The Book Nook

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Book Name : Brothers Sen Gogh
Author : Manik Bal
Website : http://www.manikbal.com/
Publisher : Nivant Publishing
Genre : Literary Fiction/Contemporary Fiction/Contemporary Romance

Amazon URL : http://mybook.to/BrothersSenGogh

BOOK REVIEW: 3/5

The book opens to a young man moving to the city away from home, away from his little circle of loved ones in pursuit for the needs of a person with dreams and a family . But did he live his dream or did they? It is the reader’s quest. I was lost when there was lots about music and its own wide vast world. It would have all been familiar for a reader with better music knowledge. It put me at a disadvantage because of this.

Though it was pretty rushed up with the supporting characters showing up quite early, the story reveals that they hold only minor roles. A more draggy storyline with more nuances with the happenings and the turmoil of emotions would grab the reader’s interest. It wholly depicts the miseries of leading more of a dependent life in the midst of yearning for scoring big with one’s dreams, sometimes that spills out the pathetic self of the dreamer. It is set in the background of a normal middle class family, the most prevailing scenario in most of this country, facing obstacles bigger than they were meant to handle. Sometimes as a reader I felt the whole bonding or the relationship that the author highlights to be burdensome at some places, though the brothers weren’t more centered or complaining about it but instead they go for love, maybe that’s how the author draws the characters. I feel it shows us the loading and unloading of burdens in the name of love. And that’s the stage the author builds for the actors to play their roles on.

And one subtle thing that I learned from this book is that the message is very clear everywhere, the dreams of a dreamer are of no one’s business when the dreamer gives up or dies. So always have it in you this question, what happens to my dreams when i don’t strive for it?

A little background about the author:

Manik Bal is an author who resides in the beautiful city of Bangalore, known for its contribution to the information technology revolution in India and also known for having the worst traffic among all cities in India. Once a pensioner’s paradise, Bangalore retains its phenomenal weather that attracted Manik to make it his home. Manik writes poetry, short stories and novels exploring the Indian middle class, its aspiration and its dilemmas. His characters explore life in situations that are not heroic or exceptional but are mundane and ordinary. They show their uniqueness by facing life as it is.

Manik lives with his wife and two kids in a buzzing neighborhood in the city allowing him to observe the young and the old chasing the Indian dream. Yes, it exists and is both similar and different than the American dream. It retains the career ambition, a desire for affluent life and the upward mobility that the American dream symbolizes but adds a unique flavor of family ties, emotional relationships with friends and love for melodrama just like the Bollywood movies.

She wanted to cry till she could empty her soul and pain. She didn’t know where the hell did her vibes wander off to, which she tried hard to infest into her life. It still ached for her.

Still…

at the same spot

She realised, that

It hasn’t healed
But she presumed it had

But she was fooled …

Book Name : Whiskey and Suicide
Author : Manik Bal
Website : http://www.manikbal.com/
Publisher : Nivant Publishing
Genre : Literary Fiction/Short Stories
Amazon URL : http://mybook.to/WhiskeyAndSuicide

BOOK REVIEW: 3.5/5

A pretty compact book with little stories written for everyone who seeks for a book not too lengthy or twisty. Just kept simple. The book has stories set up mostly on realistic grounds nothing of fantasy.

It actually the other way around of what one gets from a total fiction or fantasy book. It has short hard core but straightforward stories, like i said anyone can just pick it up and give it a read and it does not matter whether you are very good with the language or not. But the message each short story holds is the spotlight aspect of it. It deals with almost every cards that a individual comes across in one’s life in India. Whether it has to do with finding your passion, the long gone bond or the yearnings of a family. It revolves entirely around places in India, people who get stuck up in situations and what comes out of it. Either a learning or a loss or a discovery or a pain or a fulfillment.

The names in each of the story seems pretty confusing when you read the entire book in one stretch as the book is not entirely set up in one particular background. So the switch of characters and the story set up confuses you in the beginning. But you get used to it with reading. If still confused with the scenario change in each of the paragraph try reading each of short story separately at different times.

The swapping or change of scenes with each paragraph was a very different move from the author as per my opinion. But a reader of beginner stage may find it a bit confusing initially.

When weighed as a whole it’s a good pick for anyone who are a fan of realistic storylines.

A little background about the author:
Manik Bal is an author who resides in the beautiful city of Bangalore, known for its contribution to the information technology revolution in India and also known for having the worst traffic among all cities in India. Once a pensioner’s paradise, Bangalore retains its phenomenal weather that attracted Manik to make it his home. Manik writes poetry, short stories and novels exploring the Indian middle class, its aspiration and its dilemmas. His characters explore life in situations that are not heroic or exceptional but are mundane and ordinary. They show their uniqueness by facing life as it is.
Manik lives with his wife and two kids in a buzzing neighborhood in the city allowing him to observe the young and the old chasing the Indian dream. Yes, it exists and is both similar and different than the American dream. It retains the career ambition, a desire for affluent life and the upward mobility that the American dream symbolizes but adds a unique flavor of family ties, emotional relationships with friends and love for melodrama just like the Bollywood movies.

Can’t the darkness out there beyond those skies be a limit? Can’t one have them alteast in their dreams and is it a disgrace to do so?

Are you a myth? Unbelievable or impossible?

I m asking you, darkness.

Eternal dying (death of one’s soul) would be the last choice, though they are just words still. Not yet performable.

When all there is just flesh left, without life. Because there were too many stabbings, just too many times. Yearning for oblivion peeps, grant atleast this please. Begging while holding on to the edge. No nudging back into this life. The reasons are dislike and inability to go further with it anymore. There is nothing left to go further with. Just grant a trip to oblivion.

I wasn’t just a mockery to him, I think to quite a lot of people.

I didn’t wanted to do so, but still I did, maybe I have always wanted it.

Shutting myself within some random four walls.I don’t exactly know why did I always wanted to do it?

I think I got comfortable with it. But am I doing the wrong thing? Is it wrong to seek out of your Room no.19 now, suddenly?

Everyone needs a Room no.19 and coming out of yours for feeling free and for seeking light is okay too. Like wanting one and trying to get out of it both seems to be part of human’s life. No matter how comfortable you have become it’s a room where you can’t invite anyone in.

Covetous over you, wanting like yours, without any damn rein. Either sur or steer befall at my switch.

Wanna reset everything but my hands fear to press that button because I don’t wanna erase one important thing, the memory of her, she, the reason for surviving my yesterdays, todays and tomorrows through her love.

Why do I feel like this particular human might/would be a great person for me?

I was feeling so freaking sunken just a page before and now suddenly a bit better from that state.

Why so?

Because of that person.

I don’t know whether this person converses so with everyone around or is it just with me or may it be a friendly facade?

But either way my mind is more at ease now. So I thank this person for her/his words.

(to that person) – I don’t know whether what you said, sent and what all the conversations we had was something true or trustworthy or pure out of your heart/brain, but it was soothing for me tonight. And that was all I knew and felt from your talk. So thank you for that.

One is always different from another, you need no proof for that because it’s universal. It never changes like the sun rising in the east.

The realisation above, came for me so strong and hard than anything recently as I got to know a few people.

Never is your life easier or difficult than the other beings nor is it the same. It simply does not go for comparison at all in the first place. Because other than being the lives of humans, by what else can one categorise them together?

And that alone is not enough. So remember this, for me and for all of them who hope to understand, one’s life is not happier or merrier just because the other one in comparison is stuck under a dictator. And one is not prettier just because he or she has a fair skin. And a person isn’t necessarily a loser just because that person has lost a lot. One is not hideous just because she never talks. And one is not being suicidal just because he is climbing up the cliff.

Why there are many types of people when all you want is your ideal type alone? Would life be boring if you already got the person or people of your likes, just quite soon? But its not that I m expecting it from some stranger who would want to be a part of my life, instead I am looking for my ideal characteristics in the people who were already a part of my life just before I came into this life, before I could choose. Shouldn’t they be supportive and true? Why does a person fake their love on someone? And why does that someone fears so much about that fake person? And why am I subjected to improper love sometimes because of that? Some love are not actually true and pure, so they must not be called as love in the first place right?

what is it then?

drama, or acting, or just faking around?

This is why the feeling of Einsamkeit (meaning loneliness in German) is many a times wonderful for me.

Don’t you think so too? – to my future me, who will be reading this and yeah she will also think deep on this and recollect all the previous episodes and feel sad for her younger self and even tear up. But she wouldn’t be fooled like her younger self, because she would have already overcome or would know already who fakes it always.