Circle of Three by Rohit Gore: Impressions

If anything, Rohit Gore wins more brownie points for unexpectedness. I was revisiting my blog for when I reviewed his debut book, Focus, Sam and remembered liking it for exactly the same reason. So when he wrote to me asking to read and review his two new books, Circle of Three and Guardian Angels, I had to agree.

Circle of Three is another unique story by Gore. With three interesting protagonists - each vastly different from another - Gore's story is about finding hope and strength in the most unexpected places. 13-year-old student Aryan, 30-something screenwriter Ria Marathe and 60-something forgotten author Rana Singh Rathod are struggling to come to terms with life, until they cross each other's dark paths and become inadvertent beacons. With each other, Rana finds inspiration to write again, Aryan finds his identity and Ria, the courage to live again.

Gore's writing does not make any dents in your heart, but he has a good eye for detail. He paints his characters with deliberate care, bringing them effortlessly to life. It isn't hard to imagine a Rana in his delusional pomposity, an Aryan with his insecurities and a Ria withering away with her terrible loneliness and misplaced guilt. From these depths of despair, you see Gore pull them out gently, his story dripping with tender emotions. The unlikely trio help each other overcome the darkest phases of their lives and emerge better, stronger people.

What Gore lacks is a capacity for humour and finesse. The plot, while tragic, offers a fair scope for comic relief, but Gore's brand of funny is hardly that. Secondly, he is too casual a writer. His pedestrian use of language doesn't charm me, but may work for people who favour 'light' reading. And oh, Gore also needs to work with better publishers and cover designers.

Gore may have some way to go before he becomes a master storyteller, but he pulls the most unusual stories out of his literary hat. With fresh stories like this, Gore might just evolve into one of the better Indian English authors of our times.

Kali in love

(Art by Bloodcult via Deviantart)

Bared fangs, bared breasts,

I am your goddess.

Now handover your heart.

I'm trying to kill you because I love you. 

Why else?

I will have you drunk on me. 

I will show no mercy.

I'll grind you to pulp with this love of mine.

A noose of my hair around your neck, 

That will my blessing be.

A sacrifice of your lips and limbs,

That's all I ask for.

Come Shiva, bind me with your dreadlocks,

Unleash the Ganges of your passion upon me.

You awakened it. 

Now deal with my Mooladhara Chakra
spinning in ecstasy.

Let me dance upon your chest, 

like an undying obsession.

Poison me with your blue lips

dirty me with your ashes.

Place your feet upon my chest

Thrust your trident in my breast

Sit me upon your thigh

wrench my pride out with your teeth.

Kali's yoni and yantras

come Shiva, take them all.

Love this is, yet I haven't forgotten 

The art of severing a heart from a body.

A submissive Kali will still destroy.

Kundalini and the Chakras by Genevieve Lewis Paulson: Impressions

Look at the cover of this book. Mighty attractive, no? The title too is all mystic and mumbojumboey - exactly the kind I fall for. But, here's one classic example of appearances being deceptive.

I really love to read books on energy work and having attended a workshop or two on Reiki and Pranic Healing, I understand and relate to the ideas therewith. Among all concepts in the sphere of energy work, Kundalini is one of the most powerful and I've always been fascinated with it. I've read a fair bit on the subject before, but there's always more to know, isn't there?

Naturally, when the opportunity to review a book on Kundalini came my way, I jumped at it. Kundalini and Chakras - Evolution in this Lifetime by Genevieve Lewis Paulson is a Jaico publication and that should have told me something about its quality. Sorry, but Jaico's acquisition editors really need to stop giving a nod to everything that comes their way. Few books from Jaico's stables make the cut and this one's just terrible. Paulson is such an artless writer, she has managed to kill this interesting topic completely.

I rarely abandon a book, especially if it deals with the esoteric. I had never imagined a book on Kundalini and the Chakras could be boring. But damn, this one is. In my several failed attempts at reading this book, I could never read more than three pages at once without feeling bored and/or frustrated. Every paragraph sounded the same with the author liberally using words like 'consciousness', 'energy', 'cleansing', 'healing', 'Kundalini', etc. It was like I would take in a mouthful of words at the end of a page, but take away nothing from it.

Through this book, the author aims to teach a layperson some tips and tricks on cleansing the chakras and awakening the Kundalini. There are some decent illustrations and tables too, but the style of writing extremely unhelpful. A good student is not always a good teacher, and this seems to be Paulson's problem. She may write page after page but few will understand what's going on. The book has chapters on Kundalini release, Chakra healing, Karma, The Different Bodies, etc., each more odious than the other.

If Kundalini and Chakra Healing are your interests, pick from the many books in the market - not this one.

Arjuna - Saga of a Pandava Warrior-Prince by Anuja Chandramouli: Impressions

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. ~ Cicero M Tullius

If Cicero was to say this today, he'd have modified that last bit to ...and everyone's writing a book about the Mahabharata. After Ashok Banker, Devdutt Pattanaik and Amish Tripathi, India seems to be mass producing contemporary Indian English authors of mythology. Can’t blame them, really. Our epics are so rich and endless in their inspiration that any wannabe author without an original story turns to them for a reinterpretation, a retelling.

The Mahabharata, in particular, with its myriad characters, is a favourite and stories from the points of view of individual characters are flooding the market. It probably started when Prem Panicker translated Vasudevan Nair's Randaamoozham, a retelling of the Mahabharata by Bheema. Panicker’s book was called Bhimsen. Next was The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, which came out in 2008. The last couple of years have seen books like, Mrityunjaya (a story about Karna) by Shivaji Savant, Women of the Mahabharata by Chaturvedi Badrinath and more recently, even Karna’s Wife, the outcaste’s queen by Kavita Kane! There may be many others I’m not aware of, but one of this genre recently landed on my table for a review.

Arjuna – Saga of a Pandava Warrior-Prince by Anuja Chandramouli tells the story of the Mahabharata from the perspective of the most illustrious of the Pandavas. While the book focuses on the important milestones of Arjuna's story, especially his 12-year exile, the story is essentially that of the inexorably connected Pandava brothers. Either it is impossible to separate the five, or the author hasn't done a good job with the single perspective. Because I've not read any of the books mentioned above yet, I do not know how they compare. But if an author decides to pick one character, as a reader, I would expect a more fleshed out one than what Chandramouli has presented here.

The language is also simple to a fault. Its plainness doesn't make the book easy to read; instead it makes it dull. For a tale as amazing as the Mahabharata, it is sad if one doesn't feel like reading more than a few pages at once. For me as a reader, the language neither induced great visuals, nor was there any music in it. I remained impassive to the protagonist and the plot right through the book. The author fails to make Arjuna memorable for me any more than he already is. But the book will serve as a good refresher for anyone looking to brush up their Mahabharata trivia.  

While this book was a little bit of a disappointment, I welcome this wave of Indian English books on our greatest epic. The Mahabharata belongs to everyone and its rich lessons ought to stay with us. It is only with such books that the newer generations will take interest in and take forward this fantastic legacy. I certainly look forward to reading many more from this genre of books.

Love is matter

(Image source: isiopolis.com)

Love is a need like no other.

Love is matter.

The terrible, unstable kind, yes?

The wild, sweeping kind that rips every notion apart until only nothing remains. And you weep, your tears are diamonds.

Or perhaps the luminescent, sublime kind.

The soothing, balmy kind, that caresses every scar, contains tides until only stillness remains and your smiles are rainbows.

Ah, of glorious hurts and shimmering pools of blood. Of nightskies dark with longing and days bright with impudent hope.

Of quiet acceptance that every drop of blood and sweat is mine, is thine, is ours.

Of every kiss that proclaims the tongue and every ache that screams for a union.

Of shivering limbs that crave steadiness from firm but gentle arms, but alas! Love must steady itself in its own whirlpool of collapse.

Of looking for answers in a beloved's eyes and the stoking of yellow embers that burn beneath the lids all night.

Of finding yourself staring back, a splash of white in every black; wind chimes tinkle in solitude and hearts splinter in gratitude.

Of blue cowherds and song and milkmaids and dance.

Of a day that won't see dawn on the banks of a swollen river, forever in spate.

Love is so many things, yet I know only your face.


I love so many things about you but all I can do is look at your face, helplessly, hopelessly.

(With @ScrollsNInk)

The Couple

Journey to Ithaca by Anita Desai: Impressions

Now she knows why the Mother went on that pilgrimage, why anyone goes on a pilgrimage, and why she must go too.  

Journey to Ithaca by Anita Desai is about poignant pilgrimages of the protagonists, painted with so much beauty and pathos, it takes you on one of your own. Desai does that. She is masterful in carrying a reader in her arms to surreal places, in unforgettable realms. I shall always remember the time I read my first Desai novel, The Artist of Disappearance. I shall always remember how she took my breath away with almost every sentence. She weaves similar her magic in Journey to Ithaca, but in certain places, in certain ways. It is not a sustained work of genius like The Artist... is. I remember wanting to cry sometimes, so overwhelmed I was with the beauty of her language.

Like here: Isabel is quiet, separating two ideas and then putting them together again: Grandmother does not want them to go to their parents, and grandmother does not want them here. 'Then where can we go?' she asks, not knowing a third place for themselves. 

And here: ...and a jasmine that flowered and flowered as though it thought itself to be in paradise.

But I also remember being bored at times. Especially the last few pages. Perhaps I was tired of reading the the book, perhaps Desai of tired of writing it. The end of Matteo and Sophie's story and that of Laila or the Mother's and that of Giacomo and Isabel all come to a laboured end, but that's perhaps how it feels when one reaches Ithaca.

Journey to Ithaca takes us along on the arduous road to self discovery of Matteo, his antithetic wife, Sophie, and the spiritual journey of the Mother/Laila. As Mateo tires of his bourgeois Italian upbringing and heads to India with his newly-wedded wife, Sophie in search of life's true purpose, we fall and flail along the path with them. Sophie is disgruntled with the dirt, the disease and the poverty of India and wants to live the 'Goa' life, while Matteo suffers in his search for a guru, until at last he finds refuge in the Mother. Sophie does not understand Matteo's blind faith in the Mother and proceeds to uncover her past in the hope to open her husband's eyes. Sophie learns about the spiritual guru's past as Laila, a rebel, who dances her way to India, and finally meets her spiritual master and destiny.

Desai's portrayal of Matteo and Laila strike home particularly hard because their search for the Supreme is laced with a lot of pain, doubt and conflict. The author is brilliant when she deals with strong emotions such as these. You can feel it sometimes like a body blow, when Matteo lies on the cold hard ground in wait and Laila weeps in agony to be united with her divine lover. Sophie's bewilderment draws sympathy too, but not as much. The characters are stark and the plot sublime. Reading Desai needs you to be buoyant, to float, and to let it take you to Ithaca and beyond.

Nude 9

I like to call him Hulk on a diet. :)

Nude 8

Nude 7

The seventh of my 10-part nude series, created on my Adesso graphic tablet via Art Rage. This, however, is the version edited on Pixlr. I created the original as a pencil sketch, which came out pretty well too (I think), but I absolutely loved this crayon like effect in the end.

Which one do you prefer?