The Remains of the Day

I fell in love all over again. That feeling of losing myself into a world so beautifully painted by another, the feeling of happiness just reminiscing over those classic words that seem to have etched themselves into my memory for ever. Yes, I have fallen in love… with Kazuo Ishiguro’s “The Remains of the Day”. This is a story of an ageing butler, his memories and perspectives spread across two different eras in the English history.

Courtesy: Good Reads

This is a story of two individuals falling quietly in love, never to express their feelings. Last but not the least; this is a story of English culture and the changes it undergoes between the two wars. Kazuo Ishiguro’s play with words paints a vivid picture of how life was and how it has changed post the war through the eyes of Stevens the butler. Darlington hall, the manor at which he was the butler is bought by an Englishman Mr. Farraday post the war and demise of Lord Darlington. 

The change in ownership brings about a transformation in the way the Manor is managed and to a large extent wipes away a large number of English customs that were followed thus causing a certain degree of regret and discomfort for Stevens. At the persistence of his new master, Stevens undertakes a vacation (unheard of for butlers) to travel across the West Country on the pretext of requesting Mrs. Kenton the erstwhile housekeeper to return and resume her duties. 

What starts as a simple travel to experience the English country side and meet Mrs. Kenton soon turns into a journey of self discovery, realization of love, acknowledgment of the changing times and most importantly of understanding that there is always something to look forward to even when one is past his prime in his profession and times have changed. There is much one can do in the remains of the day…after all as Ishiguro puts it, the evening is the best part of the day. This is a book vibrating with optimism and the goodness of life despite the rough motions it puts us through. If this book were a dream, I would never want to wake up.

The Death Instinct

After a long time I picked up a fiction suspense thriller to snuggle up with. Authored by Jed Rubenfeld, this is his second piece after “The Interpretation of Murder”.

Courtesy: TLC Books

The book revolves around the 1920 Wall Street bombing which till date has remained unresolved. Using the bombing as the central theme, Rubenfeld weaves different stories into the book. When the bomb goes off a redhead is found with her head severed, a security guard with a gold ingot clutched tightly in his hand and bullet marks on the wall of JP Morgan. Each clue leads to a story of its own, converging in the end to form a cohesive finale. Each story uses facts to strengthen the plot; be it Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis principles on war neurosis or historical facts such as the movement of gold on Wall Street at the time of the bombing.

Throughout the book, Rubenfeld reflects two primary emotions- the world being an ambiguous place to be in and that love does not conquer all. What emerges from these two conclusions is the existence of the ‘Death Instinct”. A passion for destruction that is as fundamental as that for love.  This emotion is again cemented by Freud’s theory on the same topic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive )

A wonderful amalgamation of facts and fiction makes this book a page turner and hard to keep down till you have devoured it till the end.

Now, I cant wait to get my hands on “the Interpretation of Murder”.

This book has been reviewed at

Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8536672-the-death-instinct

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Instinct-A-Novel/dp/1594485607

Nothing lasts forever…

It pains to watch the news these days. Images and video clips of the devastation in Uttarakhand seem to be occupying all real estate available. Orphaned children, landslides and bits and pieces of houses floating in the rivers don’t seem to make Mother Nature’s fury lose some intensity. These images of the religious northern state try to wash away those beautiful memories that were formed just a month ago…

A vacation meant visiting a place that would take us away from the chaos of our workplace and the madness of our daily routines, this year the quest for a perfect vacation took us to Auli, a beautiful town in northern Uttarakhand.

Dev Prayag

Our journey to Auli meant meandering through countless Himalayan mountain peaks, listening to Alaknanda, Bhagirathi and Ganga happily gurgle as they danced their way down the mountains, meeting occasionally at various Prayags…the confluences of the rivers, splashing different shades of blue and green across the Himalayan canvas.

If the sheer beauty of the journey was not overwhelming enough, the spectacular sight on reaching Auli left us speechless. The magnificent Nandadevi or the majestic Neelkanth, they all humbled us with their overpowering presence. Smoldering sunrises and melting sunsets adorned the mountains everyday.

Melting Sunset

Sudden sprinkles of rain showers gave rise to carpets of colorful wildflowers along the mountain side. Trekking up these mountains and experiencing nature from such close depth added certain freshness to our days there.

The Mountain side

This abundance of natural beauty seemed to have rubbed off on the locals as well. Having been in the mountains, they lived a simple life, some earning their livelihood through terrace farming while others with tourism and running what were popularly known as Gharwali Dhabas.

One such Dhaba and its owner left their mark on us. Bhandariji added his gharwali charm to our stay. His Dhaba was located just outside our resort and guests like us were his main source of income.

The Sun God is most kind on those who dwell up high in the mountains thus the blazing heat we experience in the rest of the country is unknown to these areas. A pleasant weather with the occasional chill during summer and icy cold winters ensured that Bhandariji’s “garam chai”, “pakodas” and “Maggi” sales don’t taper down much. However his sales might be, we always found him smiling, perched on a stool outside his Dhaba that doubled up as his home as well.

The Dhaba

A few days into our stay, while sipping some hot sweet tea, we casually asked him if we could get some authentic gharwali food in and around Auli. Bhandariji broke into a big broad smile and requested us to let him serve us lunch the next day.

Sharp at noon, we arrived at his Dhaba, mouth watering aromas of Aloo Paranthas and Rajma Chawal engulfed us as we perched ourselves on to the only furniture available - Bhandariji’s bed and a few plastic stools. With great eagerness and love he served us food in the limited plates that he had. It was by far the best Rajma Chawal we had ever had. The fact that he cooked for six of us with just the two vessels he had on a rickety old stove only added more flavor to the most lip smacking meal we had during our stay.

Good things come in small packages; our vacation was but a week long. We bid adieu to Bhandariji and the rest, to return to the monotonous craze of our daily lives…we returned to our crazy schedules but something had changed. Auli and people like Bhandariji had given us a new perspective, taught us to value life a tad bit more...

The clock chimes nine signaling the start of primetime news. Those gruesome images once again make their way into my mind, trying to wipe off those everlasting memories with present day reality…

I stubbornly hold on to them, firmly believing that someday Uttarakhand will hobble back to normalcy…someday  Bhandariji and all those hapless souls will get back what has been snatched from them…someday life will be what it was always meant to be.

Someday….

Coming back to life...

They have been my companions all throughout. My conversations with them would last 12-14 hours every day. Weekends and holidays too had lost their meaning. Wasted was the time that I spent without them, eager was I to return back to that world ….or so I felt.

A lot did occur which should have made me read the signs... getting distanced from the closest friend I ever had to losing a parent.  They all left an everlasting mark on me. Hurt it did, but all the pain did was push me more into the only world I had come to know…or I thought I knew.

It took me nine long years to take a pause and look back at life...  life as I had made it to be. Endless hours spent on conference calls, presentations; excel sheets, word documents and visio diagrams. Precious time spent on doing something I had no appreciation or passion for.  I tried to unearth memories of friends and family that would make me not feel so guilty; there were a few, drowning in the ocean of emptiness. It shook me out of an oblivion that I had not realized I was in…

Strings had snapped leaving gaping holes but many had stubbornly stayed put…loosened they might have but nevertheless hung on. I silently sent up a prayer thanking the almighty for their obstinate behavior…

If only I could turn back the clock to the days I now yearn for… if only…

It was time to change things for the good, spend my time enjoying every minute of my existence, doing what I love to do…it was time to secure those loosened strings and bring back life into my life..

It was time to take that first baby step and I did…I quit.

“I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life”

                                                                                --Pink Floyd