here, the author has managed to do it really well. 

The author conveys the beautiful message of humanity and peaceful coexistence. The story is well-written and has its high and low points, just like the stirring ups and downs of Dev. The climax of the story is well-crafted and the intense build-up of the story with its entire emotional quotient and grooving twists and turns makes it even more exceptional. 

Negatives: 

A couple of spelling errors in the book, showing that the editor did not give a good read. It could have been avoided with better proofreading. 

VERDICT: I Owed You One is the story of promises and commitments, of triumphs and defeat, and of holding on and letting go. It is a contemporary take on modern family relationships and the challenges that a family can face if it stands united against adversities. 

Overall, I Owed You One By Madhu Vajpayee is an exemplary read and I would like to recommend it to everyone. 

RATING: 4.5/5

Dark Side Of Love

Love is beautiful and pure. But just like the moon, it has its own phases: the bright and the dark. 

The dark side?

1. You bare your soul to that person. Tell him/her all your secrets, show them all your sides, bring out the child in you. You lower your guards and make yourself vulnerable to that one person.
2. You invest so much time and energy in planning your future together, come up with nicknames, cute words and build your happy world.
3. You forget your self respect, your self esteem and your own importance simply because the other person is important to you too.
4. Memories cannot be blocked.
5. Cant eat. Cant sleep. Cant study.
6. You cannot believe it's over when you recall all those promises that were made to you. A part of you will always tell you that maybe all of this is a dream. Only it isn't.
7. You are emotionally handicapped and romantically paralyzed for an indefinite period of time. You cannot trust anyone again. Love scares you for a while. You build walls of iron around you.
8. It doesn't fade away when you want it to. The more you try to forget what happened, the more you will get reminded of it.
9. The constant dilemma- Should I move on or should I hold on?
10. Wet pillows. Wet bedsheet. Wet notebooks. Some people can't even cry.
11. Basically, you have to die in order to move on.
12. You start to fear falling in love again.

And let me tell you, the quantity of youth succumbing to these negatives is huge. Only a few, who get mature or sensible enough to understand, respect and move on, flourish. But why such negatives win over the positives of being in love? Remember, to remember the good :)

Book Review #97 : Demons In My Mind

Title: Demons in My Mind 

Author: Aashish Gupta 

Genre: Fiction 

Publisher: Kalamos 

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 224 

COVER : I loved the simplicity of the cover, not too much in display but surely appealing. It’s the kind of cover that would make readers like me to pick the book only for the cover.

BLURB : The blurb is informative, just what provides a clear insight regarding the content of the book, not too revealing, just the perfect amount of information.

FONT : Its a fat book with a well spaced font, which is a big yay for me. Though the number of pages are 224, the well spaced font is that what led to the increase in the number; the book is easy to read.

The book is written in a simple yet captivating language, it holds in itself some beautiful pieces of poetry which flaunt the author’s fine storytelling skills.

This a novel which has every potential to cut through the humongous number of desi authors flooding the market with cheesy, chick-flick stuff. It’s a good, intellectual read which challenges the reader and brings forth some very relevant questions in quite an entertaining way. 

The book deals with heavy questions of criminal psychology and how a criminal should be treated in a society. This book is divided into various sub plots, all woven intricately, so together, it can provide enough suspense to the reader.

“Demons in My Mind” tries to make us understand human emotions in a better manner, emotions like anger, anguish, pride, hatred, etc. through three major stories entwined with the plot surrounding Dakshesh. 

The protagonist, Dakshesh is shown to be at the last stage of cancer nearing a painful death. To be relieved of this malady, this pain, he asks his comrades to take him to three powerful mystics who seem to be the only ray of hope for an escape from this end. The story seems to be going on a spiritual turn just when the twists are brought in, and these three are shown to be in real hardened criminals. They narrate their stories to Dakshesh and how they came to a fork in the road in their lives on meeting Alia, a homeless girl, when they made the decision to leave their dark pasts behind and move to a better path.

It is these three monks who narrate their own stories, and from their own experiences, show us a side of humanity that majority of us have never been acquainted with.

The author manages to highlight very important factors that bring a person to such a path. You see the happiness, the fame, the satisfaction, all ruined when the demons reign. The author, dedicates his work to those similar to him, to those who have demons in their minds.

It consists all elements that most of us readers seek in a book. Surprise, thrill, emotional touches, and a kick to our minds in the end. This book is full of them. From early chapters till last page, this book continued to amaze me. 

NEGATIVES : The book is just perfect. But, there are some spelling errors, typos and the story can get a bit confusing if you’re not paying close attention. I would suggest to take breaks while you’re reading this book.

VERDICT : The plots are dark and quite unbelievable at times, all suggesting that heinous crimes are nothing but a harvest of the uncontrolled minds. Coming from an Indian debut author, I congratulate the author for achieving a feat most debut Indian authors fail miserably at. His extensive vocabulary and the imagination fuels suspense scene after scene.

Overall, this book is a great read, which entertains and sometimes sends chills to your spine. A great work by debut author and I strongly recommend this book to every thriller lover. 

RATING - 4.8/5