THE PROMISE by R.L. Scott- Buccleuch

 Author- R.L. Scott- Buccleuch

 Publication- Heinemann

 Illustrations- David Barnett

 Rating – 5/5

 Review by – VIDHI SETHI (14 yrs.)

The Promise, by R.L. Scott – Buccleuch is a truly inspirational story of a boy named Palito. The story is set in Bahia, a state in Brazil. It revolves around a boy who is very passionate about football. Beautifully written, the story is very binding and interesting.

Born to Pedro and Maria, a poverty-stricken couple, Palito grew up with his parents and his two sisters- Fernanda and Odete in a small hut. Life had been cruel to him. He had been born with de-shaped legs. But his strong will power and determination drove him to achieve his goal. From a very early age he had had a keen interest in football. His father despite the poor condition of the family wanted him to follow his heart. Pedro’s only wish was that his son becomes a great footballer one day and plays for Brazil. But life wasn't a bed of roses for them. They had to face many highs and lows. There were times when it seemed as if there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Still Palito, with his focused approach and single-minded devotion, was able to fulfil his father’s desire. He became one the greatest players in the history of Brazilian football. At the time of Palito’s birth an old Negress had told his father that his boy would grow up and become famous. She had told him that he would give happiness to many people and would help the poor. Her prophecy had come true. Palito’s name was known in many countries all over the world. Many thousands of people enjoyed watching Palito on the football field and the children’s hospital in Bahia, set up by Palito, gave help to hundreds of poor and sick children.

The story has a beautiful narrative and is a must read for everyone. It inspires the reader. It also creates a kind of passion for the sport and should be read by each and every football lover. Palito comes across as a very nice, determined, courageous and patient individual. He was able to go through so many hardships and obstacles in his journey. From the local village team to the Corinthians, then to The White Star and finally to the Brazilian football team, Palito’s journey wasn’t an easy one. The extremely supportive role that the family plays in his life is also quite noticeable. There is a lot that we can learn from every character.  It is one the best books I have ever read. 

Read the book to find out why the title 'Promise'.

Cheers!

OUR IMPOSSIBLE LOVE

Title: Our Impossible Love

Author: Durjoy Datta

Number of pages: 289

“13 year old girl gang raped in south Delhi”, “6 year old daughter raped by servant in the house” and many such headlines are not a new thing to people in Delhi. Such horrendous crimes have become common and majority of the people do nothing except cribbing about the situation and the authorities just get away with the situation by offering handsome money to victims (if alive) and their families(if dead). 

Going by the name of the novel many readers would have expected the review to start with the girl and boy and how they met but this novel is not only about the love story of two characters but it is more than that. The story is about friendship, kinship, jealousy, and many other perils that are prevalent in the society. The story revolves around two major characters Danish, student of psychology, belongs to high class society of Delhi and his parents are well educated and his brother, Ankit, is always in the news because of his amazing IT ventures and Aisha, 17 year old student who loves her family from the bottom of her heart and belongs to middle class society whose father is getting transferred from here and there and her mother is fighting against dialysis with all her might. Danish is the student counselor in Aisha’s school and she usually consults him about every personal matter and in all this process she is trying to become a better woman. Another major role is played by Aisha’s new boyfriend, Vibhor who is another hot-shot boy living on the luxuries of his parents. 

Things changed on the 18^th birthday of Aisha when Sarthak, her brother, throws a big party and she got drunk so much that she blackouts in Vibhor’s home and without her consent he had sex with her. Aisha terms this as rape whereas all her friends just think she is overreacting. After facing weeks of discomfort and shame in her own self she tells this to Danish who supports her, discloses it to her family and helps her in filing a case in the court against Vibhor. Lack of evidence and strong ministry support to Vibhor helped him and Aisha was proven wrong in the court. The bond between Danish and Aisha fostered when he helps her to fight back against people who don’t believe her and have started teasing her, calling her slut and made her life hell in the school.  Aisha came to know about Danish’s love for her through a document in his laptop that clearly spoke his heart out and after few days she confronted her feelings as well. Sarthak who turns out to be a gay and also has a boyfriend, Eriskin, in Poland and comes for her rescue and her mother is so open minded that she accepts the way her son is and only thinks about his happiness. Such stories are rarely visible in real life even in metro cities of India. Their mother’s behavior will actually come as a surprise to many readers. 

Before leaving for Poland, Sarthak and Eriskin became the partners in crime with Aisha and played a prank on Vibhor and tried to prove him a gay with the help of social media and that’s when he realized that what he did with Aisha was actually a rape and not something what he called little rape and she wasn’t overreacting. The story ends here when Aisha and Danish decides to live happily together ever after. Misconceptions of people regarding what rape is and what it is not is so wrong that the society and even the authorities that are supposed to do justice failed to understand what the girl has actually gone through during all those moments. In the nutshell, Durjoy Datta tries to bring out various aspects of different relations, a simple and cute love story, impact of western world, hype of social media and how the most educated people fail to understand the very simplest of the things. The novel is a good read if somebody is just interested in a small real world story that will have some fictional angles.

Do consider it if you are travelling as it is a light read!

Bala Gala the Brave and Dangerous by Gita V. Reddy

Title : Bala Gala the Brave and Dangerous

Author : Gita V. Reddy

Illustrations by : VC Arts

'Bala Gala the Brave and Dangerous' is a cute little story which celebrates imagination of tender minds as the main theme. Every child is a gifted dreamer, and the flights of imagination take him to far and wider places which may not even exist in the practical world.

There once was a Gamba-Bamba forest in which a river Kanga flowed. Bala Gala was a tiger in that forest who roared ferociously. Earlier he was a deer, who was quick and fast. There were many other co-inhabitants of the forests too. Brammy-Gommy, the crocodile who always wanted to eat Bala-Gala whenever he came to the river to drink water. Once when a monster came to the jungle, Bala Gala turned into a fire dragon to scare the monster away. In every flight of his imagination, he made many friends, scared some away, saved some but enjoyed every tryst thoroughly.

Yes, these are all imaginations of a little child who wakes up every day with a fresh adventure in mind. Just by imagining himself to be a different creature every morning, he weaves a unique world around it.

Role play is a great way by which little children learn and entertain themselves. The author has done perfectly well in reaching out to the children through their dreamland where they usually love to reside. In fact, the ability to be able to imagine oneself to be anything is quite empowering. One can choose to be anybody or anything and that is what Gita has allowed Bala Gala to be. He chooses to be a deer first but when Brammay-Gommay frightens him,  he decides to be a tiger instead. And on a beautiful bright morning he looks forward to being a pretty butterfly. There is no end to the options and hence the excitement is endless too.

Illustrations beautifully accentuate the impact of the story.

THE MAGIC FINGER by ROALD DAHL

Author- Roald Dahl

Illustration- Quentin Blake

Publishing- puffinbooks.com

Rating- 4.5/5

Review by- VIDHI SETHI (13 yrs)

The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl, a delightful kidlit book is a sure pleasure to read. The story mainly revolves around the narrator and the Greggs. It starts by telling us about the unfortunate series of events that happen with Ms. Winter thanks to our dear narrator’s Magic Finger.

Our little 8yr old narrator hates hunting. Whenever she sees Mr. Gregg and his two sons, Philip and William hunting she gets really angry. Once she sees the trio bringing back a beautiful, golden deer that they had shot. As usual, she starts seeing red, gets hot all over and her finger begins tingling most terribly and unknowingly her Magic Finger touches the Greggs and the adventure begins. The whole family turns into ducks and spends the night in a nest on a tree eating slumburgers and wormburgers. The story continues with the Greggs finally understanding the fact that even birds love freedom and shouldn’t be hunted. The little narrator’s Magic Finger is very helpful in transforming the Greggs.

The book has a beautiful storyline and is worth a read. Complete with attractive pictures the story seems even better. It’s a wonderful example of Roald Dahl’s way of capturing the reader’s attention and making it extremely tough for him/her to keep the book down. It’s a really sweet and interesting book with a nice ending and a good moral. Once you read it, you'll sure bless me for suggesting this book to you. ;) 

The India I Love by Ruskin Bond

Title : The India I Love

Author : Ruskin Bond

Publisher : Rupa 

ISBN : 81-291-0397-4

Ruskin Bond mesmerizes his readers yet again through his straight from the heart collection of prose and poems. This is his way of expressing his feelings for his beloved adopted country with all her animate and inanimate beings, their uniqueness, their character and how all these combine to create a unique flavour of Indian-ness.

In some chapters, he reminisces about his earlier days, the time when he decided to make India and specifically her hills his home and leave West for good. In his words, "The link with Britain was tenuous, based on heredity rather than upbringing.  It was more in the mind. It was a literary England that I had been drawn to, not a physical England. " 

He talks about the mountains and hills, rivers and its tributaries, various people and their idiosyncrasies.

He sprinkles the chapters with some nuggets of wisdom that he has processed over the years by observing people and his surroundings keenly.

"A well-balanced person : someone with a chip on both shoulders

Experience : The knowledge that enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it the second time

Sympathy : What one woman offers another in exchange for details

Worry : The interest paid on trouble before it becomes due"

His adroitness to write about himself with utmost sincerity and transparency becomes apparent time and again by the ease with which he packs self-mockery in his writings. His honesty and humility reach out to the readers unadulterated as he cloaks his feelings in simple yet effective language.  A slice of his humility and critical analysis of himself get reflected in these lines -

"I am not the most inventive of writers, and fantastical plots are beyond me. My forte is observation, recollection and reflection. "

Ruskin Bond's writings are so true to the soil of this country in its original form, it clearly displays his sensitivity in observing, experiencing, absorbing, imbibing and processing the Indian-ness in his system and what comes out through his pen is the essence of his relationship with the country and with everything belonging to it. 

The peace and serenity in his writings transport the readers to a blissful state of living the life in its entirety with every single moment registering its presence and with every single thing getting observed, acknowledged and appreciated in the same way as Ruskin Bond does on his solitary walks.

"I prefer walking alone to walking with others. That ladybird on the wild rose would escape my attention if I was engaged in a lively conversation with a companion. Not that the ladybird is going to change my life. But by acknowledging its presence, stopping to admire its beauty, I have paid obeisance to the natural scheme of things of which I am only a small part."

Whenever I get a chance to conduct interviews with the authors, I often ask them for their suggestions to the aspiring/budding authors. But without having directly asked Ruskin Bond, I got the answer from him in this book -

"If you, dear reader, have any ambitions to be a writer, you must first rid yourself of any notion that perfect peace and quiet is the first requirement. There is no such thing as perfect peace and quiet except perhaps in a monastery or a cave in the mountains. And what would you write about, living in a cave? One should be able to write in a train, a bus, a bullock-cart, in good weather or bad, on a park bench or in the middle of a noisy classroom.

While I was editing this review, I noticed that I have used so many of his quotes directly here. This clearly shows that no words are worthy enough to carry the essence of his writings and they are best as they are. 

Stained Glass Summer by Mindy Hardwick

Title: Stained Glass Summer

Author: Mindy Hardwick

Type: e-book

The storyline of Stained Glass Summer revolves around a 12 year old girl, Jasmine, whose father is an artist and a photographer. Like her father, she is also obsessed by ‘art’ and dreams of being an artist like him. He in turn, fanatical about his ‘art’ and the awards he receives, is very distracted and does not care about his wife and daughter and does not give them much attention and freedom. He finally deserts them and goes looking for ‘art’ in Africa. Jasmine goes to spend her summer on her uncle’s island and finds the meaning of life there. She finds her true love- Cole, the importance of her existence – Sammy, a free environment and much more. There she tries to contact her father, who still seems to be existing only for his ‘art’ and awards and finally decides that she will stay on the island and mentor a 5 year old instead of going back to him. She also finds that true art is all about happiness and satisfaction and not only about awards.

It is basically a story of a little girl who does not receive much affection from her father, but instead does so in a clumsy 5 year old.

The author has used a 12 year old as her mouthpiece to expressively describe the events that happen in life. An adult narrator might have been more objective in the description. The book gives a profound report on what the average pre-teen feels about life.  I personally believe undue stress has been laid on the concept of ‘art’ and the little girl's attempts to be something other than what she actually is, has been stretched too far. But the emotional account of the happenings and the events gives a very deep insight of the minds of the characters and goes a long way in making the novel an interesting read.

A good one-time, leisure read indeed.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE By GABRIEL GARCIA MARCQUEZ

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude 

Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

No. of Pages: 457

It is said if you want to learn English then Bible is the book you must read. I believe, if you want to understand any concept of universe then Bible answers them all.

“ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE” is a brief snapshot of Bible only. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez has written an excellent piece, which is a true embodiment of the vicious circle of life. The only reason it is vicious is because it will end at where it all started. Kids usually ask this from elders, who was the first person on this planet and usually they all get different answers from different kinds of people. Few books say “Manu” was the first person and that all would end because of war and violence.

Mocando is a little world isolated from the outside one and the first family out there is of Buendias. José Arcadio Buendía, head of the family is involved in mysterious and scientific inventions and always tries to find logic behind the events.

Turnaorund happens when people of the village are exposed to other ideas and people and that is the moment when everything starts getting messed up in Mocando. It is quite interesting that whenever few leaders think that this is right for the growth of our country or village in the book is possible in long term only if leaders have the traits to control that much power and handle the consequences of it as well.

Head of the family, Jose, was not able to control the happenings and thus war continues and unrest prevails everywhere. Lust for power among the second generation can be seen clearly as after series of wars, Aureliano becomes the leader of the Liberal rebels and governments keep on changing after that. We observe the worst of relationships when people fight and even births, deaths and love affairs take an ugly shape. Author describes various events and centuries go by where people die, come into this village, they fight and then rest in peace. The lady of the house Ursula Iguarán tries to bring that love and unity in her family back but the golden thread of unity was not just broken, but burnt to ashes.  Then banana movement happened just like any other world war and banana workers went on strike. Dead people were dumped in the sea and then nature took its toll.

This is a marvel of a book, a must read for all the intellectual and the thinking beings, and I would surely want readers to feel the end of this story so as to know whether the village came back to normal state or not? Whether anyone survived or not? If yes, then who it was? Was it somebody from high income group or one of the banana workers? Whether anybody was left in this village to celebrate their victory? And the most importantly will this be the way human race will end on this planet earth?

(This review has been contributed by Suhani Bhareja, MBA Candidate at IIM Calcutta)