Book Review: The Ray Synchronicity By Lata Sony

For someone, whose reading is limited to nonSci – Fi, Lata Sony’s debut novel, The Ray Synchronicity was a challenge to begin with, but within the first four chapters, I began to understand that I had something right up my street on my Kindle. The reason being, as I said elsewhere too, the book is designed to be read by people who have hope in a better future ahead, made possible by Science. I began to consume it like a hungry reader who cannot find time, even to eat, because, the book is so fulfilling.

It is not as if, there is a sermon on the Kindle waiting there for the reader to embrace, but clearly, the insights into human nature and the creation of people whom you meet on a daily basis now, on planet transformed into beings you will want to embrace, The Ray Synchronicity, is all about realizing your potential, herenow, if you want to, although the book is placed in 2039. Events are even taking place in 2550! So for the reader, it is a jump into the future even as they read today.

What I liked about the book is its flirtation with spirituality and making the ‘other-worldly’ a very worldly phenomenon. Especially in Chapter 4, I almost hoped I was a scientist myself.

I would easily put this book among the vast million books available for man’s hunger for a better world, although there is no great self-search to do, only awesome Bio-Ray guns to adopt, which convert negative to positive energy, right away! The book is replete with suspense and conflict that adds to the speed of a racy read.

In her interview with Techgoss.com, the author reiterated that she thought that India needs more spiritual sci-fi, because India’s urban and rural are in that point of time, where the traditional and the modern are coming together.

Perhaps the solutions are deeply embedded in The Ray Synchronicity. 

Go for It!

Buy HERE

Interview with the author, Lata Sony

Q 1. Thank you for speaking to me, Ms Sony. My first question to you is, how do you think the world will change/transform spiritually, going by the ideas you put forth in your book?

‘Transforming the world’ sounds very grand and ambitious and I don’t think any book can do that by itself. What a book may do is give words to a reader’s personal experiences and feelings, provide an explanation or confirmation and that may click for someone who is ripe for transformation.

However, to the question if there was a spiritual motive behind the story, then yes there was. Several, in fact. The first objective was to let readers know that there are energies beyond our knowledge and imagination and our physical vision. Like me many have experienced these energies. Some who have had near-death-experiences have even seen their entire physical body (and other bodies) as an energy matrix.

The second objective was to help readers imagine how cosmic energies might work to shape your life. I have put this in a very simplified form by personifying energies and Time. The logic being that the powers that control human emotions and traits could very well be just as good and bad as humans. Our creations reflect us after all.

The third objective was to help readers see how the essence of any religion may be interpreted in terms of energies. This is the common platform where the foundation for real unity between religions, between tradition and modernity, and between spirituality and science can be built.

Q2: Do you think your book has the potential to affect change in human thought and behaviour?

Yes I think so. As the title suggests, the book is about a synchronicity created by higher powers. A couple of readers told me that they had begun to see a pattern in their life after reading the book. Once a person is aware of the patterns in their life, they can realize their full potential by finding answers to: Why do these things happen to me? What were the external factors that made me what I am? What internal changes should I make to counter those external influences? Do I take my limitations too seriously? How can I solve problems through love and intelligence? What should I feel grateful about? Who are the people I should forgive? What do I do to love myself more?

In its core, the book is really about the struggle between the internal you and the external you made from worldly circumstances. And the transformation is about going back to what you were meant to be, and what you really are rather than what the world makes you.

Q3: In which case, who is your target audience?

Honestly, that’s something I haven’t figured out. Just as the book defies categorization as it has elements of spiritualism, sci-fi, romance and thriller, the ideal audience for this book defies classification. Originally, I started with Young Adult as the target audience as I felt that youngsters may be more open to something new. But it turned out that people across all age groups liked it. At the same time, those who expected Dan Brown like science-fiction were disappointed with the first few pages. Some continued till the end and discovered that this was something new and fresh. I think the people who were most enthusiastic about the book were either spiritually-inclined or with some idea of metaphysics. On the other hand, this book is not at all for people who have dogmatic and rigid views about their religion.

Q4: How are you marketing your book to reach your audience?

As of now, I am more interested in reviews and have put my best efforts during free promos. I search for sites that promote free ebooks and request each site to feature my book. This is quite a painstaking process. In the future, I’ll consider paid marketing to make the book more visible when I have two more books ready. Investing in three books brings the best ROI per the pundits of book marketing.

Thank you, Ms Sony! Wish your book finds wings across the globe and may your keyboard keep clicking!

Book Review: The Temple Is Not My Father by Rasana Atreya

The oldest profession in the world prostitution, takes on a serious side in India, when one reads cases and books on what is called the devadasi system in India, which is rooted in religion. In Rasana Atreya’s new Novelette, The Temple Is Not My Father, the reader encounters the shocking realities of how, the system is both used and abused by bigoted family instruments which can bring up an immense amount of anger towards those, who force women to corners of society, where life is but a bleak existence of no hope.

Godavari, named after a river in India, is the third daughter of parents who have had five daughters, which in itself is ominous, because, only a son is an auspicious addition to a family. She has been sold at seven to the temple by her father, where like many devadasis in India, is wedded to Goddess Yellamma. Frequented by one after another man, on a daily basis, she becomes pregnant and bears a baby girl, Sreeja. Godavari’s mother has shown much resistance to this, but with an adamant husband to manage, she has lost to him. But, she decides not to allow, the plight of her daughter to be repeated with her granddaughter. By willing all her wealth to Godavari, she has raised the wrath of all her children, including her son, who ought to have inherited the wealth of his mother. Shunned by family except a single sister, Krishna, Godavari lives a solitary life with her daughter, in a house inherited from her mother.

Soon, their solitary life is interjected by two delightful girls, Neeraja and Vanaja, who have been sent by their chastity-obsessed parents living in the US to India, to live and study with their grandmother, for fear that the girls now coming of age may give in to poor moral standards existing in the US, and date and mate with boys! A great relief for Sreeja, daughter of Godavari, the little girl begins to know the value of friendship, with the two girls and also learn from them. But their grandmother is not happy at the association and stops the girls from coming. When finally they are able to break loose, it is only to tell Godavari that they would be sent away to boarding school so that they can be kept away from social outcasts like Godavari and little Sreeja. This is a blow to Godavari.

In the mean time, before the two girls leave, an NGO run by Asha garu takes little Sreeja away from her mother, and gives her for adoption, so that Sreeja can have a normal life, ands not as a shunned by society, uneducated daughter of a devadasi. This breaks Godavari’s heart but she survives the pain by focussing on changing her life too. She too joins an NGO and begins to learn computer and is guided into a life of saving children from prostitution. This is how she meets Raji, who is mimed from the torture of being given to prostitution at the age of seven. It takes Godavari three years to make the girl speak even a single sentence.

The book ends with a typical Rasana Atreya sign off – a tremendous twist in the story most readers would never have imagined in their wildest dreams.

Tibor Jones Asia Prize nominee, 2012, Rasana Atreya, is not only a story teller par excellence now. She is a Brand. She writes stories from the heart of India based on social structure that continues to exist despite its urbanization. She is disturbed by this and no reader can put her book down without feeling waves of disturbance themselves. Her writings rise the bile in your belly and make you want to go and change the system and yet, it is true, that perhaps those who stand to protect us, actually are the perpetrators themselves. Whether, it is The Temple is Not My Father, or her book which was nominated for the Tibor Jones Asia Prize, Tell A Thousand Lies, Rasana Atreya, jars you to sit up and think.

And the twists and turns of her stories are at once, a great art in story telling at the same time, very natural to Rasana Atreya as an author and a Brand.

You can read her book, by downloading it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Temple-Not-My-Father-Story-ebook/dp/B00LQE95FU

Book Review - Tibor Jones Nominee 2012, Tell a Thousand Lies

Tell a Thousand Lies by Rasana Atreya

On the face of it, it is the story of what almost every Indian is obsessed with, marriage and the colour of the skin.

Three girls, Malli and her twin sisters Lata and Pullamma are orphaned and brought up by their grandmother, Ammamma, with meager means until they reach the marriageable age when alliances must be made, paying dowry, bride price. This is Mallepalli Village, June 1995.

When a suitable boy is found for Lata, her twin Pullamma, taller and of darker skin is all helpful to ensure that the boys family does like Lata and takes her for their daughter-in-law, even though, Lata, the smartest of all the three sisters, actually wants to study to be a doctor. Malli has been sent away, in order to ensure that she is not seen by the boy’s family, while Pullamma, serves to make them happy. Alas, the dowry asked for is too high and while the possible alliance comes to naught, Lata, does the dreadful, in the hope of escaping her lot and the village, by having the unmentionable, sex and pregnancy thereafter, with a petty worker from the city who promises to marry her, but escapes.

In the meantime, central to the story is the politician, Kondal Rao, who holds the lives of the girls, their grandmother and twists and turns around these lives to help him achieve his end, that being winning the elections and a seat in the state government. Using Pullamma for his political benefit, he turns her life from a simple dark faces girl to a goddess, who becomes, even to her own refusal to enact the part, the local goddess, who is believed to create miracles. The fantastic turn of events is intersected often and again, by Pullamma attempts to return to a normal life and escape the village to do so. This comes true when Kondal Rao’s nephew marries her and takes her away to Hyderabad, where she is far from the milieu of her ‘abnormal’ life as a goddess. But not for long; the evil hands of Kondal Rao are too long and soon she is discovered and brought back to the village to feed the indeed, blind faith of the human crowd surrounding her, who most certainly will vote for Kondal Rao, because, he supports their mass obedience to Pullamma. By now, pregnant, Pullamma, finds her life managed once again by the powerful politician when he casts her away in a remand home for women, where Pullamma is to come across a doctor, with a broken life just like hers and who then helps her to escape once again to Bangalore. It has come with a tremendous price though, as Pullamma is told that she has given birth to a still born baby girl, when actually her boy child, born, healthy has been taken away and given off to a couple, who is dearest to Pullamma’s heart, closer than her own shadow, but she is not aware of it. Full of twists and turns, surprises, betrayal, benevolence and life changing events, Rasana Atreya has managed to weave a tale that keeps you hooked to the book, till the end. It plays out common daily happenings, which go as normal in our daily lives, but can be termed as sibling jealousy, and the surprising length it can go to, to destroy lives, especially when there is an unscrupulous politician who is ready to use every opportunity to his end.

Fear not reader, the expert story teller, whose book became the nominee for The Tibor Jones Asia Prize 2012, does not leave her readers high and dry. At the end, having waded through much mucky water that life lays out, the reader finds that the author has tied up the book nicely when all question marks are erased and the heart forgives the characters who wronged each other. Except Kondal Roa, who is now a Member of Parliament (MP) for his state. And if Pullamma had lost a lot, she has also received a lot more in life and finally, she does come around to be the winner, despite the colour of her skin, which is dark.

There are a few points that leave you to think about, after you have put your Kindle down – first, has the author, tried to prove that the colour of the skin for marriageable girls does not matter, because Pullamma does get it all, despite her struggles, loss, grief and misery. In which case, it is heart warming, to know that the great Indian obsession has been dealt a blow.

Second, the fantastic turn of events making Pullamma a goddess in the village at one time and over many other times and her escape to normal life, albeit aided by her husband and his mother, happens too often and one wonders how, the protagonist was able to keep the dual life on for long durations, easily falling into and out of it, with that much ease.

One also wonders from the feminist angle, that if Pullamma, could be considered to be the epitome of what feminists hunger for, a woman who has been able to break away from the shackles of a society driven by colour of skin, bride price, narrow mindedness, traditional conservative homes, why should such a woman hunger for her husband, child, and still worry about the colour of her own skin at times. But then, you realize, she is only Indian and no matter, how far she has travelled in her own journey, the core, values, remain the same.

The nuggets of wisdom spread across the books are eternal – the smart ones don’t always shine out in life; bad days are not forever; behind every cloud, there is a silver lining; keep out of the two Ps – police and politicians. And, many more.

A book based in India, where the language, used is thick with the flavor of ‘local’ fragrance in the use of the English language. And hence, very sweet!

Buy: On Kindle Rs 99, Paperback: Rs 918

http://www.amazon.in/Tell-Thousand-Lies-Rasana-Atreya-ebook/dp/B007IX6W8Q

About the author Rasana Atreya:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rasana