BOOK REVIEW OF INDIAN AUTHORS discussion

What is your take on poetry? Do you read them? I know some are quite heavy, brooding and all, but a few like Robert Frost’s , “Stopping by woods on a snowy evening” are simple and elegant. Right?

In case you are wondering, why I am harping on about poetry without getting on with the story, then let me confess; this week is as much about verse as it is about prose. I dug out a poem by John Godfrey Saxe, titled “The Blind Man and the Elephant” for this week’s edition.

This week’s tale is titled, “Jugalbandi” (Can I be more obvious you say! I agree). Read it at https://app.tinyletter.com/#!/message...

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What do we notice first when we move out of the city? Cleanliness? Greenery? Okay. What about the first thing we miss? Noise! Think about it. You drive into a suburb, hang out for a while and you will inevitably say, this place is less noisy than the city.

What am I getting at, you ask, noise pollution?

Nope. I am wondering if one can be in a noiseless state. Shut your eyes for a minute or two. Guess what, for not even a micro-mille-second do you stop hearing your own voice. Even without speaking, you can hear your reflections. Millions of thoughts zip through our minds and we hear every one of them.

Scientists have discovered that there is sound even in outer space. Imagine, background music has been playing in our universe, in our galaxy and on our planet, long before the first living thing evolved and before the first background score of a movie was conceived. How spooky, right?

As you might have guessed, this week’s story “First among Equals” (perhaps you just realised I am an Archer fan. Guilty) has a strong association with the various opposites of noise: silence and music.

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Fake News. Do you cringe every time this phrase pops up in discussions?

Ponder over the facts for a while and you will realise that the concept is perhaps as old as humankind is. That’s right, the human species has always thrived on deception. Power is often quoted as a reason for man’s obsession with lying. Our ancestors went as far as to formalize ways and means to break an opponent’s stronghold with manufactured lies. You may be familiar with the name Artha Shastra, the tell-all guide by a maser kingmaker.

Fake News has reincarnated as an insurmountable Frankenstein in this era of internet-enabled data mining. Therefore, is the snail mail’s capacity to deliver windfall gains using manufactured information less effective with each passing day?

This week’s story, “Love Bytes” tries to create a ripple in the sea of misleading information, using good old snail mail.

Manju and Sunil continue their roller coaster with The Quack House (TQH) in this fourth tale of the series.

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If anyone is interested in mythology fiction then kindly go through my new book RISHIVRAM-The Mystic Land of Immortals
https://www.amazon.in/Rishivram-Sujit...