Book Review #64: Black, Grey & White - "No one is spared from it" By Santosh Avvannavar and Santosh I. Biradar

Title: Black, Grey & White – No one is spared from it

Authors: Santosh Avvannavar, Santosh I. Biradar

Publishers: Hoeffen

Genre: Non-Fiction/Social Awareness

Pages: 90 odd pages

Source: Review Copy by Author

This particular book by the authors speaks about the AIDS and its misconceptions. It particularly creates awareness with the conversational type stories that themed around dealing with AIDS infected people and normal beliefs around it. This book has 5 short stories that deal extensively on this subject. I am impressed with the authors and their research on this subject. They have gone an extra mile to fetch the details that normally wouldn’t come across in a mainstream society.

I liked the title of the book and its tag line. Yes, “No One is spared from it”. The book has passed its message clearly with the stories. We all know, at least in India that, how the people who are infected with AIDS are treated. They are almost treated as dirt. They not only lose their social status, but also, they lose their fighting spirit to begin with. Rejection by the society upon their illness has added additional suffering to their already traumatized life. So, what this book does after all? This book has tried to break those barriers and creates a positive atmosphere and tries to “educate the educated people” to treat the HIV infected people with the same amount of affection and respect as they treat the normal people.

As I said, there are 5 short stories written in this novel. Each story debunks an associated myth of AIDS infected people.

In the very first story, there is a story of Anjali a.k.a Neha who is infected with HIV and tested for positive. A journalist Shahid, who works in a newspaper, receives letters written in blood in the name of Anjali regularly. So, Shahid sets out on a mission to solve this case. He travels to many cities tracing the origin of this letter. Later he finds out that, the person who was writing this letter is killing the innocent children who were born on a particular day. Now, here is the actual stuff that the authors try to break in. The person who was killing those innocent children is an HIV infected person, he believed that, by killing these innocent children that were born on the particular day and offering them as a sacrifice will make his AIDS disease get cured!! This particular practice can be seen among many places even today. Authors tried to educate people here by saying that, offering sacrifice and AIDS are nowhere linked to each other. In fact, what they need is a counselling and few helping hands.

In next story, there is a tale of a little boy Chintu. He was infected with HIV at the time of his birth. The virus got carried into him by their parents who were infected. He was treated by the society like he is an outcaste person. Little chintu was not sure why he was treated in such a way, where there is no fault of his. This particular story is very touching and gives us a reason to not to judge people. It passes on a great lesson on how to treat an HIV patient, so that, they can lead a normal life and can live little longer.

The next story speaks about the exploitation of young girls in various industries. This particular story exposes the insider casting couch kind of story where a budding model was forced into casting couch. The fate of this young girl was ruined by few hungry criminals, which abused her in every possible way. The end is quite heart breaking. The young girl, now infected with HIV positive will start taking revenge against these hungry predators and infected them along with her. This story speaks about how not to use a situation and persons just because you can wield power.

And, there is one more story where a young girl Savita was married to an older person. Her parents didn’t even find a detail about the person with whom their daughter is getting married. Time is very short for Savita, as she was infected by AIDS through her husband. She didn’t scare at the beginning; she went on building positivity around her through counselling and taking timely medicines. This story goes on explaining about how an HIV infected person can actually build a positive life around them. It is inspiring to many who are suffering from HIV.

The final story is of Cain and Abel. This particular story has deviated from the AIDS themed stories. However, this story particularly explains the need for care and affection that parents have to give their children. Abraham being the father of Cain and Abel treats both of his sons in equal way. However, Cain turns out to be a rebel with the influence of Lucifer, the demon. Cain starts to go astray early in his childhood resulting in losing his social status and respect from others. Whereas, Abel the good son, listens every word from this father and gains the trust and respect of the people. This is a simple, yet strong message oriented story. This particular story has been adopted from the Holy Bible.

This book certainly helps to break some taboos that are surrounded with AIDS and its misconception. This book must be kept in every high school, college libraries to teach young kids. I highly recommend this book to be read by everyone. Those who have read already must put a word to their friends and near one’s to spread the awareness.

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange of an honest review.

Buy this book from here:

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My Rating:
5/5

Book Review #51: Gruhabhanga By Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa

A book that is full of tragic events. A book that is full of emotions. A book that is full of family problems. A book that is full of foul language. Yet, this is a book that speaks about a woman. This is a book that speaks about the hurdles overcome by a strong woman. This is a book that speaks about what it takes to live life. Finally, this is a book that speaks about strong will.

Gruhabhanga is a stirring, emotional and tragic novel from my favorite author Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa. The title “Gruhabhanga” can be fairly translated to English as “Destruction of a house”. Well, this is a literal translation. The real meaning or the crux of the novel speaks about a household. It speaks about various people from this household and their little stories. This is one of the epitomes of Indian Novels. This novel has been made into a daily serial or popularly called as sitcoms. It was such a huge hit at that time and even today this book marks as the only few books that got translated into all Indian official languages. This novel was originally published in Kannada language.

The entire story of the novel takes place in somewhere between 1920’s till 1950’s spanning close to 30 to 35 years. Due to the backdrop of village in this story, this novel strikes a chord with its readers. The main theme of the novel can be considered as a mere family story. But, the stirring images of each and every character are what make it as a class apart.

The main protagonist of the novel is a woman called Nanjavva.  She was fairly educated girl and her father Kanthijoyeesa is a well learned Brahman. In one of the unfortunate events, Nanjavva will get married to a person called Chennigaraya. Chennigaraya had a mother Gangavva (A widow) and a younger brother Appannayya. Chennigaraya was a village revenue collector. His job was to collect the revenue from the farmers, counting the number of acres that each farmer is cultivating, and type of the crop they are cultivating and amount of the crops that they grow each year. He has to sum up all these calculations from across 40 other villages and should submit these records to a nearby government office. He will be given commission based on this records collection.

During Nanjavva’s initial marriage days, everything was going smooth and happy. In just few months, her mother-in-law Gangavva, a bad mouthed woman will unnecessarily interfere with the affairs of Nanajvva and Chennigaraya. This intrusion has become worse day by day as such, one day, Chennigaraya who is a momma’s boy, will start beating Nanjavva and he even stopped going to revenue collection. This was the turning point in this novel.

Having learnt all these things, Nanjavva decides to take care of her family. Now she is a mother of 3 children. She begins herself to go for revenue collection and she starts to write all the records and only she would get the signature from her husband. Few learned members from the village will be aiding Nanjavva in her quest towards raising her children. During all these years, Gangavva, the mother-in-law of Nanjavva will be badmouthing her and often tries to link up illicit relationship with other men in the village. These events made Chennigaraya to abandon Nanjavva forever.

Later part of the novel is simply mind blowing. Author SLB has made this Nanjavva a role model for all the working women out there. Nanajvva slowly build her identity in the village. She often begged for few days in order to feed her children. She stayed in racks of an old abandoned house and making leaf plates to make the meets end. By this time, her elder son Ramanna was about to finish his school and his elder daughter is the age of marriage. Due to the help of few kind hearted villagers, Nanjavva was able to conduct her daughter’s marriage in a simple ceremony to a school teacher Surya Narayana. Surya Narayana, who is a school teacher in a neighbor village, will inform Nanjavva that, he will find a house and then he will take his wife there. Till that time, Nanjavva’s elder daughter will stay at her mother’s house.

Here, the fate plays an unfortunate incident in Nanjavva’s life thorough the author’s imagination. The entire village was attacked by plague epidemic starting with her house. Unfortunately, both her elder son and elder daughter passed away on the same day in a span of 3 hours who was suffering from plague. This incident made Nanjavva to lose faith in god. Fearing the same death for her younger son, she sends him off to her brother’s house and starts to live alone.

Nanjavva had always dreamt of her own house in the village. She works very hard to save the required amount of money and buys an old house and she starts to reconstruct the house. But fate was planning something else for her. As soon as she finished the construction of her house, there was another tragedy that struck in this household through the death of Nanjavva herself. She was attacked by the same plague epidemic and now the entire novel takes it turn towards climax.

In all these events, Chennigaraya the good for nothing husband of Nanjavva was seen with no emotions at all. Brainwashed by his mom, he expresses no grief over the death of his wife or children. He didn’t even bother to check on his younger son who is staying at Nanjavva’s borther’s house. He ended up visiting prostitutes on a daily basis.

What happened to Nanjavva’s younger son? Was he living peacefully in his uncle’s house? To know the answer, one must read the book. I think there was no better climax given to this book than this.

The above synopsis seems very simple. But, the vivid story described in this book will make anyone weep while reading this novel. The choice of words seems very daring. Since, no other novelist was dared enough to write such foul language in any novel. These words include Bastard, Son of a Bitch, Fuck You; Fuck your mom, Slut, etc... Etc… as I said, this is a village backdrop story, hence, the foul words is an apt choice of expressing one’s anger or resentment.

Overall, I feel this novel will stand tall as one of the greatest novel ever written in the history of Indian literature. At the same time, this novel will make the readers understand about the cultural practices, traditions, caste systems of a 1930’s India. I recommend this book to be read by everyone. It’s like a once in a lifetime.

My Rating:

5/5