Book Review - Destiny's Girl by Adite Banerjie

Picture Credit HERE

Adite Banerjie’s debut Indie novel, Destiny’s Girl, is a flight of imagination that would appeal to every woman, who is fond of romantic novels, like Mills & Boon, which is built on a wild figment of imagination, mixed with large portions of love, desire, longing, and rejection, only to return back to Prince Charming in every one’s life.

Yet there is a fabulous plot built in it.

Krish is the only son of mega business tycoon, KD, the owner of DGE Group, which is in the business of hospitality. It also specializes in horticulture and the growth and export of the finest new and originally patented flowers which are grown in their hothouse. These flowers are boutique flowers and are only available with the DGE Group. 

Krish, who wants to break out on his own, has been subjugated to his father’s power and control. It is clear now, that he is on the verge of being traded as material for more wealth accumulation, when his father is about to announce the engagement between the DGE Group and Surya Mittal’s daughter Amisha, so that the two families could bring further wealth to DGE Group. Krish, has only a few hours to dismantle this plan. He must marry someone before this happens.

Come Maya, trained landscapist, working at Kavita Dayal’s Landscaping Outfit, is spotted by Krish and his loins signal that this is the girl Krish must have as his wife. She is invited to a party by DGE Group and meets Krish, whom she falls in love with. She is drawn into the plot and becomes ‘wife-in-contract-only with Krish, and must now live with him.

For Maya, it is an overwhelming condition. She has an ax to grind with Krish’s father, hence, her marriage to Krish only brings her close to her objective. The contract specifies that they will not be in each other’s arms and bed, but can that clause be maintained?

In a stunning display of mind and body entanglement, hot words and even fiery passionate love-making, Maya and Krish are going to make the reader blush and battle with emotions rising within themselves, as they read on.

Don’t miss, woman! Indulge yourself! While men may read to update themselves on what women really love when they are in bed or pursued hard to be taken to.

Well done Adite! Waiting to read your next hot stuff, with a great plot as Destiny’s Girl surely has.

About the Author: Adite Banerjie  is a journalist and lives with her husband in Delhi/NCR, India. She has been published by Harlequin/Harper Collins. She has a few books in progress and loves watching films, back-to-back. 

Book Review - Celebrating India Love without Borders

Picture Credit HERE

A maid falls in love with a blind man,
A bird falls in love with a kite
Monuments whisper love notes
and poetry that sings in the night

Separated lovers meet and unwind
A man searches virtually for another man

And many other stories and poetry
that leap borders of all kind.

These inspiring lines on the back cover pulled me like iron filings to a magnet to pick up this anthology of short stories and poems. Starting with Epileptic, Anita Desai’s beautiful short story of lovers who met in college and waited a long time to get married, Gulzar’s brilliant story of a bird that fell in love with a kite, the collection of 12 short stories and 17 poems are a delight to read, especially, because they are all about love in its different shades and colours. Untitled, a rainbow story, puts the ill conceived assumption that same sex love between men is all about sex only. Jatin Kubekar’s Tangled, is cute and shows how a helpful friend brings two shy of love people together. But when a fiercely independent woman, with a volatile temperament is mellowed by a man, eager to keep his tradition alive, Paulami DattaGupta, surprises us with how emotions mellow with companionship of two people quite different from each other. Closely following in the pursuit of intellectual partnerships resulting in love, is Githa Hariharan’s prose-poetry of an extraordinary story between a teacher of poetry and his student. 

But Kabita Sinha’s (1931 – 1998), perhaps deeply personal story is really one that touched my heart. So did, Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s Dismissal. There is something so personal in both these stories, they leave you to ponder long after you have put the book down.

The reason to read stories and poems, are many, but for me, it is this, this and only this – they keep the muse alive in me and my romance with the written word, short, crisp and continuous, like, as if I was entering the minds of different people for a short time and moving to the next set of people. The poems, ignite my thirst for the muse, who for long has not visited my ‘home & hearth’ – my mind.

The collection of poems, are inspiring too and the choices vast, but in all, it is all about love. In my former review HERE, I found some poems repeated here as well, but some were brilliant and original.

Marriage Vessel by Pratima Ray
Her youth spills over as the sun strikes her

Cheeks and is reflected back.
Her Marriage mark’s vermillion smeared from

Her brow back of the crown of her head.
The mango-leaf veil pulled down to her nose as if
she’s some silenced empress.

But what really stole my heart was Fire, by Taslima Nasrin! But for that, dear reader, you will have to wait until tomorrow.

There is one poem, I wish was not included in this collection. And that is The Tamilian. Really, no matter how you look at it, it is racist and distasteful, even though the northerner, Anjali Khurana, finally falls in love with the Tamilian. 

You might like to Get Your Copy Now from HERE

Old wine tastes sweet, sometimes.

Visiting a place you have left behind or people you are no more in daily contact with, because they are no more a part of your life, causes both a feeling of happiness as well as sadness. Let me explain.

Many moons ago, I came to stay in a city which was buzzing with life. Over the years, it made me, molding me from raw and ready clay to a finished good ready to take on the world. The city was Bombay.

I can’t say I was ever in love with the city – who can really be, if you have come from the laid back life of a small town, picturesque and beautiful. Yet, the cement blocks of which I was going to see a lot in later years as well, grew in me and the people became my family. Yes, they say, in Bombay, you do not need your family; your neighbours make up for your family.

After thirteen years, I escaped to another place, close to Bombay, where the quality of life resembled what I had left behind, long ago. So, why did I return to Bombay after eight years out of it?

I longed to be in the hustle bustle of daily life, waking up at 5 am to take a train at 7 am to reach my work place at 9 am! Five years and I was done.

One day, I sat and calculated the number of hours I was on the road and it worked out to be like this: Out of 12 months in a year, I was only living 8, because the rest of the time I was travelling! It hit me like a bolt from the sky and I said to myself – Hey! I am not going to live like this anymore.

Just at that time, love came knocking at my door and I opened it to find that I was already flying out to another place, a place I was going to call my home.

Fifteen years in one place, changes you, for better or for worse. But it has contributed more to me than I can measure. Delhi is my jaan, my love, my life now.

Returning to Bombay, only recently, I realized that I was tremendously happy to be there and it almost seemed that I would return, just like I had many years ago, after living 8 years in a place which gave me, ease and a good lifestyle.  But early came a few warnings!

Friends and family I left behind years ago, were lukewarm.  They were also busy – Still! Even over the weekend, they did not have the time to meet. I understood! Isn't Bombay the place, where you promise to meet friends almost every week but can make it only once every other year? So why blame them; I am forgotten not because there is a problem with me, but because, life is so fast, it is like the old cassette we used to have, where you overwrite and everything is wiped out. So too me.

And there were a few new associations which were so warm and welcoming that I almost stayed behind. But good providence and past experience warned me of the devil within and the carrot that always hangs before a donkey, before it makes another enormous mistake!

I think that creative upheaval is a very positive thing and it pushes you beyond yourself to achieve new dimensions. This is exactly my point of view why I upturned my life so many times for a new place where I could start from scratch once again. But this time, I was shy of it.

It is indeed hard to create your stability with a city. It takes years to do it. And once it is cemented, then, it is foolish to ruffle up everything and start all over again.

There might be a home for me out there, but really Bombay, I am done with you and while I enjoyed my years with you, indeed, you are only old wine that tastes sweet, sometimes.

Photo credit HERE  

Fake or feminist?

Amrita Dasgupta & Anjanava Maitra

Long absences make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes they provide the much needed respite from the monotony of things around you and thrust you to a world where, everything is different. For me, this time, both were true.

Whenever I am asked, where I am from, I find it difficult to answer the question. How do you explain to people you feel you belong to the world, when actually all they mean to ask is, where do you come from, now. To answer their question, a reluctant Delhi slips through my mouth. How do you explain where you feel closest to your heart to live in?  

On most days, I live in cyberspace and not in any terrestrial space, although I occupy one. My world consists of people, I may have never met in my life and yet, I am deeply connected with them. Also most of them are now in two distinct categories – writers and activists apart from clients on my list of Facebook friends and LinkedIn connects. Sadly, of these, there are a few I have given more of my heart to, than I have received in return. Yet, I know, that they are instrumental to keeping me in my heart space, one which we take for granted at most times. The heart sutra for me is distilled in a few words, loving, forgiving, accepting the other for what they are and expanding my horizon and inner space to receive. In that sense, they give and I take.

Taking a break from the mundane and leaving the cyber world for the territorial, is a welcome change, when one connects with the real.

Marriages, they say are made in heaven, but they happen in the world of matter. An elaborate Bengali marriage, running into days, of fun, food, laughter and joy of two persons and families coming together, can be a burst of many wonderful colours and hopes and blessings. It is in order – patriarchal, heterosexual and the union is expected to bring forth one or two off springs which will then bring forth more happiness and joy around the couple and their families.

We did not grow up together, her mother and I, although we were cousin sisters. We lived in two different places, she in Kolkata and I in Shillong. It was after almost sixteen years of not seeing each other, that I in 1996, took a break to visit Kolkata. It was truly like meeting my extended family for the first time. There I met my niece, the one who just got married, sitting between two of her cousin brothers, the now very tall and handsome, boys, Shiba and Trishul. They were huddled together watching TV, although I suspect they were watching me, the alien animal from some other planet, supposed to be their mothers’ sister!

It all began then! The childhood memories of playing house, hiding under the bed, all three of us, Didibhai, Dadabhai and I, came back to memory, like a fresh water bath under the spring. I remember spending long stretches of time at their home, playing doll, going to the pattshala (informal school) where Dadabhai and I always sat on the floor at the back and talked, and talked, and talked! It has never been the same after that visit, 17 years ago.

Kolkata dawned to me, when these emotions returned. I suspect my love for Kolkata has nothing to do with returning to my roots, for mine are really in Shillong, but the pure love of connecting to my beloveds, my brothers and sisters, my mamas (maternal uncles) and mashis (maternal aunts) and their progeny.

Isn't it strange that I may hold out against patriarchy, the institution of marriage and uphold the rights of an autonomous human being, but when it comes to those my emotions are invested in, I am rarely ever militant about it?

So am I a fake or a feminist? These lovely pictures of the marriage, should tell.

Photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/104945942208268843925/albums/5956852050773050257?authkey=CJq0n9DvqNONGQ

Nee… / நீ…You...

Nee...lyrics by Aisoorya Vijayakumar

Nee…You!

With your coming
the pain sleeping in my eyelids
has subsided.
The little plant hiding in the seed
has sprung up to meet the sky.
My heart has come alive
with our relationship.

My eyes have opened
with ecstasy
Surprise, shock
laughter, goose bumps
admiration sparkle
in these eyelids.

In the screaming mind
loneliness persisted
but emerging from behind the curtain today
the frozen, cold moments sped away
the heavy burden days disappeared.

Half comfort
half happiness
thus, surprise
laughing
smiling
Goosebumps
admiring
In these eyelids

(is)You!

Rough translation/transcreation Julia Dutta & Kanchana Natarajan

Credit:

http://coffeebeanzone.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/nee-%E0%AE%A8%E0%AF%80/

More lyrical scribbles:

http://coffeebeanzone.wordpress.com/rhythm-and-reason/

Note: I wish to thank Coffeebeanzone for the permission to reproduce the song here with its translation from Tamil to English for a wider audience. I would like to admit, that the song has haunted me for the last one month so much, and evoked the transcendental in me, so much so, I could have left the world and gone up to the Himalayas for good, if not for you, dear reader, who dwells in my heart and for whom, I write my blog. Thank you all for listening, reading and your silent appreciation, which continue to show in the stats :)

Some Day

Some Day
I thought I would tell you some day

The vacant spaces
In my house
Is full of memories….

Each object lies
In exactly the same spot
As you left it
When last you visited
What together we called
Our home…..

Yet,
If anyone were to ask me
If the rising sun
The hazy morn
Or even a walk
On the dew-wet grass
Reminded me of you

I would draw a blank.

For in the swans
The squirrels
The puppies nestled close to their mother
I feel the warmth
I have known so intimately….

Yet,
Whenever an object you left
Is moved even a centimetre
From where you placed it
When last you visited our home
Or the sun is invisible
Hiding behind the mist
Or the clouds
I feel restless
Impatient
Agitated
Irritable
Anxious…..

I lose my centre
I am lost.

Yet,
If anyone were to ask me
If I remember you
Sometimes? …..Ever?

I would draw a blank.


-Julia A.Dutta