Orphanage for Words (2015), Shinie Antony

This book has very impressive word play and structure that attracted to me immediately. Heard the author reading it out in the Pune Literary Fesitval 2015 and loved the stories she read out. Particularly the first one - Girlfriend it was called.

Slowly as the stories went by, I could get glimpses of a strong associative mind. She works well with ideas and words. This was very close to home; for she thought of things I think, said things the way I do, and was as random as me. And I saw myself as a writer in many of her works.

Towards the end, the stories seemed to drag. There wasn't much change. But that is something that is bound to happen I guess. I found myself skipping through the entire chapter 'Words'. And I also found myself guessing the storyline of a number of short stories.

The theme is brilliant. An orphanage for words that nobody wants. And she gives due credit and respect to all of those words.

But the entire book is worth a read. It's a brilliant way to tease your mind. And give definition to a number of thoughts that you had already thought, but were too afraid to put it in words.

Heart to Heart: Remembering Nainaji . Vidya Rao (2011)

I read this book in a particular frame of mind -- one that I could rely on when I read as a young girl. This young girl would read the story of Manimekhala and King Shiba and the very many stories of Indian folklore. To read Vidya Rao's book, I needed to go back to the value systems of that world.

Rao inks her worship in the book. But no, the guru is not infallible. Vidya Rao is aware of her guru's flaws - she wishes many of them away. And yet, more than the reverence, what caught me to this book was a sensitivity for other lives. She looks with equal reverence, if not more, towards Naina Devi's sister. Rao brings in her readers to this secret understanding - a club of women whose lives may not have been successful, but are documented and listened to. Naina devi too, in her own respects, caring for musicians who can't fend for themselves... opening her home to music of all kinds...

These ideas shook my usual cynical take, made me give my heart to the book. Maybe yes, I am over reacting. But the sentiment of listening to lives that slowly fade away tugs at me. Combining that with the above mentioned reverential frame of mind, I can't but look at this book with fondness despite its many flaws. I am as biased as Vidya Rao.

Maybe another day when I read it again, I might not be as smitten. And maybe then I would tear the ligaments apart and say how the book really was.