Last ten days were dedicated to books (since gym was somehow given a miss everyday....) the last one in the series being 'the namesake' by jhumpa lahiri (yes, i havent read this famous book till now....)...it is a novel spanning more than thirty years and the lives of first and second generation indian immigrants....essentially it takes us through the travails of 'Gogol', son of an immigrant in search of his identity...however, we get some glimpses into the lives of his parents too and what are their travails...the book is well written, tackles some real issues (while entirely avoiding others) and grasps the reader attention.....
generally, you can make out an indian author writing in english by the style of writing....however, in this case, you seem to forget that the author is indian (maybe because she is actually more american than indian since she was raised there, similar to the way i am more bihari than UPiite since i have spent my childhood in bihar).....at the same time, she touches chords with her picture of her visits to calcutta and taj....(again maybe because they would be from her own experiences).....
one thing which touched and saddened me was the account of the train accident which actually led to the whole story....gogol's father was travelling from calcutta to ranchi in a train which had a horrible accident during the night, and it changes his life forever.....lahiri expresses the whole episode in such a way (and without being verbose) that the reader never realises that she is just a distant onlooker.....my dad had a similar exerience when he was in indian school of mines, dhanbad and was travelling to benaras in toofan express....he did not get a seat in the first coach and so moved on to the second coach where he somehow got one...during the night while crossing the 'karamnasa' river, the train collided with a derailed engine and the front bogies overturned on the embankment.....the rescuers who came later had to shout inside the bogies asking if somebody was alive and when they heard him shouting, they pulled him up through a hole at the top of the overturned bogie....only two people (including him) were alive in this bogie while nobody was saved from the first one (in which his seniors had seen him getting into)....dad was asked to sit on the rails facing away from the train....and it was drizzling so nothing was much clear anyway.....later on he realised that what he thought as rain water on his arms was actually blood covering him.....but the miracle is that he escaped relatively unhurt from a bogie where everyone else died (save for the other person)....people were hurt fatally even by luggage falling from the overhead racks.....and I,even after knowing this account, question the presence of GOD!!...somehow if feels like a betrayal to the fact that my dad was saved so miraculously......the worst part is that i had to read a book to realise the significance of this incident.....and a book affects me more than a first hand account from my dad, just because he omits the gory details so that i am not bothered by it, and he is not given to describing feelings and thoughts in detail (neither in short, for that matter).....
it was after reading the book, that i asked him how he felt, was he terrified, whether he was scared of boarding trains thereafter....i am so ashamed of myself....sometimes two people can stay together yet be so far apart...just because i never bothered to bridge the distance....and it is not as if this is something i cud not relate to....this is after having a first hand experience....i was involved in a minor bus accident and thought twice before boarding a DTC bus for months thereafter....
well this apart, i have started reading her third book, unaccostomed earth, but since it has a similar setting, dealing with the lives of immigrants, i think i shud give a break before i go on with the book, else it will become one long story in my mind....
generally, you can make out an indian author writing in english by the style of writing....however, in this case, you seem to forget that the author is indian (maybe because she is actually more american than indian since she was raised there, similar to the way i am more bihari than UPiite since i have spent my childhood in bihar).....at the same time, she touches chords with her picture of her visits to calcutta and taj....(again maybe because they would be from her own experiences).....
one thing which touched and saddened me was the account of the train accident which actually led to the whole story....gogol's father was travelling from calcutta to ranchi in a train which had a horrible accident during the night, and it changes his life forever.....lahiri expresses the whole episode in such a way (and without being verbose) that the reader never realises that she is just a distant onlooker.....my dad had a similar exerience when he was in indian school of mines, dhanbad and was travelling to benaras in toofan express....he did not get a seat in the first coach and so moved on to the second coach where he somehow got one...during the night while crossing the 'karamnasa' river, the train collided with a derailed engine and the front bogies overturned on the embankment.....the rescuers who came later had to shout inside the bogies asking if somebody was alive and when they heard him shouting, they pulled him up through a hole at the top of the overturned bogie....only two people (including him) were alive in this bogie while nobody was saved from the first one (in which his seniors had seen him getting into)....dad was asked to sit on the rails facing away from the train....and it was drizzling so nothing was much clear anyway.....later on he realised that what he thought as rain water on his arms was actually blood covering him.....but the miracle is that he escaped relatively unhurt from a bogie where everyone else died (save for the other person)....people were hurt fatally even by luggage falling from the overhead racks.....and I,even after knowing this account, question the presence of GOD!!...somehow if feels like a betrayal to the fact that my dad was saved so miraculously......the worst part is that i had to read a book to realise the significance of this incident.....and a book affects me more than a first hand account from my dad, just because he omits the gory details so that i am not bothered by it, and he is not given to describing feelings and thoughts in detail (neither in short, for that matter).....
it was after reading the book, that i asked him how he felt, was he terrified, whether he was scared of boarding trains thereafter....i am so ashamed of myself....sometimes two people can stay together yet be so far apart...just because i never bothered to bridge the distance....and it is not as if this is something i cud not relate to....this is after having a first hand experience....i was involved in a minor bus accident and thought twice before boarding a DTC bus for months thereafter....
well this apart, i have started reading her third book, unaccostomed earth, but since it has a similar setting, dealing with the lives of immigrants, i think i shud give a break before i go on with the book, else it will become one long story in my mind....
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