Backward journey

Focus, Sam
By Rohit Gore.
Rupa.
Pages 248. Rs 195.

Reviewed by Ravia Gupta (The Tribune)

ACCIDENTS are part of life. While some accidents are serious in nature, there are some that bring a smile on your face each time you remember them. We all do have accidents in life, but there is something unique in case of Sam as he meets with an accident every year. There is something strange about his 28th accident, as he considers it to be the worst ever accident. This time something evil tells him how he will feel on his 29th accident.

Focus, Sam is a journey of Sam or Sameer Sathe to save himself from the next accident, of which a mystic had warned him that it would be his last accident. The only way he can save himself is by reconnecting with all the girls in his life. Now the biggest question buzzing in his head is, whether the seven women on his list will consider saving his life? Do they still feel that it is worth the effort to save his life despite the hurt and broken promises?

Desperate to save his life, Sam decides to go back in time to repair the damage caused. In his attempt to understand their lives and himself better, he finds out that he did fall in love with each one of them, may be not for a long, but there was something special for each one of them in his heart. To his disappointment, he also finds that most of them were not really in love with him.

This reverse journey becomes quite a learning experience for Sam who now understands the real meaning of life to the fullest and his responsibilities towards life become clear to him. Rohit Gore in his debut novel has sketched some of the characters so well that they almost seem real people with real problems. And you can be sure to learn something new from Sam’s backward journey to step ahead in life.

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110717/spectrum/book4.htm

Breaking free from virtues

Reviewed by Ravia Gupta...published in The Tribune  

Vivek and I
By Mayur Patel. Penguin. Pages 384. Rs 299.

"Love pains. Love kills. Love heals.
For some it’s an addiction and for many it’s rubbish. Who are we to decide, it’s for those who fall in love each time to brave the ache next time."

BEING ambitious may not be the purpose of everyone’s life, but adding a "meaning to their lives" is certainly everyone’s aim. This is a story of a man whose aims in life were limited. Having a large bank balance and owning luxurious things had never been his idea of a successful life. Family, friends and love mattered to him the most.

Kaushik, while watching himself in a mirror, was proud to be a handsome man. Fair, tall, slim, sharp features, he almost had everything needed to be a "Lady Killer". But like they say the world would have been a perfect place if we all were happy with what we had. Kaushik, too, was not very happy to be a "lady killer" and was in search of a different meaning to his life.

The past is a history and history repeats itself are often confusing to understand. Brokenhearted Kaushik when arrives in a small, sleepy town of Valai, leaving his past behind, he had no idea that he would ever fall in love again. But life gives him another chance and the rush of love that he feels the second time is, however, not without its dilemmas. Kaushik finds himself in a fix between the "right" and the "wrong" in society. He is just not sure if his "love" would be "man enough" to face the truth.

Girls had always been crazy about Kaushik, but he was never interested in them. Oblivious to the devastation, he was interested in men and the latest one he was crazy about was Vivek, a 16-year-old boy, from the school where he was a teacher.

Vivek, an arts student, was not a topper, but he was above average. He was good at maths and so-so in English, the subject which Kaushik used to teach. Kaushik firmly believed that love had nothing to do with age. This notion perhaps unshackled him from the guilt of falling in love with his student. He believed that love for Vivek stabilised his unsteady boat of life. His life had found its meaning. The faint hope of getting Vivek’s love had brought new zest to his life.

Life taught Kaushik a lot after his separation from Krishna. Though he was not ready to face the suffering again, he was helpless and was on the same track of love and hope with Vivek once again.

Despite being on the "wrong path" as his so-called modern family considered homosexuality to be a sin, Kaushik just didn’t want to mend his ways. Falling in love with Vivek was one such error which he didn’t want to correct. Kaushik was neck deep in love with Vivek and was ready for whatever destiny the Master above had in store for him.

Vivek and I is a powerful novel about sexuality, falling in love, and then learning to let go. With more authors choosing homosexual themes for their work, a same-sex story no longer remains a taboo for Indian writers. Mayur Patel’s Vivek and I is yet another novel trying to break-free from all the "sanity".

Change and consequences

IT's for sure that you may not have heard or even read about such a makeover ever before. Extreme American Makeover is a story of a 16-year-old short, spunky and just a regular girl, Sameera, also known as ‘Sparrow’ among her friends.

It’s a journey of a Pakistan-born teenager from being Sameera Righton to Sammy Righton, the adopted daughter of America’s Republican presidential candidate, James Righton.

The story is a beautiful narration of how the life of this teenage girl changes once she gets to the centrestage of the exhausting presidential election campaign. She gets a makeover done and suddenly finds herself getting everything except privacy. She has quite a few very good friends, but soon she starts meeting new people and realises that she needs to expand her circle and welcome new people in her life.

As the election day heats up, Sameera believes that her dad will be the best President America can ever get simply because he is loyal and smart to the core. With this belief, she joins her social activist mother Elizabeth Campbell to campaign for her father.

And now, it’s time for that "Extreme American Makeover"; time to open that make-up case and extra suitcase as campaign enthusiast Tara Colby steps in. Soon Sameera understands that campaigning is like coxing. The more it is done, the more confident one becomes. And now, when reporters surround her parents and hustle them out of the loud, dimly ballroom, Sameera’s self-appointed teen girl flanks her and before she understands what is happening, she is at the centre of a singing pulsating solidarity of ‘dancing daughters’.

With nationwide grassroots promotion and the help that she gets from her circle of 29 friends to hone her posts, the word spreads about Righton’s daughter’s real blog, sparrowblog.com, which starts getting several hits and comments galore mostly from the young people.

In an attempt to connect to her readers, Sparrow explains them about her new ‘avatar’. She explains them how worried the members of her father’s campaign team were about her not being an ‘American’ enough.

They were worried that her Pakistan origin may damage her dad’s campaign and that’s how Sammy Righton is born. But she thanks her readers and says that they proved the campaign team wrong and accepted the real her. She apologises for letting someone else steal her voice, and the Americans do forgive her.

The site though receives only a few insulting or unrelated comments and critics were quickly torn apart by other commentators leaping to Sameera’s defense. The New York Times even describes the site as "The ultimate teen town hall", "moderated by a young woman who seems wise beyond her years".

All in all the story has a simple and funny narration, written from a teenager’s point of view who believes in possibilities.