Book Review #97: White Clouds, Green Mountains By Ruskin Bond

Title: White Clouds, Green Mountains

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Short Memoir/Short Stories

Pages: 135 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced review copy from publishers

Ruskin Bond is a master story teller. When it comes to capturing the essence of nature and beautifying it exceptionally through writings, then, Ruskin Bond tops that list. He wrote an excellent collection of stories that describes the vast range of North Eastern region. This book mainly has the stories of nature, mountains, rivers, animals, birds, rains, snow capped mountains, etc… Author also dwells little into his personal details by writing two short stories on his adopted family and penned few pages describing his life along with them.

The book “White Clouds, Green Mountains” describes the stories of author’s sojourn in his hometown Mussoorie and his stay at various places surrounding this area. His encounters with the nature, the birds, and the animals are a treat to read from this book. The book has a collection of over 10 different stories that describes the nature, animals and birds.

A story that titled “Songs of the Whistling Thrush”, in which, the author speaks about a bird that has made its nest next to his bedroom window. He has seen this bird perched on his window and singing the sweetest whistles. As the days passed by, he sees the bird has formed its nest near the window and there are three eggs of that bird. Amused at the sight of it, author exclaims in jubilation saying, what if all these birds (young ones and old ones) started to sing in next few days, and for sure he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his writings.

Another story that titled “Travels with my Bank Manager”, in which, the author writes about his experiences with his Bank Manager Ohri, who takes the author on a surprise trips across the valley to see some rare birds and animals. Though the author always finds these trips as tiresome, but he seems to enjoy a lot. He hasn’t forgotten to mention an embarrassing event where they had to eat Dog biscuits in order to satiate their hunger, when they were out of town and stuck in the middle of the forest.

In one of the stories that titled “The Kipling Road”, author finds the traces of the route that was long used by another famous writer Rudyard Kipling that visited Mussoorie a few years back. He got the leads from his friends from abroad regarding the Kipling’s visit to his town.

Describing his personal family details, author has penned a story that titled “And Now We Are Twelve”. Author gives us a brief account of his adopted family and fair share of their names. He also mentions about his grandsons with whom the author had shared a special camaraderie.  He also mentions about the places they have lived along all these years and the houses they have shifted, the female members of the family, the male members, the kids and toddlers with whom he has lived all these years and grown old with them.

We will also get to read some other interesting stories from the book such as The School among the Pines, The Night the Roof Blew Off, The Last Truck Ride, In Search of the Sweet Peas, White Clouds, Green Mountains, etc… overall, a nice collection of short stories along with some personal details of the author. Not a recommending material, but worth the time pass.

My Rating:

3/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review

Book Review #96: A Song of Many Rivers By Ruskin Bond

Title: A Song of Many Rivers

Author: Ruskin Bond

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Pages: 132 (Paperback)

Genre: Short Stories

Source: Advanced review copy from Publisher

Ruskin Bond’s books are always a treasure of experiences. The little amusements of life is captured luminously by the author. Ruskin Bond is able to strike a chord with his readers with another book that speaks about the vast range of North Eastern culture, atmosphere, rivers, forests, mountains and the mighty Himalayas of India. This book is not a regular Ruskin Bond’s ghost stories collection. This book covers the aspect beyond his regular flavor. This book contains the vivid details of rivers, mountains, forests, rains, etc…

A Song of Many Rivers is the first short travelogue of the author where he spent some quality time travelling the important rivers and shrines in the Northern India. This particular short story captures the vivid niceties of the rivers like Alakananda, Ganga, Bhagirathi, Yamuna, Jamuna, Suswa, Rudraprayaga, Nandaprayag, and such several places. Author not only explains the exquisiteness and tranquility of these rivers, but also includes the historical background of these important rivers. Especially, the story of the river Bhagirathi and how it merges with the river Ganga and what was the story behind it.

Further reading into the book, we get to read few more, yet interesting stories like the Wilson’s Bridge, From the Pool to the Glacier, Ganga Takes it All, Angry River and so on.

Wilson’s Bridge is an interesting tale narrated by the author when he visited the village called Harsil, situated near the banks of river Bhagirathi on the way towards the Hindu piligrimage, Gangotri in Uttarakashi. The story revolves around a person called Wilson and his wife Gulabi. The local folklore has believed that, Gulabi, the wife of Wilson has committed suicide by jumping off the bridge that Wilson has constructed many years ago, citing the reason that Wilson is cheating on her by having an illicit relationship with another woman. The interesting part is, still people would see Gulabi at night near the bridge as a ghost jumping into the river sometimes.  Author also narrates his own experience of seeing this woman. The tales ends on a tragic note and we witness a young wife of a person committing suicide that toured along with the author and his team.

From the Pool to the Glacier is the tale of author’s childhood. He along with his two other friends discovers a pool near his house. They feel elated by the sight of it, as they thought they were the first to discover this trail of water. So, it happened one day that, they all decide to visit a glacier in Himalayas. They took the help of a Sherpa boy called Bisnu. They trek their way towards the glacier and had the best experience of their lifetime. The narration of the vast beauty of the Himalayas should be savored by reading this story.

The most interesting story in the book is the Angry River. This is the story of a girl called Sita that lives on an island along with her Grandfather and Grandmother. They have little livestock and few hen birds to support their daily breadwinning. It so happened one day, when Sita’s grandmother fell ill and had to rush to the hospital down the hill. Her grandfather decides to take his wife to the hospital and warned Sita that a possible flood might happen as it was raining heavily. As expected, the same night when Sita’s grandfather left for the hospital, there was heavy downpour and the island village started to submerge in the torrential rain. Sita decides to follow the instructions given to her by her grandfather. First, she climbs rooftop to avoid the flood. When the water reached the roof level, she climbs on to a Peepal tree, and hoped for the best. As it was destined for the worst, the tree also started to bend towards the water. As a miracle, Sita was saved by a boy called Krishan. Soon after all the floods have subsided and she reconciled with her grandfather, she longed to see this boy and kept looking at the Flute that boy has given to her as a gift.

Overall the book expresses some of the mundane life aspects in a great lucid way. There is no denying that, the reader will enjoy reading such stories. I would definitely recommend it to others to read it at least once.

My Rating:

3/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #89: Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar By Kochery. C. Shibu

Title: Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar

Author: Kochery C. Shibu

Publishers: Niyogi Books

Genre: General Fiction

Pages: 287 (Paperbound)

Source: Review copy sent by the author

This is an interesting book from a debut author. The narration and the characters developed and the background for the story imagined is quite satisfying. As a first time author, I would say that, the attempt is very nice. The mystery in the novel remains intact till the end and the story is quite gripping. There are numerous characters from the novel and each of the characters holds its importance to a particular scene or the plotline in the novel. The plot of book seems quite unusual.

We have protagonists from different parts of the cities. An engineer and a Kalari (famous martial art form in Kerala) practitioner, Nanda, whose family was constantly marred with the factions in his home town. His family had a long unsettled feud with another local gang in Kerala, which resulted in several deaths in his family including his father, his uncles, and finally his own brother. He finally marries his deceased brother’s wife Nandinikutty.  Events led to one another and Nanda finds himself a part of this murderous rage and avenges his brother’s killers in a mob fight. From then on, he is on a run and changes various places and cities and finally settles as a site engineer in a Dam construction project in Dhauladhar.

We also have other two protagonists, Rekha a doctor cum dancer and Khusro a Kashmiri youth, who was recruited by Pakistani terrorist group to conduct a terror operation inside Kashmir. The background stories of these two protagonists was overdone and there was no necessary to write so many pages describing life and pasts of these two when they add no add value to the ongoing plotline.

Anyway, fortunate events brings Rekha and Khusro close together and there will be a kind of weird love story between them. I didn’t expected that a highly educated girl, who travelled throughout the world, gave hundreds of dance performances will fall for a guy who is a terrorist in the making. Sure, Love is blind after all. Author made it possible in this fictitious work. The readers have to accept that without a shred of doubt. Whereas Khusro, the aspiring mujahiddeen, has a sense of morals left in him and he turns out to be sane when his fellow terrorists (whom he helped in crossing the border into Kashmir) tries to rape women and he couldn’t stand it and kills them. Thanks to the charm of Rekha.

The story is quite heavy for a reader who has no background or even an iota of information in the dam construction terminologies. It was overly done throughout the novel. The story deviates at many places and you feel at times that you’re reading a dam construction manual. Author could’ve avoided many technical details of the dam construction and rather should’ve given importance on how would the terrorists are plotting to blow up the dam.

The novel keeps its interesting point in each and every chapter. Readers will be constantly guessing what might happen next. That’s the best part of the novel. Nanda’s role was made bare minimum. He should’ve made some contributions in the actual story other than sitting with constant fear of police and not talking to anybody. The climax part of the novel was made too quickly I suppose. There should’ve been some action moments in the final few pages, as I personally felt, the climax part was the only shortcoming in the book. Otherwise, the story is interesting from beginning till the end.

The author keeps adding numerous new characters in each and every chapter. That’s one more shortcomings in the novel. I guess after second half, the author should’ve stopped adding more characters and instead should’ve developed the story with more intense and vigor. Overall, a new attempt and good narration.

My Rating:

4/5

(Note: I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review #42: Nirakarana By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

This is a short book that captures the rollercoaster ride of a man that stuck between family life and renunciation. Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa has marveled once again in this book. He has gone inside a man’s mind and written this novel as if he is narrating the story of that man’s life. “Nirakarana” can be translated to English as “Denial”.

The story seems to be very simple at the beginning. The protagonist of the novel, Narahari a moderately educated man, married twice, but both of his wives are dead long ago. Along with 5 kids from 2 wives, Narahari seems to have lost the capability to lead his life. He was struggling every day to take care of his kids with his low paying and overworking job. He is a stenographer in the leading English daily in the town.

So, he decides to give away his kids for adoption. He publishes an ad in his newspaper with the help of his editor. He decides to give away his kids for adoption for well settled families. He also decides that, he gives each kid to a different family. At times, he felt that he is doing something wrong. But, he gets this strong feel of guilt whenever he looked at his kids. He is not able to provide them the proper childhood that they've rightfully owned. Therefore, he decides not to waste a minute or two. Within 6 months of his publishing ad, he was approached by various families from different cities across the country. Within 1 year, he gave away all his kids for adoption to different families.

What follows later is a true mastery of art work by the author. Having got ridden of his kids, he decides to renounce his working life and decides to become a hermit. He informs his editor about his decision and leaves his city forever. Initially he wanders around many holy places and meets many sages and saints. He somehow started to like his way of learning the life and its oddities. He starts to learn meditation, at the same time he decides to go to the Himalayas. There, he meets a sage who wore nothing, spoke nothing and ate nothing but a potato for a day. He was attracted initially in this way of renouncing the world. He tries to follow in the footsteps of this sage, but he failed miserably to cope up with the hard way. He was no longer able to continue living life that way. He decides to head back to the city and seeks a warden job in a local orphanage. There he befriends the accountant of that orphanage and narrates his whole life with him.

As the story further progresses, this accountant friend of Narahari informs him that he will go and see the conditions of kids that Narahari had gave away. Once this accountant was back, Narahari learnt that, his kids are not leading a happy life after all, except for 2 kids. Surprisingly, this accountant had brought a kid along with himself and informs Narahari that, this kid is his son. He had brought this kid only to save kid’s miserable life in the adopted house. Initially, Narahari was not happy to see his kid coming back to him. Later, he starts to get a liking for this boy.

As the story approached towards the end, a young girl would come to this orphanage and with an instant she identifies Narahari as her father. What follows after their long discussions gives a complete picture of the novel. I stop it at this point; this much would be enough for a review!!

What I liked about the novel is its immense detailed presentation of the renounced life of Narahari. It is just not about Narahari, this story reminds us of the hard times that may come up life and how one should approach it instead of renouncing and get rid of our responsibilities. Difficulties, hardships are all part of life. One should not get dejected by it; rather, one should face it with more energy and try to bring out the solution. There’s always a silver lining in everyone’s life. 

My Rating:
4/5