Book Review – milk and honey, Rupi Kaur

‘the very thought of you
has my legs spread apart
like an easel with a canvas
begging for art’

When a female friend of mine shared this poem with me, I winced. Receiving stuff of sensual nature is by itself something that I am not quite comfortable with, but here is this poem, sent to me by a female friend. What both aggravated and doused my uncomfortable feeling was my getting to know that the author of this poem was a woman herself. Reading through the lines again I understood that her words exude not just eroticism but a sense of deep esotericism as well. Her words emanate from the longing, a deep pain, searing loneliness and flowing love – all things that I myself can relate with and connect soulfully too.
 

Immediately I ordered for the book online. From the moment I received the book in my hand and opened it, to the moment I closed it this morning, it was one hell of a ride through the dark corners of my heart. Dealing with lust, longing, love, pain of betrayal, self-love, letting go, hurt, healing, feminism and acceptance, this is a book that every introvert, every aching heart and every one that still believes in that quaint concept called ‘love’ must read.
 

Her words are the magical runes that any heart capable of love would respond to. They touch the raw nerves of our inner-selves, bringing to light all those unhealed wounds of the heart that we have learnt to live with, stir up all those dark passions that we keep buried deep beneath the hypocritical facades of politeness and public perceptions about ourselves. With her, you don’t get to feel the servile yearnings of a Kamala Das or the aggression of a Taslima Nasrin shelling out satires about the grapes gone sour. Here is a woman who feels love and writes about it, as deeply and as passionately as a Pablo Neruda or as a Kahlil Gibran also can. She loves, she yearns, she crumbles, she weeps about the loss, but she also picks up her pieces and puts them back together, but this time only more firmly.
 

Here is a real feminist that doesn’t talk about her body and her desires with a feigned sense of supremacy or acrimonious misandry. There is no vulgarity when she writes about her lust. You feel no revulsion when she talks about the inner functions of female body. She doesn’t preach promiscuity in the name of freedom. She takes pride in what she is. She doesn’t accede to the preset conventions of feminine beauty. She doesn’t pay obeisance to patriarchy. Here is a poetess we can all fall in love with, not just for her words, but for all that she is – her fears, her pains, her strengths, her weaknesses, her courage, for her being the person that she is. Each poem here is a colorful thread, seeing which you will be able to perceive a beautiful tapestry - that is her adorable personality!
 

This is a book that will leave you craving for more – like a perfect session of passionate love-making!

Book Review – The Very Best of the Common Man, R.K.Laxman

Politics! 

Said to be the second oldest profession in the world, bearing a close resemblance to the first, politics has always been subjected to searing scrutiny and bitter ridicule. Especially in a highly populated country like India, politicians have been offering a lot of free ‘entertainment’ to the public, next only to cinema and cricket. Stupid statements, senseless actions, scams, and scandals – you ask for it and the Indian politicians only feel obliged to deliver it for your ‘pleasure’.
 

Cartoonists are that rare breed of people who make the caricatured images of theirs speak more than a thousand acerbic words mocking the actions of the politicians. Especially those cartons that appear daily in the newspapers seem like the oasis amidst all the chaotic news articles. R.K. Laxman is the doyen of the cartoonist profession in India. Having had a prolific career that spanned more than half a century, he is one cartoonist who can really claim to have seen it all and drawn it all.
 

This book contains some hundred plus cartoons of Laxman that have withstood the test of time. A mere glimpse at the cartoons and you will realize that our politicians have remained as pretentious, as egoistic, and as dumb as ever. Indulgence in boastful talks, broken promises, opportunistic behaviors have all been the bane of Indian politicians always. Hence some of the satiric jibes that Mr.Laxman had aimed at the politicians of old remain relevant enough for our ‘leaders’ of these days as well.
 

Leaders that visit their constitutions only during election campaigns, who don’t think twice before throwing senseless percentages and figures without showing any real progress on ground, the servile acolytes who need to flatter their bosses even during their visits to places hit by natural disasters – Laxman has drawn them all, keeping his ‘Common Man’ – a lovable bald old man – as a silent observer.
 

Just a complaint though. The cartoons have all been published on one side while the opposite side is used for a caption of only a line or two. Either they have opted to present the book so due to the poor, thin quality of the paper that could have made the images on different pages look overlapping and thus messy. Or, they could have done so to make this book appear in a decent size. But this seems to be a blatant wastage that the publishers could have very much avoided.
 

As for the content, a thoroughly enjoyable book and a collector’s treasure!

Book Review - The Japanese Wife, Kunal Basu

Recently, when I was talking to a friend of mine about my love for the almost-lost art of letter-writing and my desire to recreate that habit among my friends, she told me about the movie 'The Japanese Wife'. It is the story of a simple school teacher from Bengal, who befriends a Japanese woman over letters. They strengthen their bond through letters and soon end up exchanging marital vows through letters. They don't come to meet one another and live together even after their 'marriage' through letters. After spending almost a long time thus, the woman whom the school teacher should originally have got married to, were it not for his love for his foreign wife, arrives back in his house, with her son borne through another husband. The subtle emotional changes that happen in the relationship between the long-distance couple and the eventual 'end' are the rest of the story.

The moment my friend from abroad described this tale, I felt quite moved and immediately searched to find whether the movie was based on any book. The moment I found that it was, I ordered the book. But only then did I find out that it was only a short story. Well, if such an intense plot could be offered in such a tiny package, won't that make an even more interesting read? Also, if the first tale itself could be such a beauty, won't the rest of the tales in the book make for a feast?! It was with these expectations in my mind that I bought the book. But it turned out to be one of the most insipid books that I have read in recent times.

Except the titular story and to some extent another tale - The Accountant - the rest don't tug much at the reader's heart at all. Of course, the tales are all unique and portray a whole gamut of human emotions. But it is the writing style that fails the book. There are some tales that feel too lengthy to hold your attention throughout. The author's attempt at making the reader feel in place of the plot by making use of various cultural references and jargon is a failure too. Some of the stories sound like either they are incomplete or run-of-mill melodrama.

Some interesting, some OK-ish, but mostly insipid. To sum it up, this is a book that I would not buy for my friends.