Reviewing Conversations

Conversations are a part of our daily grind - the memorable moments and also the ones we'd rather forget. Some are stimulating, some are mundane. They capture thoughts of the speakers and the silence around them captures the unspoken expressions. One kind word can warm three winter months says a Japanese proverb. At the same time, the wounds by words are deeper than those by swords. It is this magic of words and situations that Rajeev Nanda has beautifully captured in his first fiction book "Conversations". 

The book is a collection of short stories. The setting is always urban and contemporary. The stories span from dreams to truths. It is a book that has benefited from crispy editing. While the first story ‘Splinters’ talks about dreams and how the protagonist has lost track of his own. The next one is still surreal with its conversations with God. There is a struggle with idealism in ‘Soldier’.  ‘The Taxi Ride’ is fiction within fiction while stories thereon have taken a touch of reality. The graduation from lofty heights to earthy depths is brilliantly assembled. Short pieces of poetry strewn amongst the stories add value to the book. At the same time, lines from these poems can be quoted by themselves:

E.g. from ‘I Have’

“I have a lifetime full of joy,

     But, all I need is a moment of ecstasy”.

The poet has penned universal experiences in ‘Darkness’:

“This one idea that was aborted,

Sits in my heart like a lump,

Like a still child in a womb.”

In the last poem, the ‘Misfit’ says:

“I kept quiet to contemplate,

Mirror and the reflection expectantly wait

I turned and walked away;

The mirror and reflection shattered lay.”

Coversations is a book that makes you think what would you have done in the protagonist’s place. It teaches without preaching. It is not a mystery thriller that binds yet it allures the reader with reality, which is a staggering feat to accomplish. The enigma in some of Rajeev Nanda’s stories reminds me of Anton Chekhov’s works - The questions hanging in the air after a story has ended. 

While the setting is urban, it is also very contemporary. Some of the stories are also based in the U.S. Rajeev has shown struggles within families when issues like adultery and extra-marital affairs arise. While the issues are not new, he has changed the angles. Whether his characters are fence sitters or on either sides of the line – there remains an element of unease and introspection. Incidentally, there is a poem called ‘Introspection’ :

“If I never talk to myself,

      Whom can I expect to speak to me?

If I fail to own myself,

      Whom can I expect to take charge of me?” 

                                                                                                           

In his stories, there is death but not grief. There is depression but not sorrow. There is envy but not jealousy. To experience these, read the book.

About the book:

Publisher: Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd

Price: India: ₹195              Elsewhere: US $14

ISBN: 978-93-81115-12-1

About the author:

Rajeev Nanda completed his graduation (B.Sc) in general sciences from D.A.V College in Jallandhar, Punjab (India) in 1984. He did post-graduate diploma in Computer Science and other professional certification courses in software & technology from various institutes in New Delhi while working for a startup.

After spending more than 10+ years in the US, he relocated to Bangalore to help Intel setup their IT group in India. His professional expertise lies in strategy, technology and management leadership.  More on his professional experience can be found on:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeevnanda

He started writing at the age of 10. In his college years, he picked up controversial subjects, like atheism, to write for the college magazine. He published his first book (e-verything.com: How to map out a viable e-strategy) in 2001. His fiction writing was a private affair until 2005 when he uploaded sample stories on American Book Publishers’ (ABP) web-site. The editorial board of ABP extended the contract in Sep 2005 which resulted in the book ‘Conversations’ in 2009.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda. Participate now to get free books!

Entrepreneurship School by SSP

You read about my romp in Katgaon earlier. Let us now talk about why was I walking amidst the bhindi plants.

So I was in the field to capture a woman talking about organic farming, which in turn, was a part of the field visit to record the progress of E-school program. The Entreprenuership School is run by Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP). This project is being supported by a corporate donor via Samhita. The visit was part of the reporting services provided by Samhita.

SSP has been working with rural women since many years. During their interactions, they saw that though women were able to get loans through micro-finance and cooperative societies etc., they are unable to run a business profitably because of lack of relevant information.

Maid in India 2.0

My earlier post Maid in India 1.0 described the method of operations and the impact of the project. An interesting distinction is that is financially sustainable in the long run and also scalable. Though the organization needs grants for supporting some activities, Decimal Foundation wants MII to run independently. The project has received Pearson Fellowship for Social Innovation.To know more about MII namely its financial sustainability, scale of operations, challenges etc. read on.

Fulfilling Half Day in a Village

Visiting a village was one of the things I wanted to do since long. Though Jagriti Yatra filled that wish to some extent, today was better. (And ya desire for a longer visit still smoulders) I'd gone to an official visit today to Katgaon village in Osmanabad district in Maharashtra. The purpose is to monitor and report on a project supported by a corporate donor. It's a small village with population of around 5000. This post is about my travels, another about the impact of the NGO which I visited will follow.

The two-day visit started in Solapur with taking a room in Hotel Surya International. The room is good except for the fact that it has no tubelight (only CFLs) and there is no ironing facility at the hotel. But my colleague opined that there are no cockroaches and the bathroom is sparkling clean so it's a great deal :P

Moving on, we reached a training centre of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), the NGO we are visiting.

Review of "Musings of a Wanderer"

Author: Shreya Chatterjee        ISBN:9381205006

"Musings of a Wanderer" is Shreya's first published work. This collection of poetry by Power Publishers is a slim volume at 96 pages and very conveniently priced at ₹100. She has written since her school days and her poetry has been published in magazines and blogs. Like most Indians, she is bilingual and writes both in her native tongue Bengali and English. Without further ado, lets talk about her book.

Shreya has captured everyday emotions with a simplicity and depth that is both touching and surprising. Touching because you would have experienced the same feelings some time or the other and her words hold the potential to evoke buried memories. Surprising, because at times, what she writes is so straightforward, one wonders why didn’t no one think of putting it this way before. E.g. while writing about her mother’s abandoned slippers,

“Perhaps they even

Had a rest outside the temple steps,

But who knows for how long.”

from ‘Her Foot Friend Played Hide and Seek’. Here, she beautifully crafts an ordinary image that conveys the tirelessness of a busy homemaker. Similarly in ‘A Quiet Stroll’,

“A stroll

By the quiet river,

Nibbling at

Grass strands.”

Many of her poems are based on the onset of monsoon. And almost every one of these is heartwarming as, though she chooses simple words and writes a short verse, she manages to draw a vivid image for her reader. E.g.

“My window weaving a new tale….

When a gush of wind drenched me wet…” from ‘A Shower at Night’ and

“A laughing face,

I rush outside,

To welcome

My first shower

In love with

Those once a year,

Raindrops.” from ‘In Love with Raindrops’

Though the above lines express the joy of the poet at the first rain of the season, melancholy is more pervasive a theme in this collection. I wonder why this would be so in such a young poetess. Although, I must confess that this surprise comes forth from an optimist and joyous soul who rarely pays homage to pain. Based on this collection, it is of course beyond my judgement to know whether sorrow is a dominant theme in all her work or it catches the fancy of the poetess’ pen alone. Shreya underlines this distinction in her work on the back cover of the book when she defines herself as a “writer by profession, poet by will”.  Her poems have not been grouped according to themes or tones. So the interplay of joy and sorrow can be a refreshing read or a bumpy ride depending on the readers’ mood.

“Even they speak

A volume of words

With their downcast eyes.” from ‘Downcast Eyes’ and

“Your silence

Softens

The sore toes

The aching heels.” from ‘Curiously Silent’

As you can make out from the above lines, the diversity in themes truly makes them expressions of a meandering traveller on the journey of life. In the anthology, there are love tales in ‘Two Cups of Coffee’, ‘Behind the Blinds’ and ‘Breaking’. There are tales of warriors and cries of the natives in ‘Warrior’ and ‘Voice’. There are also some poems that encompass social issues, these are the ones which captured my interest first out of the lot. The plight of child labourers is captured in ‘Child Labors…’

“I cry out at her glittering face

‘Books would FEED me

-But NEVER within hours’. ”. Indeed how true that is.

A dutiful women caged in her home in ‘Queen of Our Land’

“Given to the whims of an insolent husband

She wore a painful smile-

Scrubbed and polished,

-Kept things spick and span.”

Or “I am light that stays invisible” in ‘To Be a Woman’.

On the whole, the book is an interesting and different read. For all lovers of poetry, Shreya is one to watch out for. May her poems never get shackled by eight-letter words and nor the emotions so abstract as to be beyond the understanding of anyone but the poet.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda. Participate now to get free books!

Maid in India 1.0

"The ‘decimal’ is simply a dot within a number. Its position within a number determines what the number means to us. Just a shift to the right or left changes its meaning exponentially." 

Decimal Foundation, an NGO in Mumbai, cites the above as their inspiration. They serve an omnipresent and yet ignored section of society - domestic help. Do you know when was the last time your maid had a health check-up? Every woman associated with Maid in India gets free medical care every couple of months. To read more about the great work they are doing, and about my visit to their office, read on.

About the yatra

Among the role models, my favourites are Gram Vikas in Orissa - Joe Madiath, Goonj in Delhi - Anshu Gupta and Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan and the focus session on Women and Leadership by Jude Kelly.

You can read about our experience with them on the yatra at Yatra Saar 2010. After every yatra, the experience of those wonderful 18 days is compiled by a team consisting of yatris. This year's document is out. Glance at it, it's a little long, so you may not like to read all of it, but do have a look.

Download pdf of the summary of those amazing 18 days: Yatra Saar 2010

Tata Jagriti Yatra 2010

यारों चलो बदलने की रुत है

These lyrics by Prasoon Joshi is what Jagiriti Yatra is about. It’s a journey that spans 12 cities across the Indian mainland igniting change in 400 young men and women. It takes these participants known as yatris to meet social and business entrepreneurs who are role models in their fields. The 400 yatris for the 2010 yatra are a diverse bunch from all regions of India and 12 other countries including Germany, Ethiopia, UK, Jordan, US and Australia among others.

Not only is the diversity amazing, the things people have done are mind-blowing. In my own group, there are two IAS aspirants, one lobbyist, a doctor who’s worked with ‘Doctors Without Borders’, an environmentalist who’s been to the UN conference in Copenhagen and the Sarpanch of a village in Chattisgarh. Isn’t it just breath-taking? I’ll keep mentioning the brilliant people I meet throughout my posts. For now, let us take a look at what the yatra is about.

The yatra is centered on using enterprise-led development to develop middle India. The jury is out for a precise definition of middle India. Middle India is that class which has ambitions and potential but not resources to fulfil them. Education is limited which limits the income too. Large families and seasonal nature of employment further worsen the situation. Urban middle Indians would be the rickshaw-drivers, grade IV government employees, small shopkeepers and the like. Rural middle India would include small and marginal farmers.