A City on Rent (भाड़े का शहर)

The story begins brilliantly with Ivan's death already announced, showing his colleagues' reactions, mild inconvenience, calculations about promotions, relief that it happened to someone else. This opening establishes Tolstoy's central concern: how we live in denial of death, treating it as something that happens to others. Only then does the narrative move backward to trace Ivan's life, a life of perfect conventionality and superficial success. Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a masterwork of compression, achieving in fewer than a hundred pages what most novels struggle to accomplish in hundreds. Published in 1886, this novella confronts mortality with unflinching honesty, following a high court judge as he faces terminal illness and the terrifying realization that he may have wasted his entire life. It's arguably Tolstoy's most philosophically direct work, stripping away social complexity to focus on one man's reckoning with death. What makes the ...

The landscape, littered with the torments of intermittent memories and the detritus of betrayed promises, remind the predicament of the unrequited 'tryst with destiny.' The Painstakingly built Nehruvian consensus is in tatters and the dynasty which he willy-nilly promoted and thrust upon the nation despite his wit and wisdom is tottering-intensity of scepticism matched only by the desperation of disillusion. India is clearly in the heat of change. The disillusion induced by the years of betrayal unlikely to be assuaged by the promise of a cornucopia in the future with the people no longer willing to submit themselves to some inscrutable will of an obdurate providence or to the fanciful caprices of self-righteous politicians with heads in the clouds but their feet of clay dangling and pulling them down. There are labyrinths of disappointment and juxtaposed with these are green shoots of pessoptimism . A large section of the Indians, groaning under disorder and desolation, exaspe...

Why do I have to say such a bizarre statement? Does this serve an interest? Does the writer want to convey any message? There could possibly have been a core reason. But, instead of delving into such questions from readers, let me do what I have been assigned.  The writer had two roads to travel. The writer obviously chose the one where he finds empirical peace. The other road was more favorable to him. But, many times we have to go with the odd one. In choosing the odd one, the writer faced lots of challenges. He has been left out of the public domain. Simply, zone out. With no people, in a land of many known he was unknown to himself. The day to day routine has made him like a person who doesn't speak at all. Once the writer was a talkative person but now has ceased to be so. The three and half wall, one window with the door was enough of his companionship. Knowing the hard realities he still believes to be on the path he hasn't chosen but the world is cruel to everyone and h...

Setting Sun, University Campus and My Soul. The Perfect Trio to write Poetry.  The sun was about to die, To take birth again. Gallivanting for her footprint, Capturing each and every human sign. Alas! I was short of Light. Darkness circled everything. Left alone rest of desiderata, Got off to collect scattered heart. Unfulfilled soul nigh to Disappointment.

"We choose books; or book choose us" This debut novel by much acclaimed author is set in Afghanistan and revolves around the life of a boy called 'Amir'.  This tale is extravagantly drawn over the relationship that amir shares with his father and with his friend the illiterate and poor 'Hasan'. Amir's love for kites and his friend coupled with the strained emotions resulting from an incident that changes the course of his life plummets the book and engages the reader.  "The Kite Runner", my maiden Historical Fiction, perhaps going to be my favourite unless and until i am besieged by the four walls of my room because of the nationwide lockdown. If this review gives you the impression that it is an altogether a depressing read, then it isn't.  The one word i would describe about "The Kite Runner" is "Alive". It's so alive that the characters,  Kabul, the scenes everything just creeps its way into your heart and leaves yo...