SYLB Session III - A review

In the last SYLB session Mathew expressed that as child, as a teenager and as a man he always wanted to read all the books in the world and from cover to cover but soon came to terms that its not possible. He liked the book reading session that atleast through this he can if not read as many books could nevertless know about newer and more books. And I could not have any lesser consenus with him after the coruscating presentation of Jhumpa Lahiri`s "Namesake" by Arun Da. What waterfalls of self-displaying energy!Cheers to Arun!

Neither very slow nor a tedious style of Jhumpa`s writing, as brought out to us by Arun, has confirmed that Namesake is a welcome addition to the shelves of personal libraries of all of us. Arun did a lot of due delligence to bringforth what he did last Thursday.He selected the best of the excerpts from the book and explained the spirit of the author and the hiding thread throught out the novel - Relationships. Arun is a good presentor;he is also Bengali; and its is difficult to decide which comes first. He chose lines to read that assembled together presented the great quality of Bengali way of life, a remarkable phenomenon and the mark of exuberant belongingness that Indian immigrants breath.

Arun Da very sapidly read out excerpts that proceed a living challenge for the immigrant population to survive the culture shock abroad.He made sure that he sketches Jhumpa to show the shades of her liking for Russian literature and more specifically Ruso author Nikoloi Gogol and his book Raincoat, which is the sixth character in the story line apart from the five main shades.Once we scape through the early chapters of the book, the story line gains momentum it moves as swiftly as jazz rhythm.
On the whole, though the assmebly of partcipants was not as vibrant and high in number as the acceptance responses that were received, Arun`s perspicacity and efforts to present the book like a movie to all of us has fortified one thing for sure….that books are still a serious hobby for a many of us and SYLB is not a fugacious attempt to rejoice about our love for them.For those who missed the session attached is a review of the book.

Sesank

SYLB(Share Your Love for Books) Session III - Namesake- by Jhumpa Lahiri

Pals,

Sir V.S.Naipaul, RK Narayan,Amitava Ghosh, Vikram Seth, Khushwant Singh, Ved Mehta, Sunil Gangopadhya ,Arundhati Roy, Mahashweta Devi, and Krishna Sobti and the list can go on for a thousand miles without asking for water...For those of us who have an appropriate perception formed out of the intellectual reflections that pondered from Indian writings, its not an underscored fact anymore that Indian writing in English is alive and creative.
Indeed, starting with the Booker to Arundhati Roy for God Of Small Things, the Pulitzer for Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, the Onassis International Award for Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest and the Earnest Hemmingway Foundation/PEN Award for Akhil Sharma’s An Obedient Father and a slew of awards awaiting Manil Suri’s Death Of Vishnu, Indian writing in English surely has taken centre stage.
This Thursday,March 24th,2005, 5-6 pm let Rescue Stairs,4th Floor Auriga,VBIT, be the rendezvous, for we shall celebrate the litererary heritage of India in the works of Jhumpa Lahiri as narrated by Arun Das(SAP team). Arun shall present to us excerpts and explanations from Jhumpa` first novel…"The Namesake".It deals with Indian immigrants in the United States as well as their children.
The floor shall be open for discussion after Arun`s 35-40 minute presentation.

An interesting interview with Jhumpa Lahiri, on the book, shall be circulated to all attendees. All the interested SYLBers,please respond to this mail so that we can make an approximation of the number of participants. And since we have facility constraints, not more than the first 25 people can be entertained.

Sesank Kandalum
Deloitte

SYLBers,

This was surly even more inspiring and anti-gelid than the First session. I initially thought that the subject favourites could be a little incongruous and lacking in harmony and tempo for the group to be involved and enjoy it considering the variety that we might have to hear in a single hour. But the speakers and the discussions were so lively and brilliant that if it were any other rainy day I would have written a paean.

As always, Amar was the first and he presented first the story of Mrs. Woo and her tribulations in the Chinese back drop and then the lessons on marriage(among others) that we must all learn from the Pearl's master piece. The almost lachrymose Amar convinced everyone that he is very passionate and connected with Pearl's works. The passage that Amar read out was a conversation between Mrs. Woo and Father Andrew on the subject of marriage.

Up next, came the most energetic Shailendra Gupta, and enlightened the group on Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach`s work of lifetime. He had last read this book in 1992 and then last night. Shailendra spoke about the character Jonathan and explained the metaphor of the seagull used for the common man in all of us.Jonathan was always questioning the most logical, time-tested and common sensical things in life.Amar wanted to know if Jonathan was rebellious. Matthew quipped in to explain from his experienced reading that Jonathan was surly rebellious from the point of view of the elders but from his own point of view he was always trying to test his own capacity, contiously striving, learning and trying to excel himself to the path of perfection.Shailendra was of the view that this book conveys different senses for readers of different ages and for the same reader at different points of his life, to which others who read the book agreed.Shailendra then read out the passage which was a conversation between Jonathan and the elders which was very engaging and proved the path breaking thought process for a leader to be.

(Shailendra has promised to share an e-book of this with all of us. Attached are some quotes from Richard Bach's works and review on Jonathan…).

Mathew joined the band wagon next and very poetically recited one of the most celebrated poems of Oriah Mountain Dreamer - The Invitation. Incidentally, Sivapriya let the group know that she had done a training programme for a batch of people for six months just based on this poem.They used to take a particular part and work on it everyday.I had personally come to know of this book while going through a blog written by a book lover in rediff blogs and ever since it has been a favourite poem of mine too.

Sivapriya rose to present the last part, with her favourite book, Eric Segal`s Acts of Faith. She said she tries to learn something from each book that she reads and this book has taught her a lot of things. She first read it when she was seventeen and last time she read it was two months back. She first gave a brief back ground of the story. Its basically a love story setup in present age in New York city between two members of highly religious families. Its about love that can never happen, its about two people who were never destined to meet. They meet very briefly in the middle of the story and Deborah has a boy from Tim as a consequence of which Tim is not aware. They again meet after 20 years. This is towards the end of the book and Sivapriya read the last passage of the book which was typical Segal styled emotional pot pourri.

The session ended with a brain storming on what and how things should be done to make SYLB more interesting and enjoyable.

SYLB(Share Your Love for Books) Session - II (Favourites)

Fellow SYLBers,
I am glad to let you all know that we have Sam Balaji`s fiat to our book club intiative.Thank you very much SAM.
To tell you more about today`s session on favourites …….
We will be having the Amar Yeluru (SAP) evincing to us "Pavilion of Women" by his all time favorite writer Pearl S Buck. The ever voluble Sivapriya(Learning Matters) would be bringing forth to all of us excerpts from "Eric Segal`s Acts Of Faith". Nitya(CRM) will be reading us out from Paulo Coelho - a book that`s close to her - The Alchemist. If you are a Jonathan Livingston Seagull fan, you will not want to miss what Shailendra(SAP) wants to say from and about Richard Bach`s seagull.If time permits, Sesank(Finance) will rope in to present chosen lines from the The Book of Mirdad by Khalil Gibran`s contemporary Mikhail Naimy.

Session – II
Theme: "Favorites"
- Excerpts reading
- Discussions on excerpts
-Writer's style

Time: 5.00pm – 6.00pm
Venue: Dining Room, Auriga 4th floor
Date: 10th March,2005

All the interested SYLBers,who have not yet responded to my earlier mail and are interested to join may please respond now so that we can make an approximation of the number of participants. And since we have facility constraints, not more than the first 25 people can be entertained.



Sesank Kandalum