Monsoon Memories

Sometimes the hardest journeys are the ones that lead you home…..What a nice subtitle!

A child’s playful act of pretending to be a Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew or a Hardy boy turns out to reveal to her a mystery of the past….of her past

Reena finds a picture in her family album..a lost forgotten hidden picture.. containing three people…..her father whom she knew very well…..her aunt who was also close to her……and a 3rd girl…who looked so much like her…someone whom she has never met before

The picture drives Reena to find out the mystery behind this photograph and the missing person. What was expected to be just a hunt for the missing aunt revealed a tragic past…..a past with secrets unknown to anyone….a past that was meant to change the present as well….So what does Reena discover?

Doesn Reena meet that missing aunt? Does she perform her act as a detective well?

This book takes us to England and also covers many parts of India..One will enjoy at how the author has beautifully drawn and described India with her words, an India with all it’s cultural values…an India with so many varieties of food…An India that one can never forget no matter which part of the world you settle down in.

When a character in the novel returns to India from England it gave me a sense of relief…a feeling that anyone at an onsite craving to return to India might have…

Encourage anyone who reads this review to read the book and enjoy what I enjoyed

Mahashweta

India is one place where people have certain specific mind sets about certain things. People with diseases, disabilities, disorders are looked down and treated badly. The look of the society will literally kill a differently abled/sick person. Vitiligo/leukderma is a skin issue of one sort where people develop white patches in their skin due to certain deficiencies. This is not a disease that can spread or affect others but little do we know of it.

This story revolves around one such beautiful girl Anupama. Anupama was like any one of us who always dreamt of a fairy tale wedding and her prince charming. She found her prince in Dr.Anand(a DOCTOR) and had a happy wedding. She started living her fairy tale dream when everything around crashed when she found a white patch in her leg..It was the beginning of Leukoderma. Leukoderma considered a curse in India….Anupama faced hell in her family, amoung her relatives and in-laws. Rejection clouded her and led her to end her life….So did she end her life?

Who then is Dr.Vasanth. Does Anupama overcome her suicidal instinct or does she succumb to it? So is this what every leukoderma person faces in life?

Author Sudha Murthy has beautifully portrayed the problems faced by such people because of our society and how one can deal with it. Read the book to understand more….

The mother I never knew

Did the title of the book inspire me or the author??

I was listening to many speeches given by this profound author and totally insipred by her simplicity, her character, her humility and Sudha Murthy as a person. A strong lady behind the success of a great man in the IT industry. I wanted to know more about her writings and that is when my friends presented me with a bunch of her books and what more would someone like me read.

“The mother I never knew”…we all have mothers whom we know from our birth, have seen her for a life time and been with her or rather she has been with us in every walk of our life. What if there was a secret behind this very thing.

My reading journey thus began! I travelled into the lives of two men who had secrets behind their mothers and were on a quest to find them.

Venkatesh, a bank manager is wrongly identified as someone else in a place where he was visiting. Please call him and identify him with a different master’s name and Venkatesh is totally confused. Is this a mistake or is there a real master who looks like him? Venkatesh discovers then that there is a someone who looks just like him. How could this possibly be?

He later understands that his father had a wife and a son whom he had deserted long back and that his mother was the second wife. Why did his fatehr do this? What was the motive behind all of this? Was he born to a father who was immoral?

Another story unfolds…Mukesh a man from a very well know family finds out that he did not belong to the family at all. He was an adopted child. Heartbroken, Mukesh sets out to find his biological mother. He discovers the reason behind his adoption, his biological mother and all associated facts. So did he abandon the parents who brought him up to the man he is today and go with his biological mother?

Read this book to find out more…Books with very simple English and beautifully written. The author has proven that she is truly a woman of simplicity but such high standards in her books and writings too.

 

Tea for two and a piece of cake

Should a married woman with 2 children live a life totally devastated and secluded because her husband abandoned her??? If I see it with the ‘cultural eye’ it is so correct. If I see it with a liberated eye…doesn’t seem all that wrong…Does it??
In this story is a woman Nisha  whose husband has walked out of the marriage and called it quits because he has lost interest in the wife and the marriage. Nisha is totally broken but decides to fight her way out for her sake and her kids sake. In this journey she meets Akash a much younger guy but one who loves her so truly and is willing to go to any distance for her.

Does Nisha give “love” a second chance? Does Akash win over her heart? Is Nisha bound to traditions and decides to lose her life? You got to read the book to feel how beautifully Preeti Shenoy has taken the story forward. Thanks to my colleague Sudarkodi for lending me this book.

The Wedding

Does love cease after years and years of married life? This must be a question for many of us who are married for quite sometime. I have wondered the same at times too. Life when you are in love is different than that compared to the one after marriage. When 2 people who were once apart longing to be together, start living together all the time, seeing each other most of the times, there is a feeling deep inside the heart that love their love has started decreasing or ceasing. The times the love for one another is expressed openly reduces and the hugging, missing & saying ‘I Love You’ or ‘I Miss You’ reduces and these might be reasons for such a feeling to arise deep down in the heart.

This book sure is an eye opener to such thoughts!

Wilson & Jane have been married for 30 years and Wilson has started to feel that his marriage has lost it’s romance & passion. He has to face this hard truth. Jane has somehow started falling apart and he feels it is all his fault. He has been too busy at work and has hardly spent time with his family. the responsibility of raising up their 3 children has been Jane’s completely. Now when his daughter is about to get married, Wilson somehow feels his wife wants to quit this relationship and he has decided to do everything to save their marriage.

Deep down in his heart Wilson’s love for Jane has grown over the years but it is just that expressions have become less. He decides to re-take their marriage vows and save his marriage and prove to his wife that he is just the same guy with whom she had fallen in love with 30 years ago.

There sure is an element of surprise that is revealed at the very end of the story which completely sweeps you off your feet and make you wonder. When I read this book little did I know that the story could take such a twist and end up this way. Read more to know more….A wonderful romantic mystery awaits within the pages of this book.

A must read for those who feel their marriage lacks its essence and for those women who feel at times that their men do not know how to express their love for them.

Can you keep a secret?

Imagine sharing all your secrets…your deepest innermost secrets/thoughts with someone by accident and that person! When you realize that you have blabbered it all by mistake you would surely wish and pray that you never meet that person again in all your life…I would if it were me. He comes into your life as your boss on one fine day….what else could be horrible than that…

Can you keep a secret is all about Emma who is put up on an air travel with someone unknown beside her. A turbulence occurs during this journey and Emma is distraught. Fear opens up her mouth and her heart. She starts blurting out her inner most secrets about herself, what she thought about people in her life, people around her and everything that she din’t want anyone to know. When the turbulence comes to a close halt she gets to realize that she made a mistake. But she cared the least because she was sure that he was a total stranger and she would never get to meet him later on.

Little did Emma realize that ‘the world is just a circle’ as the popular saying goes. She gets to see the same man who sat next to her in the plane and imagine….he is her BOSS. Oh my!!!!  I was thrilled and literally laughing at all the instances Emma had to face after that. Every day was an event to be marked. Following that is a set of life changing experiences for Emma and her life transforms…

Read this book to know more……and be sure to keep your secrets locked in that secret chamber in your heart 😉

The power of a PRAYING WIFE

“Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. – Proverbs 31: 10-12(from the best book on earth The Bible)

This is how the book started. I felt so proud as I read this verse thinking how proud my husband must be to have discovered a virtuous wife. As I read through chapters in the book I discovered how much I lacked and how much I must improve myself as a Godly wife.

This is one of Stormie Omartian’s best selling books and one of my favorite books too. Many a times women pray asking God to change their husbands but we just don’t realize that the change must begin in us. The author clearly states that this book is not to take control over your husband but laying us down at the Lord’s feet and be transformed into that perfect wife God wants us to be as described in the Bible.

Divorce has become very common these days. In a society were women are becoming equal to men, women feel they have every right to put their foot down and say it “I have my own rights. I do not have to be your servant or rather subdue myself to you”. This does not work in a marriage. God has called us  women to obey our husbands, to respect them, value them, value their thoughts ideas and love them unconditionally just as the Lord loves us. This does not happen unless we realize who we are as women and what purpose God has placed in our lives. The more we change the change automatically happens on the other end too. So rest assured!

This book has been a very powerful instrument in shaping me and helping me understand my husband better. I do not say I am a 100% perfect wife..but am trying to be and I am sure I will be that wife that God wants me to be

This book will surely bring forth a growth, renewal and a restoration in one’s marriage. Whoever is reading this post I encourage you to get a copy of this book and go on and read it.

 

The Torn Veil

Gulshan Esther a Pakistani girl who grew up in a strict family, imprisoned by many facts in her life and above all struck with a crippled leg. Her father’s search for her cure brought her to England. Doctors offered her hopes only in prayers but could do nothing about her circumstances. Her trip to Mecca also becomes fruitless. Desperate, Gulshan cries out for help and she hears a still soft voice telling her that He was the Son of Mary and will never leave her alone. Gulshan receives healing and what happens thereafter is the story. How she faces her family, how her family members are convinced, does Gulshan succeed are all answered in this book.

This book was a WOW..amazing life of a lady and her bold step towards faith inspired me. How the Lord walks with her through her journey of faith is something to be noted.

Read on and post your comments too

The Notebook

An amazing book which inspired me to watch the movie and of course an amazing movie too. Both the book and the movie made me cry. It will surely change one’s perspective towards the very emotion called LOVE.

Love was always a youth thing portrayed in books and movies but this story changed my perspective towards love. The book starts with two old people, the lady suffering from Alzheimer’s and the old man with arthritis and his own deteriorating health. He reads a story to the woman of a young couple aged 19 & 15 who fell in love, a summer love which is eventually expected to fade away as summer fades. So what happens to their love? The girl was from a wealthy family and this guy a commoner. Needless to say such love stories rarely survive.

So what happens here…did they succeed? That was the story this old man narrated to the lady. So who are these two old people? Does this lady ever remember what this man was narrating? Does a miracle happen here? All these were my questions when i read through few chapters. Each page unravelled a beautiful day of summer love.

You have to read the book to know the ending! I just do not want to write the ending here and break the suspense. One thing i can tell..this is one marvelous love story proving that love has no age, intimacy knows no bounds, an old couple can after all rekindle the spark within them again and that sparkle in their eyes when they met each other remains the same in 20’s and 70’s too…A perfect book with a perfect ending!

My Encounter with Truth

This book was presented to me by a college friend whom hubby and I met after so many years at his store’s book exhibition. It was lying in my shelf for a long time until one day…

A biography of Pandit Dharm Prakash Sharma, a child born in Fatehpurjail to parents actively involved in the freedom struggle. He was raised my Mahatma Gandhi. He was also the son of a chief priest in Pushkar temple.

Young Dharam was raised in a society filled with religions and gods and he was someone who questioned the very existence of God, who is God and how he could find a God.

This story moved me in many ways. Dharm had grown to know the existence of a true Saviour. He had married a girl who used to come in his dreams. This very girl had proved to be a symbol of Christian love and had lived like Christ himself. her love for Christ and her devotion towards her husband changed Dharm’s life in return. In a society where girls these days live a life equal to boys and where many wives fail to respect their husbands this story was indeed an eye opener to me.

Read this book to find out more about Dharm and his encounter with the truth