Book Review: The Madras Affair by Sundari Venkatraman

The Blog Tour

I have literally grown up on a staple of romantic novels, hungrily chomping on anything and everything that has love printed across it, whether in bold prints or fine! Reading ‘The Madras Affair’, I realized that I will always be a sucker for romance and that one can never be too old for it…Ever! This ooh-so-endearing book by Sundari Venkatraman had me in ‘hook-line-and-sinker’ from the word go!

Whether it was the nubile Sangita and her 'will-she-won’t-she' moments, or the sexy Gautam causing you to shamelessly salivate over his blue eyes and hot body (much to the amusement and/or suspicions of your hubby hovering around!) or the steamy scenes towards the end that almost sets your senses (and body) on fire, The Madras Affair scores on all fronts! The story is so real, the settings are so live and the characters are so believable that it is hard to stand aside and take a third person view of the story. Surprisingly, you will find yourself becoming a part of the story as it unfolds, you'd perhaps assume the form of Sangita or Gautam or any of the several other characters binding the story together.

What I also liked about the story is that it doesn’t rush you through the delicate affair; rather it takes its own pace and form- allowing the characters to guide the story forward. I also like the way the characters interact with each other and the beautiful way the author has brought them together. For instance, there’s a scene where Gautam meets Sangita’s son Sandeep for the first time. That scene is so vivid and rife with emotions that it brought tears to my eyes just reading it! There are several such delicately handled scenes that manage to make you smile, or bring a lump to your throat or create a palpable sensual excitement as you read through.

If you are die-hard romantic, this is one book you must pick, and allow yourself to curl up on the couch, on a cold winter night, covered in a warm comforter, with a hot cuppa in one hand and the book in another! Bliss!

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The blurb-

Sangita Sinclair was not always this successful & passionate lady, heading the NGO “Penn Urimai” for downtrodden, abused and homeless women…

When Sangita catches the eye of Gautam Sinclair she is a simple, homely girl; utterly unaware of her charms & capabilities. She has the devil’s own time in overcoming her inhibitions, hesitation, and her family’s orthodox and outdated rules before recognizing her love for Gautam.

Will Gautam be able to solve Sangita’s Dilemma or will she be forever trapped in her past?

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Genre                 : Romance

Get your book at : amazon.com | amazon.in | amazon.uk | amazon.ca | amazon.au| Flipkart

My rating            : 4/5 

The Book Club

Through the glass wall..

She stands across the glass wall and looks out for him. Though the glass is opaque, they have always been able to see each other through it. She calls for him, softly, and then calls again, a little louder. But there’s just an eerie silence that scares her. He has always come when she called, didn’t he?  Perhaps the glass is sound-proof now. Perhaps he can no longer hear her croon. The glass was once so delicate, she thought they’d break it someday. The shards would have torn through the skin of their souls, and yet she had not been afraid. He hadn’t been afraid either.  

She reminisced about the times they would take on different roles, like characters in a book. If she’d call him 'this', he’d call her 'that'…and then, they would magically turn into these characters. They’d speak in alien tongues and mimic various personae. With him, she could be anything she wanted to be and so could he. But the best of all was, that they could be themselves in spite of the characters they donned, never having to resort to pretence. Masks sometimes have more truths hidden under them than transparent veils, don’t they?  He'd flirt a little and make her blush, he’d pull her leg, and make her laugh. She would laugh long and hard until her jaws ached, her stomach hurt and her eyes overflowed with tears! No one had ever made her laugh so much before! They had shared their joys, their triumphs and their apprehensions. They didn’t have to find solutions to problems, it was just about the sharing.

He had a way with his words, contorting them into a labyrinth, before letting them fly into a world hitherto unknown. It was under him, that she had metamorphosed from a caterpillar into a butterfly; learning to let her words wander into realms she’d never dreamt of before. If her words ever wandered away, he gently catch them and hand them back to her. But more than anything, he had made her look deep into the abyss of her soul and find that part of her which had somehow been lost.

Where was he now? Why wouldn’t he answer her call? She would never know. All that she knew was that she’d never give up.

She stood facing the glass wall for some more time. No luck. She’d have to come back again tomorrow, and perhaps yet again another day.

Are you driving your partner away?

We have all been in relationships… we sucked at some and we triumphed at some, some of them lasted for a while and some fizzled out sooner than we expected. Some of us finally found a perfect partner while some are still struggling to get a grip on things. If relationships can be summed up in one word- I’d say, they are tricky!

What is it that makes relationships tick? Why is it that some people suddenly start playing hard to get- they keep you at arm’s length, cancel your time together more often than it would seem courteous, do not bother replying to your calls, even make you wait for replies to your text messages, while you keep wondering if they are as committed as you are? Confrontations lead to fights, and you seem to drift further apart than getting closer!

And while you sit alone on your couch, phone in hand, twiddling your thumb, wide awake at 3 am in the morning, they are probably happily snoring away oblivious to your agony. Well, you’d be surprised to know you aren’t alone! You have plenty of company!

I have been on both sides of the relationship. I am guilty of having ignored some people, and I have had my fair share of being ignored too!

Being in a relationship isn’t half as fun as it is supposed to be. Especially when your partner is not as involved as you are. Here’s what I think tips the balance in most relationships-

Being too available-

Being available is good, it shows how committed you are. But by being available all the time, you have effectively proved to your partner that you aren’t going anywhere. You will be available at their beck and call, anytime THEY need you. To top that, you will readily forgive them, irrespective of what they do! You will buy any excuse they give you because you fear to lose them. And somewhere along the way, you have lost your dignity and become their slave. While you’d like to think of it as a good thing to be forgiving and caring, they probably think you have no self-worth or you are insecure. And trust me, insecurity is such a big turn off!

There was this guy, P, in college, who would always be around me, like a puppy! (Sheesh! I feel so wicked saying that!) He was good looking definitely, but I hated the way he kept tagging along wherever I went! He would offer to drop me home, pay my bill at the canteen, and even carry the books I borrowed from the library (the books used to be really heavy). But, I wished he’d leave me alone. I remember my reluctance to go out with him even if we were going out in a group, or even take his call! He wasn’t a bad person at all, and I couldn’t put a finger on what bugged me about him. On the other hand, I had a serious crush on a senior and I would keep trying to find reasons to talk to him. My heart would skip a beat when he stopped to talk to me (no, not me actually, to the entire group), and I would struggle to speak, leave alone say anything intelligent! I would keep approaching him for help, and he was quite helpful too, but we never progressed to even close friendship! Looking back, I think, he perhaps felt the same way I felt about P. Too needy!

That’s the big lesson- stop looking so needy.  Stop sucking up to people. People don’t appreciate things that come easily to them. Human nature is such that it values things that come to it after a struggle as compared to things it gets easily.

If they are not returning your calls, stop calling them. Go out with other friends. And if they suddenly make plans for the two of you when you have already made plans with your friends, have the courage to tell them so. Don’t cancel your plans, just because they badly want to go out with you. Men and women alike, respect people who make their own decisions and stand up to it.

Of course, this does not mean you have to be snooty all the time. Give only when you feel they deserve it. Give when they appreciate all that you do. Give when they give too. Giving makes relationships better and stronger and works only when it is two ways.

Being sickly sweet-

When you are in a bad mood, what do you reach out for? Do you grab a bar of chocolate and a bag of chips or do you eat a bowl of broccoli? Broccoli is a known stress buster, but would you really eat that when you are stressed? We look out for comfort food, don’t we?

 The same holds true in relationships. People are not looking for goodness all the time.  Being too sweet, too forgiving, too devoted, too caring, just scares them off. Sometimes, it is important for them to see your wicked and naughty side, allow them to woo you and ask for forgiveness before you forgive them, be wild and you’ll have them knocking at your door. It is more comforting to have someone challenge them than someone who doesn’t need to be worked upon at all.

Being a nag- 

(men don’t do this too often, yea, some do! But perhaps women would relate to this more…)

Don’t overdo the sulking parts, the crying parts and the nagging parts. You nag for every little thing, sob at every given opportunity and keep complaining. ‘Why didn’t you answer my call?’, ‘what were you doing?’, ‘do you really love me?’, ‘is football more important than me?’…you go on and on. And not knowing how to stop that, the poor guy starts pulling away from you.

A friend keeps complaining that her husband is no longer interested in her. He often goes off on weekends with his friends, not bothering to include her in his plans, and they have frequent arguments about whether he really loves her or not! Common, right?

I think, men fear and hate being trapped or sucked into an emotional whirlpool. They value their independence. Just because they enjoy football as well as being with you, doesn’t mean they have to deal with the pressure of choosing between the two each time and being bullied into making choices.

Learn to draw boundaries. Let the guy enjoy his freedom and have his space. He’ll be glad to have someone who values his choices. He’ll be glad to have someone who does not seek to control him. This is something men look for in a woman and it could influence his decision to commit to you long term.

Relationships need to be nurtured with care. Things don’t work out if one partner is more giving than the other or one person completely dominates the other. Mind games weaken relationship and unless each partner respects the other as a person and provides space to the other to grow and live independently, the affection can get very suffocating.

What do you think?

Book review- Shikhandi and other tales they don't tell you.

Sexuality has become a much debated topic these days. Homosexuality is a taboo, and the so-called upholders of morality of the society would not hesitate to pick up cudgels against anyone who dares raise a voice in favour of it. Was our society always like this? Was it always a crime to come out openly and admit one’s sexual orientation?

Apparently, not. Our ancient civilisations have rarely been moralistic about sex. Neither has discussing about sex ever been a taboo. In fact our epics are replete with stories about homosexual relationships, transgender encounters and queer behaviours.

Devdutt Patnaik’s ‘Shikhandi and other tales they don’t tell you’, is based on this premise. It explores ancient stories from literature in India and also from around the world, which shows that queer behaviour has been accepted as normal in societies since time immemorial. His collection of 30 stories capture the essence of ancient Indian society’s approach to sexual behaviour.

The collection begins with the story of Shikhandi, who was born as a girl but raised as a man; struggling with a dual identity of a man trapped in a woman’s body and who beacme a man to satisfy her wife. There are stories of men who become women, and women who become men, of men who create children without women, and women who create children without men, and of creatures who are neither this, nor that, but a little bit of both. Stories such as Vishnu, who became a woman to enchant the Gods, demons and hermit, Mahadev who became a woman to deliver a devotee's child, Chudala, who became a man to enlighten her husband, Narada, who forgot he was a man, Samavan, who became the wife of his male friend, Krishna who wore woman's clothes, and many more stories that give us an alarming insight into the unique Indian way of making sense of queerness.

With patriarchal systems gaining prominence, codes of conduct, behavioural attitudes, morality and puritanism began to take root, laying the foundation for a judgmental society. What was normal became against the norm!

What is refreshing about the stories is that the author does not impose his own judgement or prejudice about the relationships neither does he thumb his nose at the order of things. But he does manage to take us back to the times when queerness was not frowned upon, and the society was comfortable with the idea of it, making us contemplate on the ignorance and rigidity of our thoughts right now.

My rating- 3/5

Book Review- Many Lives, Many Masters

Many religions talk of reincarnation. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and even followers of minority religions like Kabbalah, believe that our souls are indestructible and re-inhabit the earth again and again assuming different bodies and identities.

In his book, Many Lives, Many Masters, Dr. Brian Weiss, details a past life hypnotic regression therapy with a troubled patient Catherine, which changes and challenges the way he has looked at life until then.

This particular case turns the author’s life “upside down”, transforming him from merely being a psychologist who believed in standard textbook treatment backed by scientific methods to a believer and practitioner of past life regression as a more holistic approach to the treatment of a patient.

The recollection of the past lives of Catherine make a vivid and compelling read. It is intriguing how a past life can influence the issues that we carry in this life. It is even more fascinating to know that the answers to our present life traumas can lie in resolving unsolved issues with a past life. Every experience that we undergo, be it traumas and pain, or happiness and peace, they are all rooted and recorded in our mind. The author says, “The experience is necessary to add emotional belief to intellectual understanding. But the impact of experience always fades to some degree.” With the help of past life regression, it is possible for a person to recollect the memories of their past life and learn the lessons that would help them progress in their present life. 

Life has always been a puzzle of sorts, people often wonder what happens to them after they have passed over. Does the concept of a heaven or hell really exist? Are people really reborn? If they are indeed reborn, how long does it take for them to do so? What happens in the in-between state, or the time between two lives? The author attempts to find answers to these and many more questions through his patient Catherine.

There are also messages that are conveyed by master spirits through the hypnotised Catherine, revealing to us the way to live fruitfully and knowing our purpose in life. The lessons from the masters also forms an inspiring part of the book.

Life is indeed not as simple as we think it is. Irrespective of whether you believe in an afterlife or not, you should read this thought provoking book. If you are a believer, it will take away your fear of death and teach you how to make your present life better. It will change the way you look at yourself and at others. It is quite a relief to know that one is not meant to have to all the answers, we are just supposed to learn our lessons and move on. It also teaches you not to compare your life with another, because each person is learning a different lesson.

And if you think this is a figment of someone’s imagination, you still risk losing nothing reading it. You don’t have to believe all that is written here, but you will learn to appreciate the intricacies of life along with lessons on living to be a better person.

My rating: 3.5/5