Desi Reading Time - AccessAbility

Enabled and Empowered, Shivani is a real life hero, who make us realise disability is not a disease, it is a situation, and we need to make things accessable for all. Inspiring, and best not only in this lot, but among many others. You can reach her at E-mail: shivani@accessability.co.in; mobile: (0091) 9310245743

Last couple of days had been a marathon reading of books by Indian author viz:

1. Half Girlfriend by Chetan Bhagat - A quick read, similary story line as most of the other books. Let people say anything, I still like his books. Reminds me of teenage days...Nancy Drews and Famous fives and short stories from Women's Era.

2. You'r dreams are mine now by Rabinder Sing - The book starts on a promising note, soon falls flat, and the whole concept of Politics goes wayward. The story itself drifts nonchalantly, and a reader, like me, fails to understand what the writer had in mind, or what message he eventually wanted to convey was the dream only letting the plant grow literally?

3. My Story by Kamala Das - Has been with me for quite some time, but for some reason, it took to me long...'Ende kadha' is a little different from this. My Story is simple and direct. But nothing much interesting.

4. Inheritence of Loss - By Kiran Desai,The first, and perhaps longest, lesson of the book is, kind of poverty - inherited. After that, we see a pattern of life of many people in India and how the least of them are treated, and how they treat each other including when the lucky few (in their eyes) get to the US. One fascinating insight is the Hindu attitude to Islam - that Islam is so strict and so counterintuitive to human behavior that no one actually follows it. The Hindu says, 'it makes them all hypocrites, they drink at home and try to look pius in public.'

It is a fascinating book, well written, well plotted,Reminded me of God of Small things by Arundathi Roy.

Here are some bits I like:

"One day you will be working for a MNC. There or here. Think of your children. If you stay in a developed country your children will earn a hundred thousand dollars for the same country they would be working for in India but making one thousand dollar. How can you enjoy the best?

One side travels to be a servant and the other to be treated like a king. Which side would you like your children to be?"

“the present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind”

“He learned to take refuge in the third person and to keep everyone at bay, to keep even himself away from himself”

“he had been recruited to bring his country into the modern age, but he could only make it himself cutting them off entirely, or they would show up reproachful, pointing out to him the lie he had become.

“Perhaps that’s why they had been so happy to learn a new tongue in the first place: the self-consciousness of it, the effort of it, the grammar of it, pulled you up; a new language provided distance and kept the heart intact”

“Eventually he felt barely human at all, leaped when touched on the arm as if from an unbearable intimacy dreaded and agonize over even a ‘How-do-you-do-lovely-day’ with the fat woman dressed in frisky pinks who ran the corner store. “What can I get you? Say that again, duck . . .” she said to his mumble, leaned forward to scoop up his words, but his voice ran back and out as he dissolved into tears of shops, and when he bought a shaving brush and the shop girl said her husband owned the same item exactly, at the acknowledgment of their identical human needs, the intimacy of their connection, shaving, husband, he was overcome at the boldness of the suggestion.”

”the unbearable intimacy of brand names”

“in this life, he remembered again, you must stop your thoughts if you wished to remain intact, or guilt and pity would take everything from you, even yourself from yourself”

“all the judge had worked so hard to separate would soften and envelop him in its nightmare, and the barrier between this life and eternity would in the end, no doubt, be just another such failing construct”

“What was a country but the idea of it? She thought of India as a concept, a hope or a desire. How often could you attack it before it crumbled?

“they liked aristocrats and they liked peasants; it was just what lay between that was distasteful: the middle class bounding over the horizon in an endless phalanx”

“Centuries of arguments had occurred between warring families, so many convolutions and tit-for-tats that there was no right or wrong anymore. Purity of answer was a false quest. How far back could you go, straightening things out?”

“Old-fashioned books is what I like. Not the new kind of thing, no beginning, no middle, no end, just a thread of . . . free-floating plasma . . .”

The retired grumpy judge, Jemubhai Patel, studied in a Victorian England, groomed by the Raj,all of which made him rise above his humble roots, to be a revered, fearsome(and very confused) judge...Sai, his orphaned grand daughter, exiled from the convent to be home schooled (by those delightful Bengali sisters Noni and her sister Lola) discovering the first flush of youth, the first pangs of love, with her Nepalese tutor Gyan...or Biju, the judge's cook's son who is moving from one restaurant job to another, as an illegal immigrant in New York.

All the characters are sharply etched, clearly defined and follow an often unpredictable trajectory of departures and homecomings. But for some reason, I thought soemthing was missing. Was it the hangover of 'My sisters keeper'by Jodi Picoult?

5. Unaccostomed Earth a collection of short stories from Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri.The title story of the book is about three generations, and the relationship between the three, the father, his daughter, Ruma, and her son, Akash. The Second 'Hell-Heaven'simple human emotions such as loneliness, love, jealousy and also describes how people change drastically over time.

The last is a set of 2 stories "Hema and Kaushik".The story revolves around two people who, despite being childhood acquaintances and their families being old friends, lead drastically different lives. Two decades after Kaushik's family stays with Hema's as houseguests, they meet again by chance, just days before they are to enter into completely different phases of their lives, and they discover a strong connection with one another.The entire story of Hema and Kaushik is divided into three parts.
"Once in a Lifetime"- The meeting and departures.
"Year's End"-Kaushik's life after his mothers death.
"Going Ashore" - Meeting after years - To depart for ever.

This was a good read.

Human Nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth - Nathaniel Hawthorne

6. No Looking Back -By Shivani Gupta:

No Looking Back is a deeply moving and inspiring narrative about surviving the challenges of disability in a country that takes little account of the daily difficulties and indignities faced by approximately fifteen per cent of the world’s population, whether in terms of infrastructure, legislation or awareness—a country that appears to believe that disability equals invisibility from the public discourse. Undeterred by the hand fate had dealt her, Shivani Gupta has chosen to champion the cause of the disabled everywhere and is today one of India’s best-known accessibility consultants. Her life is an extraordinary testament to true courage and the indomitability of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming odds.An incredibly true story, which touch our heart fill our eyes, and tell us there is so much more we can do, and how blessed we are. Shivani and Vikas also throws light on Team work, Love, vision, and so much more...I do not know how to Thanks Pooja for lending this book to me...

Control seems an illusion
All I do is live my destiny,
Happy or sad is up to me.
Possession seems an illusion,
As everyone was born free
To live their own destiny