Six Degrees-Game Of Blogs-Book Review

Six Degrees-Game of Blogs brought back a flood of memories for me. Having been a part of this activity in one of the teams and having made an awesome bunch of blogger friends, reading this book reminded me of the eagerness with which we had participated in this activity. It was a great learning experience and I completely understand how challenging it must have been for the rest of the teams to coordinate across different time zones with fellow bloggers of different tenets.

This book consists of three stories by three teams of bloggers who were randomly grouped for the activity; mind you each story is a collaborative work with the story being written in a couple of days with twists and turns being provided by Blogadda in between. There is a reason why I cite this here, since the characters and a large part of the skeleton of the story was already provided, the teams had to build a story based on it. We did have our limitations.

The stories published in this book are:

1. The Awakening- Team By Lines
2. Entangled Lives- Team Potliwale Baba
3. Missing- A Journey Within- Team Tete-A-Ten


I have an admittance to make here, if this book was not written through this interesting activity I wouldn’t have picked it up to read. All through the activity I had a strong opinion on the various stories that we as teams were weaving up, all of them never felt anything beyond the 'contemporary-below average-Indian-fiction'. Since there was no forum to express this opinion, and we bloggers were busy with our own stories working on the plot and dealing with the tight deadlines I brought this up here. One of the stories in this book in fact rightly cites the pun” Write your college love story and become a bestselling author” well that’s how Indian authors are nowadays. I write this with great trepidation on how this review will be taken.

While ‘The Awakening’ primarily feels like a science fiction, the highlight for me was the amount of research and imagination that has gone into it. Kudos to the team on that, all the inventiveness with the alien world and interesting trivia was the only reason I thought this story was the best among the three.

The second story ‘Entangled Lives’ left me as a reader entangled too, supposedly this was a murder mystery. And of course there had to be a medical disorder to spice it up. What bogged me down was the entire tone of the story, the usage of some words and the bloopers in the plot. All I wanted to know was who killed and why, nothing out of the ordinary!

The third one ‘Missing- A Journey Within’ has everything missing by the way. I still am thinking about the duodenal atresia that two of the characters have, what did this medical condition do to them to make them go missing. I wish there was more research and relevance here. One noticeable fact is the strength that has been added to some characters, especially by bringing up some important social issues like homosexuality and rape. I wish this was dealt with more refinement.

The stories are not by seasoned authors, the stories are not an individual effort and the stories had their boundaries. I think that explains why the book deserves three stars, probably two point five will do.

Rating: 2.5/5

 

Book Details:

 

Title: - Six Degrees by Blogadda

Publisher: -Leadstart Publishing and BlogAdda.Com

Publication Year: - 2015

ISBN:- 9352013891 (ISBN13: 9789352013890)

Binding: - Paperback

Number of pages: -  422

Price: - Rs349

PS: 6 Degrees is India's first book published through collaborative blogging, written completely by bloggers for the Game of Blogs activity at BlogAdda. Know more about Game of Blogs here. You can buy 6 Degrees: Game of Blogs if you liked the review. :)

The Best Seller She Wrote-Book Review

 

 

 

 "Soon to be a motion picture"

Voila! There you go, I happened to see this subtitle after reading the book and I wasn’t surprised. This one is a perfect Bollywood script filled with love, betrayal and redemption as Ravi himself says. I had read and reviewed God is A Gamer an year ago as a part of Blogadda’s Book Review programme. I must say that this book stands up to my expectations going by my previous reading experience, not that they were very high mind you. Page turner, easy read, filmy plot all no doubt. The other reviews may give you spoilers, but I am not game! Whenever I read books of these kinds I still feel that there is a big lacuna which our Indian writers fail to look at while writing stories, oh sorry they are meant to be scripts. That frankly though doesn’t stop me from reading them, every time I come across one in a bookstore I tell myself “Let me read this, maybe this is THE ONE!” and every time I end up more than disappointed.

“Oh that’s an another Indian author, you don’t need to read that book to know the story!”

So say some of my reader friends. Before I refute such statements I am waiting for that right kind of substance from an Indian author of today, someone who can give me that in at least a few pages of their books. I did not find it in Aditya’s character when he professes his love for his wife after all his misgivings, I did not find it in Shreya’s conviction to author a book, I did not find it in Maya’s anger after all the angel she is portrayed to be, I did not find it in Sanjay’s prevarication against his friend. All of them are forgettable! But there were moments in the book, with real life names here and there in the storyline like salt and pepper in the soup, this sort of amused me more than increasing my curiosity, I don’t give a hoot even if they are real life incidents. When there is no good grammar and language, what use is a twist and turn in the tale???  I seriously wished this was given more attention.

There was one line that impressed me:

“Nothing in life is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of his guilt”

I finished the book in a couple of hours which was another brownie point, if you want to count it as one. A honest review in my opinion is not just about sugar coated words to make the author or publisher or a sponsor feel good. If I am able to put across the fact that I expect something better out of Ravi Subramanian this review stands justified.

Eagerly waiting for the next and the better!

Book Details:

Title: -The BestSeller She Wrote

Author: - Ravi Subramanian

Publisher: -Westland Ltd

Publication Year: - 2015

ISBN 13:- 978-93-85152-38-2

Binding: - Paperback

Number of pages: -  391

Price: - Rs 295

My rating: - 1.5/5

PS: I am reviewing ‘The Bestseller She Wrote’ by Ravi Subramanian as a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

-R.

THE Story

Eliya, this house has a couple of entrances apart from the main door that one can see here. Once upon a time there was this man in his eighties loitering around the katte which is built all around the house, a little elevation or a bench to sit is called so in Kannada. The summer heat of coastal towns of Karnataka ensure that one stays out of the house, sweating yourself out in the sun is better than getting fried like jackfruit chips in a pan of coconut oil inside the four walls. Fit and fine, dhoti clad with a walking stick but very much unlike Gandhi, this man, my Eliya Ajja was a man of swear words. He would walk from one door to the other looking for something outside or eagerly waiting for someone to come. If we were at one door wanting to go out we would find him there, thinking of not to trouble him we would move to the other, lo and behold he would be standing there too tapping his walking stick on his shadow on the floor.

“Ajja!hopale daribidi” [Leave some place for us to go]we would tell.

“Acha bagilinda hogu”[Go through the other door] he would reply. 

Go to the other and he would be there again.

“Ajja!!!” we would scream our lungs out.

“Entha upadra ningaladu makale!“ [What trouble you give me kids!] he would shout back with a 'nayi inde mone' [son of a d** in Malayalam] and continue to stand there.

 Eliya Ajja strolling in the front yard

As far as I know Ajja was not much into reading and writing, knowledge during his days was beyond all that. So when I thought of letters and books of mysteries of life my ancestors have left me only one person came to my mind. And it had to be him, my Ajja, a man of shadows. There is this interesting story I have heard during night time from his dear wife, my Ajji with whom he has had the best of arguments and also his life. She would always add this nice prologue.

‘Aaaringu heleda!’ [Do not tell anyone!]

The story would then begin.

Dakshina Kannada is a land of ‘Adike Thota’ [areca nut farms]. Monsoon skies and greenery, mango trees and sunshine, peacock calls and tender coconut water, cashew fruits and small rivulets, ah! This experience deserves another post. Well Ajja being a farmer took the best care to ensure he had a decent crop every year. There were a couple of servants in the thota working for him; ‘Aalu’ as they are called, of course the caste system is now abolished. This incident was to do with one of them. Areca nut markets were in rich business during that time, and where there is money there is bound to be some theft.

On one dark night Ajja was out for his rounds guarding his thota with his ‘bedi’ [rifle].

Apparently he heard some movement, thinking it was a ‘kudka’ [wild fox]

who was a frequent visitor to his thota at night he pulled the trigger and fired a shot in the air. Far away, he heard a noise, like the deep ripping growl of a thunder. He walked some distance, after only a few lapsed heartbeats he understood someone was hurt and wailing. It was one of his ‘Aalu’ Rama, he was shot dead. Ajja thought he was probably there to steal some areca nuts like he had done previously, unfortunately it was his bad day and he paid a heavy price. Not knowing what to do Ajja pulled him into a cave, he hid his body behind the bushes and returned back home. The next day, Rama was not to be found anywhere and news spread. "Rama has run away to the ‘Ghattas’ " so people were told and thought, it usually happened with Aalus during those times, they would run away in search of work to the Western Ghats and beyond.

The story would end here, and life continued.

What Ajji narrated is something hard to believe. I wonder how much of this is true. Ajja was a hero definitely but how can anyone escape a murder even if it is accidental? Or is it possible for a man as frail as an old areca nut tree himself to do this?  Look at him, look at the picture. Can it be him? Did Rama really die? Or did he run away? This kind of furtiveness is interesting, it does not let me move on. It has been years now since I heard this story, as a child I did not think much of it. But when I visit my uncles at Eliya now, I think of whatever Ajji told me. In the lull of the noon when Ajja’s clock is ticking or when the rest of the house full of his children and their children are gorging on telavu [dosa made of rice batter] with kai[coconut] chutney or when the raindrops fall from the edge of the roof at night  I become aware of the voices coming from somewhere up. It feels like Ajja wants to tell me something.

I wish he wrote down something somewhere about what exactly happened, about Rama, about his escape and most importantly how did he feel about the entire incident. I wish there was a letter or a diary. Such thoughts compel me to search the atta[attic] or the old cupboards and trunks hoping that there is something. I do this every time even now whenever I visit Ajji mane. On the flipside I am sure Ajji is up there somewhere watching me and laughing ;-) After all what is life all about? You and your loved ones, little mysteries about each other, some truths and lies, some stories and experiences, some memories and moments, some learning and sharing, some love and hate, some satisfaction and guilt, sometimes just being there for each other and living your life to the fullest. I wish this was all in a letter or a book. Their funda of how they went about doing it so graciously along with raising nine children! That would definitely not be any cock and bull story. I would be the happiest if these beautiful mysteries are revealed and that would be my higher calling to follow and live by.

Love and miss you both, two of my most favorite people in this world.

The best love story is not about 

Romeo and Juliet who died together, 

but of Grandpa and Grandma 

who grew old together :-)

PS: I am participating in this creative activity organised by makers of The Path of Zarathustra in association with BlogAdda.

-R.