NavDharmyug

Silences have settled on the day like dew-drops of a receding winter night. The day stands at the cusp of weather where winter recedes and the summers descends. Fogs have lifted and the skies are cloudless and clear. I walk through the lane, on which shadows have spread themselves beautifully. Words come to my mind: "The patterns shadows make, these ZIg-zagging lines like some slithering snake; Sneak in surreptitiously l like some memory lost, A memory of warmth, surviving,  Undying winters and unyielding frost." The bright sun rays languorously lie on the Earth, with their long legs spread under the sketchy, shifting shadows of the trees. A perfect day to reclaim the me-time, basically, catching a corner bench in the park for myself, before it is appropriated for the day by some cozy couple. I mutter wordlessly, seeking forgiveness from the angel of Love for interrupting the just right of a young couple wh...

Author: Julian Barnes Publisher: Knopf Pages: 163 Genre: Literary Fiction Published: August, 2011 Rating: Makings of a Classic Excerpt: "...What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?  'History is the lies of the victors' I replied a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. Simpson?' Colin was more prepared than me. 'History is a raw onion sandwich, Sir.' 'For what reason?' 'It just repeats, Sir. It burps. We've seen it again and against this year. The same story, same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment.' 'Rather a lot for a sandwich to contain, would you say?' We laughed far more than was required, with an end-of-term hysteria.  'Finn?' ' History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of...

We live in a cause-heavy world. We have too many causes hounding for attention in public space. So many, that we have stopped taking them seriously. Furthermore, the elite, rich and English-educated in India, who consider themselves as the inheritors of what is called a “White-Man’s burden” have further made the masses cynical towards the causes they endorse on account of great hypocrisy that they have come to represent. So they will write editorials about empowering women and downtrodden, but then we find them tweeting about their maids not having bank accounts or citizen-identification to enable them to move to digital economy; you will find them tweeting about how their hearts are shattered at cruelty against dogs, but the next tweet, five minutes later, you will find them salivating over cow meat. Real causes have become a casualty here.           Amid all this frivolous noises, old classic literature, thinkers from the past offer...

Life is brutal and boring most of the times. What makes it still bearable are some sudden moments of sensations which stir the soul and sets the spirit soaring. Such moments are far and few and fickle and feeble. The moment which in the middle of the excruciating pain of longing of immense loneliness suddenly transforms into a tranquil sense of solitude give a rather engaging turn to a boring life limping under inevitable ordinariness. The moments when pain and ennui, without any notice to us, turn into magical and mysterious, funny and forgiving are rare and accidental. It is therefore very difficult to write about life as it is and still sustain the interest of the reader long enough for the magical to emerge from the mundane, for truth to arise from travesty. One does not find such writing often. Call it experimental writing, call it new-age writing, call it whatever, it is the art of telling the plain truths of uneventful life in such an eventful manner that continues to ke...

Book: The Red and The Black ( Le Rougue et Le Noir) Author: Stendhal ( Marie-Henri Beyle) Pages: 608, Published by- A Levasseur (1830) Amazon Page - Click Here Recommendation: Must Read. A novel and an Education. 

"As for my next book, I won't write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall."  Ms. Virginia Woolf famously wrote the above on how she decides on the time to start writing her new book. I do not know Chitra B. Divakaruni well enough to know if she waits to write before it grows heavy, asking to be cut or it will fall. But the succulent prose of her novel does suggest a very ripe and mature story. Before We Visit the Goddess is one rare book by a contemporary writer, mainstream writer, if I were to say, that I not only finished; I savored it and finished it with a sense of longing. The story is written with such affection that it shows.  Chitra comes out as a serious writer with deep affection to her story and sincere respect to her craft. The language is not lazy, and the emotions are never half-baked, it almost has the taste of a carefully cooked curry left to simmer overnight, rendered magic...

It is a pity that I had kept this book unread for such a long time. But then, this is the second book by Radhika Mukherjee that I was reading. The earlier book ( Broken Shadows Review here ) was such a sweet pleasure that I wanted to read this one with due respect that her writing truly deserves. Writings of some writers are like ripe fruit, which if handled carelessly would fall and explode. Her writing is like that. Her earlier book to me was a sweet surprise, this one was an eager expectation. Radhika writes prose but it is so near to poetry. In fact, when you read it, let yourself emerge in it. It has the magic, the vigor and the flow much nearer to spoken-word poetry. The magic of experimental prose is in the honesty it carries. It is as if the writer decided not to let his own consciousness stand between the page and his soul, as if the medium merged into the creator and they are no longer two distinct entities. The magic rises from the mundane, a night, in its...

A common statement and position many writers take is that we write for ourselves and we don’t care about other people’s opinion about our writing. It is self-deceiving and kind of self-protective position. We want to save ourselves of the scathing impact of brutal reviews and avoid the embarrassment of reviews which do not happen. Let us get this straight. Writers write to be read. Reviews are a sign that they are being read. That apart, in the today’s world, and possibly it always has been that way; one picks up the books read and recommended by those we believe in, in matters literary. From that perspective, reviews are very important to the writers.  Don’t look down on the desire of a writer to be reviewed. Don’t be so judgement, not in such a hurry. It is not always commercial reason that one wants the book to sell. It can also be because the author truly believes that he has a message, he has an emotion to share with the world. It can be that and just that. Reviews mak...