NOVEL BOOKS II

"A Walk Across the Sun" by Corban Addison (2011)
The story is set between Dec 2004 and October 2005. Spans around Chennai, South Carolina, Mumbai, Washington DC, Paris, Pennsylvania, Goa and Georgia. It is based on one of the most sensitive subject - human trafficking for forced prostitution and slave labor. However, the novel has a happy ending.

I have seen few documentaries on the human trafficking but this novel touched my soul. I still find difficult to accept that this is a fictional story. The author has done extensive research on this issue. The author's writing skills are highly commendable. I also like the philosophical quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I was along with the character all the time. Had hellish fear for Sita who was trafficked between several places and always had hope for her to reunite with her sister Ahalya.

Thomas, the other main character who changed his views and job when touched by the human trafficking facts has inspired me to do something to fight for the children and young girls caught up in human trafficking.

I look forward to more such message conveying books by Corban Addison.

Stars: 5 out of 5.



"Revolution 2020" by Chetan Bhagat (2011)
In this story, the author has exposed corruption in the education sector in India. He should have focussed on revolution against corruption. The story would suit well for a bollywood movie. I am little disappointed, not my cup of tea. May be I should try reading one of his previous books.

Stars: 3 out of 5.

NOVEL BOOKS I

"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel (2003)
***SPOILER***SPOILER***SPOILER***
Please do not read if you have not read this book. I highly recommend you to read the book first.

I first saw this book on the Harvard coop store display. I was staring at the book while waiting for my bus. The next day, I went inside the store, picked up the book and found that it is about a 16yr old tamil boy in Pondicherry, a place in India and his adventure in the Pacific Ocean. I found it to be interesting, so, I decided to buy the book.

For me, both Part I and Part II of the novel were interesting.

The Part I tells about Pi's life in India. Pi says when he was a baby he was taken to a temple in Madurai (I imagine the temple to be Meenakshi Amman temple) and he says “a germ of religious exaltation, no bigger than a mustard seed, was sown in me and left to germinate. It has never stopped growing since that day”.

The Part II story tells about Pi on a lifeboat in the middle of the sea for 227 days. Pi tells two stories accounting for the 227 days.

• The first story involves the Zebra, Orang-utan, Hyena, Bengal tiger and Pi.

• The second story involves the Sailor, Pi's mother, Cook and Pi.

Neither stories make a difference, in both the stories, the ship sinks, Pi's family dies and Pi alone survives. According to Pi, the second story is a “dry yeastless factuality” (I guess he means the fact lacking imagination).

He asks which story is a “better story”. He also says that one who has the lack of imagination will miss the better story.

For me, without any doubt, the first story is a better story. I also see philosophical messages behind Pi's story, one for religious people and the other for non-religious people.

• Imagine two religion(the two stories),the ultimate message from both the religion is that the principle of existence is love and there is God (bottom line of the stories). The path of the two religions might be different but the ultimate message is the same.

• Imagine an atheist and an agnostic (the two stories) and truth-God is there (bottom line of the stories). An atheist might realize the truth seeing God . Whereas an agnostic even if he sees , he will not accept the truth-that God is there, he will stick to his own scientific fact saying it as illusion. Both of them sees the same thing but they call differently, one calls as God and the other as illusion.

Yann Martel has very beautifully narrated the Pacific ocean as well as India. He has a wide knowledge of animal behavior. I would say that the imagination I got out of this book is like an award winning adventurous movie produced by the National Geographic and Animal Planet channels. Martel has also connected the chapter 21 & 22 with chapter 99 (the main core of the novel) which sounds like a Night Shyamalan's movie. The audacity and the intelligence of Pi has to be appreciated.

I read the book on a slow pace, imagining each scene. It is a food for thought. It can be read again and again, each time with a better understanding. Overall, this book is an unrivaled.


"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho
This is a lovely book written by Paulo Coelho. I now want to go for other books by this author.

This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer, the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself, the alchemist replies.



"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy (1997)
The story is not a happy one. The story is set in Kerala between 1969 and 1993.The author brings up the political and social issues of 1960s including the discrimination based on the caste system, part of which still exists. The evocative setting by the author took me into the story.

While the innocence of the children made me laugh, the ripping off the innocence of the children was heartbreaking. The story twists and brings in the romance of the twins' mother and a man from the untouchable or lowest caste.



"The Namesake" - by Jhumpa Lahiri (2003)
The novel revolves around a Bengali family between 1968 and 2000. Later, focuses on the first generation - ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). The author beautifully explains the cultural and lifestyle conflicts faced by the immigrants as well as the American way of life of an ABCD - Gogol. As a part of the befuddlement, Gogol hates his name until his father explains the story behind the name. What I learnt from this is that parents should pick a name for their child that has a story behind the name and the name in turn should make the child proud of.

I wish someone writes a novel based on people like me who is neither an immigrant (born in India) nor an ABCD (born in the US and grew up in the US). But someone born in the US, grew up in India and brought up by a mixture of the Indian and American way.



"Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words" compiled by Peace Pilgrim's friends (1982)
“Peace Pilgrim” as she is called started her pilgrimage for peace at the age of 45 in 1953, she walked more than 25,000 miles for 28 years across the North America. On her her journey, she met people, solved their mental problems and gave lectures to children at school. She slept on the fields, sometimes she slept on the bed offered by people. And lived by eating the food offered by the people. She did not find any difference between the comfort and discomfort.

Some of her quotes,

"This is the way of peace: overcome evil with good, and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."

“To find inner peace, or happiness, you must go through the spiritual growing up, you must leave the self-centered life and enter the God-centered life – the life in which you see yourself as part of the whole and work for the good of the whole.”

This book is an biography of Peace Pilgrim. It tells about the people she met on her journey and her teachings. This book gives answers to many quests that we have in our mind.



"Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom (1997)
This true story is about the love between Morrie, a mentor (an old man) and Mitch, his pupil (a young man). Morrie is in his final days, dying from a terminal illness ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). Mitch who was a former student of Morrie, twenty years ago at Brandeis University, Boston meets Morrie and listens to his lessons. They met every Tuesday, exploring the issues of life such as Family, Emotions, Money, Marriage, Fear of Aging.. etc,.

Morrie says,

"A meaningful life will not be found in the next job or the next car. The way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself to helping others and creating something that gives you purpose".

"Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently".

I appreciate the spiritual teachings of Morrie. But I would say that this book is a simple book with simple messages for simple minds…like spoon feeding. A book lacking imagination, is not a book I prefer!


"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D.Salinger (1951)
I got this book as a gift from my friend Viji. It is about Holden, a 17yr old adolescent telling his flashback. He despises the compromises, loss of innocence, absence of integrity & loss of authenticity in the grown-up world. So, he struggles getting into the adult stage. When his little sister Phoebe asks what he would like to be...a lawyer or scientist, he says he would like to be the catcher in the rye standing by the edge of a cliff, keeping the children playing in the rye field from falling off.

Holden concludes his flashback by saying “Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody”. Salinger also has also inserted symbolisms in his novel. For example, Holden buys an unfashionable red hunting hat for a dollar, though is unfashionable, he likes it. The hunting hat shows that Holden is hunting for something mentally. To be more realistic, Salinger has also used several slang words.


"Who moved my cheese" by Spencer Johnson (1998)
My dad asked me to read this book. When I read for the first time, it was not useful to me. I read for the second time when I was in a bad situation, unable to accept the change in my life and at that time reading this book helped me. I would not say that this book changed my life but would say that this book gave me some kind of hope.

The story is about two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two "little people" (Hem and Haw) trapped in a maze. The mice anticipate the change and accepts the change whereas the people were afraid of change. Cheese is a metaphor, it can be any change in life. This books says to anticipate change, change and enjoy change.



"Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by Richard Bach (1976)
When I came across this book at the library, I picked up immediately since I've heard about it from someone. It is a short story book carrying black and white photographs of seagulls in between the pages. It took less than an hour to finish the book.The story is very old and simple to read. The main character of the story is the seagull named Jonathan Livingston. The author has used the flight as a metaphor. J.L.Seagull learns the meaning of love and kindness. The story can be understood in different ways. One is, it acts as a prod , it encourages an ambitious, challenging person to break her barriers and proceed life to discover new things. The second is more a philosophical or spiritual message , I have quoted some of them below:

Sullivan seagull says "Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting or power in the flock?" Does the author believe in rebirth?

Chiang seagull says, “Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect." What does the word 'perfect' means?

J.L.seagull says, “one's body being nothing more than thought itself...” The author shows the importance of the thought (good thought). As thought builds up one's character.

Fletcher seagull says to J.L seagull, "I don't understand how you manage to love a mob of birds that has just tried to kill you" J.L seagull replies, Oh, Fletch, you don't love that! You don't love hatred and evil of course. You have to practice and see the real gull, the good in every one of them, and to help them see it in themselves. That's what I mean by love. It's fun, when you get the knack of it"

J.L. seagull from his experience learned the meaning of love and he tells it to Fletcher. A person can break his barriers which does not allow him to proceed with his wish. But at the same time a person shouldn't break the rules and regulations of the human that are essential for peace if they are his barrier to proceed with his wish. A story should not give a wrong interpretation. This is the only drawback in Jonathan Livingston Seagull. So, this story is not suited for the immature adolescents who might not get the point.


"Burn anger before anger burns you" by Dada J. P. Vaswani
I read this book at the right time. Yes, I read it when I was burning with anger. In general, a person becomes angry when he or she is cheated or abused. Anger leads to many health problems. Dada Vaswani gives many ways to burn the anger before the anger burns you.

Some quotes,

“The greatest famine in the world is the famine of understanding. No two people seem to understand one another. Today people speak of emotional uncompatibility. It is a myth invented by jurists and lawyers to be able to argue in favour of divorce. There are no emotional incompatibilities. There are only misunderstanding and mistakes which can be corrected where there is the will to do so”.

“Let us fill our hearts with love — love of God, love of our fellow human beings, love of brother birds and animals. When our hearts are saturated with love, there will be no place in our life for unhappiness. We shall be amongst the happiest of men on earth”.

RELIGIOUS BOOKS

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism" by Linda Johnsen (2002)
I got this book as a gift from my brother. Many of the Hindus, are unaware about the religion. This book by Linda Johnsen brought me to light by answering many of my questions I had for many years. I realized that “Hinduism” is “Philosophy” one of the oldest philosophy in the world. It is a must for a Hindu and a suggestion for non-Hindus to read this book to acquire knowledge on Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism).


"Mahabharata" by Kamala Subramaniam (1965)
Ramayana and Mahabharata are the two great epics, written thousands of years ago. When I was a kid, I used to watch these stories on television as mega serials. It was just a story to me.

Kamala Subramaniam has taken the task of condensing the whole epic into a single volume. She has done an excellent job. I got involved in every chapter. Her writing was so powerful which took me to awesome imagination of each scene. It is a mix of adventure, thrill, comedy, romance, spiritual and philosophy.

I was touched emotionally several times. I sobbed when the 16yr old Abhimanyu got stuck in the Chakravayuha and killed by the Kauravas in an injustice manner. And of course, the part of Radheya (Karna) brought me tears. The best philosophical part are the conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna , Lord Dharma and Yudhisthira , Lord Indra and Karna, Great Bheesma and Yudhisthira , Vidura and Dhritarashtra , Rishi Sanatsujata and Dhritarashtra.



"The one thousand names of the Divine Mother-Sri Lalita Sahasranama" by Dr.M.N.Namboodiri (1996)
Sri Lalitha Sahasranama is an ancient hymn containing 1000 Sanskrit mantras. These 1000 mantras are dedicated to the feminine aspect of God or the Divine mother-Sri Lalitha or Shakti or Devi. Each mantra praises the qualities of the Divine mother. The meaning of each mantra is explained by T.V.Narayan Menon an is beautifully translated in English by Dr.M.N.Namboodiri. The beauty of describing the feminine aspect is here in the Lalitha Sahasranama. It is believed that the chanting of these mantras is the best way to attain spiritual and material upliftment.


"Amma-Healing the heart of the world" by Judith Cornell (2001)
Dr. Judith Cornell, researcher of arts and psychology is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She first met Amma or Ammachi in 1987 and later outcome of her research is this book on biography of Amma. People who are unaware about Amma-an Indian woman/saint/philosopher/humanity server, should read this great biography.

To know more about Amma , visit my blog "Bhakti.



"Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse (1951)
"Siddhartha" was originally published by Hesse in German in 1922.This story is about a man called Siddhartha who feels spiritually down, searches the meanings of self and life, in other words searches for identity and truth. Finally Siddhartha finds the truth - unity of all life.

Hermann Hesse's trip to India in 1911 and his great research on eastern philosophy, especially on Hinduism resulted in “Siddhartha”. He narrates, “Brightly, Vasudeva's smile was shining, floating radiantly over all the wrinkles of his old face, as the Om was floating in the air over all the voices of the river.”

Siddhartha says to Govinda,

“In deep meditation, there is the possibility to put time out of existence, to see all life which was, is, and will be as if it was simultaneous, and there everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahman.”

"Love, oh Govinda, seems to me to be the most important thing of all. To thoroughly understand the world, to explain it, to despise it, may be the thing great thinkers do. But I'm only interested in being able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it and me, to be able to look upon it and me and all beings with love and admiration and great respect.”

Govinda says to himself,

“Never again, after our exalted Gotama has become one with the Nirvana, never since then have I met a person of whom I felt: this is a holy man! Only him, this Siddhartha...”

At the end, Siddhartha asks Govinda to kiss his forehead.Govinda lost in time, saw miraculous vision-a ll the earthly things on Siddhartha's face. This is similar to child Krishna showing his mouth to Yashoda, Yashoda lost in time saw miraculous vision -whole universe in Krishna's mouth.

This is a very good book. But what I don't understand is, people who read this book appreciate the imaginary character Siddhartha but does not appreciate the real human or saints who had similar quest for life but found the same truth-Love and Unity of life.

As far as I know, people who read this book, give more importance to the path which led Siddhartha realize the truth than giving the importance to the truth itself!