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Book Reviews by Sonal Bhasin:
The Boy In Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
A disheartening story of innocence trapped in the world of hate, war and Hitler. A story staged in 1940s, The Holocaust era, which along with having preyed on numerous innocent lives, has marred the history with the most sinnest of colours, which can neither be compensated or justified nor be washed off. The author, though has written a fiction, but it must have been the story of countless Brunos and Shmuels whose worlds were separated by the strongest of forces. But doesn't the friendship transcend everything? So did Bruno's love for 'The Boy In Striped Pyjamas', Shmuel, his accidental ally befriended in desperate times. The narrative is a constant reminder of the fact that after everything said and done, rights or wrongs, they are children, the purest of souls. This book is a simple journey of what goes inside a helpless, nine year old boy who is trapped amidst the chaos he doesn't understand and how he, being an explorer by heart, finds his escape along with his best friend for life he met a year before when he moved to Out-With(Austwich), the name he can't even pronounce correctly, from Berlin. It will surely give you a teary eye yet will prove it's worth in giving you a glimpse of the world it once had been through the eyes of two boys belonging to two different clashing worlds. The Forest of Enchantments 'Sitayana'
That's what the author calls this amazing work of her's which sounds so good! This book actually lends you the eyes to watch the ever beautiful saga unroll in a totally different light. You end up wondering that even so, how little the story on whole may have changed on the outside, but how drastically it had changed in the little spaces, that earlier were never felt to have existed, filling those unspoken voids. As a reader, you reach the same destination as that of while hearing/reading Ramayana, but the journey it now takes you on, is just breathtaking and amazingly different. From a woman's perspective, making it more detailed and complete in itself. It paints a beautiful picture of the palace Sita grew up in, the gardens that surrounded it and even after being banished, how humbly she makes the forest her abode. How beautifully the words bring about the connection and lifelong relation the earth born Sita shares with the mother nature till the last moment. It brings into light, the sacrifices, the dilemmas, the turmoils and how actually each characters were shaped into their real self, not just of the main female protagonist, but her sister, mother-in-law, step mother-in-laws, women of Lanka, who earlier perhaps had passed the story timeline without due consideration, unrecognised.
Hippie by Paulo Coelho
A book to fall in love with the skies, the streets, the walls, the culture and the people of some mangificient places you've never been to and suddenly you'll be longing to walk miles, barefooted in your ragged jeans, along with people you've never met before and unraveling your stories with ecstasy devoid of any kind of fear of being judged otherwise. It triggers the spark of taking chances, perhaps even being reckless at times but then again a chance on breathing in the different airs of the world which definitely comes ensured with mesmerising scents and zero regrets for you to take back home. You find yourself on an unplanned journey beyond the known definition of the word 'Hippie' on a vehicle named 'Magic Bus'. And for sure it does it's magic for the readers! This book made me doubt my state of mind in which I may have read his other book, so definitely going to try that again!
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