Five Books That Will Change Your Life's Perspective

“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”

  -Malcolm X

This was one statement my English lecturer quoted very often and back then in school, it just made me roll my eyes. I mean, how in the world would reading a book change your perspective towards life? And that was when he gave me a copy of Charles Dickens’ The Great Expectations and ever since that day, I have read that book five times. I do not believe in reading a good book once and shoving it inside my shelf. A beautiful book can never turn obsolete, isn’t it? I am a voracious reader, and I love reading books that belong to different genres, and recently, I have read few books that have changed my perspective towards life, and I believe they would have impacted many readers out there. *Drumroll*

And here is the list:

 Eat, Pray, Love-Elizabeth Gilbert: One day, I was browsing when I saw a quote, “Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be”, which made me read this book. And of course, Julia Roberts. Eat, Pray, Love is a story of a woman, her trepidations, her relationships, spirituality, traveling, depression etc. Elizabeth is a very successful woman with a healthy marital life, however, instead of being happy, she was plainly discontent. She leaves behind everything and goes in search of peace, travels to Bali, Paris, India and discovers her true self. What this book teaches us is when we find what we love, and do what we want, everything falls in place.

To Kill A Mockingbird-Harper Lee: To kill a Mockingbird is a genius book, and genius is still an understatement. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and you get a fresh perspective towards life each time you read it. So what is so special about this 1960s book that has never gone out of print? It is still one of the highly read best-sellers. This book talks about love and hatred, compassion, humour and emotions, kindness and severity. Like I already said, this book gives you a fresh and a different perspective towards life every time you read it.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower-Stephen Chbosky: This is a very contemporary book that most of the youngsters relate themselves with. This is a story of Charlie, a teenager who is caught between trying to live his life and running away from it. An intelligent, shy, socially awkward kid that he is, he wants to be a writer when he grows up. He tries to participate in activities, makes new friends, reads good books, makes mix tapes, and has his share of dates, family relationships etc. He is deeply affected with his Aunt Helen and best friend’s death and has a tough time dealing with them. This is such a beautiful book and makes you go hopeful about everything.

Fight Club-Chuck Palahniuk: Now, this book is way beyond epic! This book is a story of a man who has lost himself in the world filled with failure, lies, and unhappiness. He finds comfort in secret underground fight clubs that are held after wee hours. A brilliant book that deals with western consumerism, failure, dark humour. This book, later, was made into a movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton in the lead. It is one of the best movies ever.

A Calendar Too Crowded-Sagarika Chakraborty: When it comes to writing, our Indian writers are no less. I have read this book when I interviewed this writer for a magazine. Oh, she is wonderful woman, a graduate from NLU and ISB, and it is quite amazing to see how grounded she is in spite of all her achievements. This thought-provoking book is a collection of poignant stories and moving poems which does not just make you think but also helps you to learn few important dates in the calendar of the life of a woman. The stories/poems in this book are classified into twelve months. Basically, the book revolves around womanhood and it showcases the miseries faced by women. Also, the book has a strong influence of Indian Mythology. This is a highly recommended book.

Confessions of A Writer

Originally written for Metropolis Hyderabad Magazine under the section of confession box and it is here! I have written this article along with another blogger, Sugumar and you can see his blog here: The World Around Me!

Click on Metropolis and explore the site. :D

I am a writer and I live by my pen. In my fraternity, there are my fellow friends who work in the morning and write by evening. A very tedious job, I tell you. As a writer, I have faced my problems but I derive joy from writing. I write when I am happy, I write when I am sad, I write when I am bored, I write when I am stressed out. Writing is the only way I can escape from my daily chores. Not that I am bunking them, but I need to write. At least, a thousand words a day. But I have my own plights too. Yes, I have some confessions. While I cannot pour out the gory ones, I can definitely tell the common ones.

After I took writing seriously, I mean very seriously, I have turned into a grave person. My friends complain that I do not have much time for them, which is quite not true. I do have time, but it is just that…..Anyway, the first confession is I do not like it when people contact me and ask me to write for them for free. I mean, I do have expenses, right? Any writer would feel the same. We have bills to pay, we have things to buy, we are taking time and writing and of course, it is not a social service. Like Joker in Batman said ‘If you are good at something, never do it for free’, and I believe every word that he says. With so many writers getting their books published, the writers have lost their cult-like following. Isn’t it? I do not see a single writer who has a magnificent following after Chetan Bhagat.

And then, there are people who think writers are unemployed. It is so in-appropriate. What about the writers who live by pen? Jane Austen did; did we regard her as unemployed? No, we did not. There are many such brilliant writers. And you know what the toughest part is? It is the naming of characters. The story gets completed in ten minutes but the naming part takes ages. Writing and the time limits are bitter enemies. But what can we do? They go hand-in-hand and deadlines are to be met. It is highly impossible to convince ourselves that we cannot be Jeffrey Archer in a single book. The things we write might be good, and readers might go gaga over it, but we are never satisfied with what we write. We always find it clichéd. How typical!

“I have gone overboard to promote myself on social media, being a first time author. It has made people come back and question my sense of modesty, but in an age where the publishing industry is at the boom I have no qualms of making the most out of social media”, confesses Sagarika Chakraborty, a famous writer and the author of ‘A calendar too crowded’. And I agree with her. Any good product reaches the market only with good promotion. Similarly, even writers need to promote their books. One cannot expect a book to be a massive hit by just putting it in the shelves of a book-store.

“Basically, writing is something that has kept me from the gloomiest moments in my life. It's nice to know that many envy the way you write and your work is being praised. But, writing is something only few adore, and only few bother to read.

Working against the deadlines, slogging off late in the night, typing stuff, writing doesn't seem that wonderful at those times”, confesses another writer, Aditya Kasibhatla.

So yes, we all have our major and minor glitches, complications, confessions and we, writers, pen them down, make fun out of it and laugh at our own expense. That is us!

-Sunaina and Sugumar

A Calendar Too Crowded: Book Review

Sagarika Chakraborty’s ‘A Calendar Too Crowded’ is more than just a book. It is a rather a diary of any girl’s life. My friend called this book as a reflection of a woman, and honestly, I couldn't agree more with it.

This thought-provoking book is a collection of poignant stories and moving poems which does not just make you think but also helps you to learn few important dates in the calendar of the life of a woman. The stories/poems in this book are classified into twelve months. Also, the book has a strong influence of Indian Mythology.

Basically, the book revolves around womanhood and it showcases the miseries faced by women. Few stories are touching; few stories actually brought tears into my eyes; few stories made me rejoice. These stories bring out the various facets in the life of a woman. It is safe to say that this book is not read for the sake of reading but it educates us. Yes, it does. Trust me!

The stories that I love the most are ‘Finding an Ideal Mother for my Unborn Child’ which talks about the things that our mothers do in our everyday life and the extent to which they can do and it showcases the typical mentality of a mother; ‘When the Ganges Ran Dry’ is one story that reminds me of my grandmother every time I read it; ‘Selling a Body to Gain a Mind’ is an intense story of a prostitute and her wonderful daughter; ‘The Homecoming’ is a story of a happy woman who has a lovable husband but everything changes when she sees this man who was her lover when she was young but eventually she makes the right choice; ‘Sisters by Choice and not by Chance’ is a story of two sisters who are excessively loved by their parents and how one of the sisters gets to know that she is an adopted child. This thing changes her life entirely; ‘Can You Hear Me, Ma?’ is a poem of an unborn daughter talking to her mother; ‘The Priceless Gift called Nationality’ is a story that teaches us the value of nationality.

In an era where we talk about equality and humanity, I believe that it should start from home. Everyday our mothers go through a lot of pain and do mammoth tasks of work to raise us and many a times, we tend to ignore our mothers. If we do not respect the woman of our own family, how can we respect others to respect them? This book says that women are equal to men and they should be treated properly and most importantly, it teaches us to respect women. I recommend every person, especially men to read this book.

And Sagarika, congratulations for writing such a wonderful book that can act as a guide of a woman’s life. Never felt that it was a debut book of a writer. Bravo!

Author: Sagarika Chakraborty

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Price: 295/-

I have reviewed this book for Scoop magazine here! :)