Hamlet said to Ophelia, ”God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” The battle between these two halves of identity… Who we are and who we pretend to be, is unwinnable. “Just as there are two sides to every story, there are two sides to every person….
who really was Gautam K ?
read on…..
Charade
As I lay on the hardened ground wanting to die
My body all but abandoned to eternal agony
My heart waiting to take up the flight so high
Where distress could just not touch me……
My body lay meek and violated
I saw him in my mind’s eye
My heart was hopelessly swayed
I wept asking why me… why?
He kissed away my tirade
I felt cherished and protected…..
As I showered him with accolade
The mask on his face started to blur
The face not withstanding my relationships brigade
Sandra Brown is one of my favourite authors and Ilove her romance suspense series. However this one is an out and out romance.
Lucas Greywolf is a Indian (the community in America which is different racially) who escapes Prison with just 3 months for his sentence to end. He enters Aislinn Andew’s home when she isn’t there and eventually takes her hostage As Aislinn knows Lucas more having spent time with him, she is in awe of his brilliance and how he has defied all odds… and why he was running away from prison. One thing leads to the other and she is pregnant with his child. The rest of the story is how they convince each other that they cant stay without the other and that their love for each other conquers every obstacle in their path.
Being a die hard Sandra Brown fan, I was a tad disappointed. There was no suspense element as such and the story too in the later half was a little drag by her standards. Looking forward to other thrillers from her….
Simply stating, this is an out of the box kind of story, rather a collection of stories.
A young man Tanna who is soon to be married stumbles upon an old satchel belonging to his late postman father. It contains undelivered letters dated ten years ago. He decides to post them presumably in order to get a sense of closure for his mother…. and himself though he despises his father.
However he doesn’t have a clue about the storm triggered in each of the recipients’ lives. What happens when the letters arrive a decade later in each of the 26 people’s lives? Would their lives been better or worse? That is in fact what the story all about. Simple write up but drives deep into your heart.
Coming from Ms Shyamala who happens to be prize winning Children’s author, this is a must read.
In one word if the book has to be described…. its intrigue.
Alicia Berenson leads a so called perfect life with her Photographer husband Gabriel. Alicia is a gifted artist. But in addition to what meets the eye there is a lot of depth in her paintings which makes her a class apart. That perhaps is also the crux of the entire story. The story is narrated by a psychotherapist Theo Faber.
The plot is about how Alicia killed Gabriel in cold blood. However the next six years of her life are spent in total silence in the Groove, a secure forensic unit in London. She had been hidden from the prying tabloids after she became famous post the crime.
The author has woven the track so well connecting different dots across different layers that you are bound to it from the beginning and the end….. well that is the best part of the book. It riles you as you are caught totally unawares.
Though the book comes under the thriller genre, I would classify it as a well researched psychological study. Brilliant portrayal of the characters’ psyche is what is most appealing.
Review: The Advisory Board is a tribute to the taxi drivers. At one time they were the heart and soul of Mumbai. But today with the increasing traffic and influx of app based competitions, they are slipping into oblivion. However the author has taken up this unique concept and woven up the narrative around it. The protagonist starts hiring the cab service after his personal car is rendered useless after an accident. He is depressed since after his wife’s death and because of his plunging tourism business.
The protagonist starts conversation with the taxi drivers, initially by chance and later since he gets genuinely intrigued. He takes us through their lives and attitudes and solutions for problems as they see it. Somehow every time he speaks to the driver he gets an insight and a trace of solution to his own set of issues plaguing the business. Eventually, the story is about how he changes his mindset and develops a positive attitude and confident decision making skills.
The take home here is irrespective of the dark clouds of life troubles hovering above our heads there is always a silver lining. All that we need at times is someone to open up our blinders. Here the taxi drivers did just that and the protagonist was open to ideas which only favoured him.
On the flip side, the narrative does drag in some places and also sounds preachy in some others. Editing should have been better. Like use of inverted commas for dialogues is used indiscreetly in some places so the reading flow gets halted. Baring few syntactic errors its a good read.
To consider myself a reviewer… wouldn’t be right in this case.
But Gaur Gopal Das ji has revolutionised sermons to make them interesting with his innumerable analogies. I started following his videos on social media a couple of years ago. I would only say, whenever you are lost in the path called life just pick up any chapter in this book and read on or just browse through his many videos. You get some solace and inspiration to move on.
His sermons aren’t too preachy but filled with anecdotes. The book too is a light-hearted one whether you read it in breaks or at one go. Everytime you pick it up there is something new to fathom.
He has got his immense experience on paper and i hope to see many more such word of wisdom in print… Thank you Guruji…
In one word if the book had to be described…its culturally- picturesque . It took me to Gangtok and south Bangalore. I have seen Bangalore so that wasnt a surprise but the way the Gangtok scenery was described in almost every page I was taken to those beautiful hills of Sikkim. The Nepalese traditions which were new to me have now caught my eye and i am reading up more. I compliment Pankaj for opening a new ray of reading and exploring through his book.
Secondly the plot has been woven so well spanning the years from 1981 to 2012 and then years later… One can actually visualise and feel the emotions he takes you through the medium of the protagonists. I was in tears so many times… Every segment ends with a thread of hope… bringing that smile on your face as well.
Pankaj had crafted the protagonists’ pasts in such manner that they are the two parallel railway lines which actually meet.
The narrative gets slightly preachy for those who don’t like reading spiritually inclined segments, but its vital for a story and I would suggest you not to skip any part.
There are books which teach us life lessons and this masterpiece is one of them. Its definitely a complex maze of emotions and relationships but what stands out is sheer optimism which gives the needed strength to sail through hardships thrown your way. In the end what we always can hang on to is that fragile thread of hope
(Available both as paperback and kindle edition. On amazon.)
He looked around the store purple hues with just the corner LED bulb switched on. He couldn’t risk being seen. He would lose all that he had worked for in the last 10 years. He grinned as he remembered his journey… the hours of hard work, the greasing of palms, the lost body count….
His eyes widened as he took in the beautiful silk camisoles to his right… arranged as per the shades and sizes. On his left were pairs of corsets and panties combined and hung to give it an erotic hue… There were black and white portraits of women oozing sensuality… he had no doubt they did… if the growing bulge in his pant was any indicator of the same.
He took in a deep breath looking upwards and the lovely lavender peppermint flavor wafted through his nostrils. He smiled to glory and moved ahead in between the racks hearing the silky swish of the lingerie. In the next fifteen minutes he had seen everything… sensual night gowns so see through… he almost came in his pants, belt with stockings, garters, overalls and an assorted combinations of bras and panties. The woman knew what she was doing he shook his head thinking. She had a gold mine here… and in that head of hers. He held himself through his pant as he thought of her. How many times had he jerked himself off ever since she had been his object of fantasies? How many times had he wanted to just… spend a night with her…. feel her warmth as he rode her or feel her luscious lips around him moaning as he came? He took a nearby nightgown and stuffed it into his mouth to stifle his cries as he came…
He knew the property in and out.
The fiery bitch was all the more appealing when she opposed him…full of conviction. She would be an asset to his business if she joined him. She would do it… he would make sure of it… He chuckled as he thought of her abiding by his rules in and out of the bedroom… It would be fun… made him hard again…
Panting heavily, he moved towards the storeroom. He knew the property in and out. The storeroom had to be there and with it the information he wanted…. He would soon be a rich man. He reached the locked storeroom but with a snide smile used the key… one of the few he had made when she had lost her bunch of keys last week. He laughed as he thought about his brilliant plan…she was clueless. She was only too relieved to get back her keys which she had accidentally lost. But that’s how he was here now… in her world. Very soon he would be in her house too. He opened the door to the storeroom and walked in. He switched on the light bulb and looked around. He was right. What he wanted was right there in front staring at him… right where that map had revealed.
Before he could move ahead, he felt a prick on his neck. He could barely react, before that strong hands held him from behind and pulled him out of the storeroom. He tried to move his hands. He was a strong man for crying out aloud… but he couldn’t… he was paralyzed. His eyes grew wide as he realised the fact. His vocal cords weren’t working too. He couldn’t utter a sound. The hands holding him released him and he fell like a heap on the floor. Suddenly his mouth was opened and something silky was pushed into it. His breathing was getting laboured… when he saw a purple lacy bralette hanging before his watering eyes. He blinked but that too was getting difficult. Soon a pair of gloved hands tied the skimpy lace around his neck and tightened it.
“Rot in hell…asshole. I won’t let you lay your dirty hands on the box nor….on her” was the last whisper he heard and recognized in his ear before darkness claimed him.
