The Tales of Two Tales

Reading has always been a passion. Something that both my parents supported wholeheartedly, so while as a child my friends were happy to gloat over their latest Barbies or video games I was happy in the world of books, some bought, others borrowed.

Reading for pleasure continued through high school and college, greatly aided I must admit by Arts and later English as my subject of choice.

This passion however took quite a beating post setting up my own home and climbing up of the corporate ladder. Having always lived in a meticulously clean home, the choice was between dusting and reading and I must admit for the past couple of years dusting had taken precedence.

It has finally now changed thanks to a friend setting up a site bookmeabook which allows you to borrow books and have them home delivered at your convenience. The link to her site brought back many happy memories and also the means to getting my hands on books that I would love to read and just didn’t seem to find the time to go out and buy.

The first two books arrived and I was glad to get the delivery right at home without having to raise a finger. What added to the delight was the fact that the books were those published by Divya Dubey another classmate from college. She has after years spent publishing for others just started her own publishing house under the banner of gyaana books.

One of the books was also authored by her - Turtle Dove: A set of six short stories talking about our complicated times. When you know the author of a piece you tend to keep looking for glimpses of him or her in what you read. I hunted for Divya in her stories but couldn’t find her except perhaps in the use of some very difficult shall I say at times archaic words which is a malaise almost all English honours students suffer from. (Notice I say malaise when disease would have sufficed).
The story of Arnab stayed with me long after I had closed the book. The primary reason I think was the fact that it was written simply from the heart with lesser ornamentation.
Would I recommend the book to all? Not perhaps to a very light reader for the language at times turns very difficult and takes away from the story but to someone who has read classics or does heavy reading the stories would appeal.


The other book a novel: Of wooing, woes & wanderings by another first time writer Amitabha Chatterjee was a surprise. Having almost always associated Bengali writers with very intellectual stuff (excuse the snobbery) Amitabha’s very easy tale told completely from the perspective of a middle class male made me uncomfortable.

Till I realized the honesty in his words, he has written the novel with no pretensions to present the other side of the story. First books are almost always veiled attempts at autobiographies though while writing people do feel the need to justify the others (the non-author’s character) and give us some insight into their reasons.

Amitabha was telling his own tale and he stuck to it. Nowhere does one get a glimpse of what’s running in the mind of all the other characters whether his girlfriend, wife or various bosses, colleagues and adversaries.

Again coming to the difficult part of recommending: I would say no harm in taking it up as a light read while travelling or on a lazy afternoon.