Book Review: Life..Love..Kumbh
Part of Debut Indian Writers Challenge 2013, South Asian Challenge 2013 and Reading Challenge 2013: First Reads
What is the most exotic thing you know about Kumbh Mela in India.
Answer in the form below. The most e.x.o.t.i.c. answer makes you the Reader-Winner of July 2013 and gets the laughter riot book The President’s Coming by Anuvab Pal home delivered at your place.
A day before the maha kumbh bath on 13th January 2010 in Haridwar, India. Three lives. Of Aditi, Anant and Agastya. Weaving through each other’s; experiencing every possible emotional state of the spectrum. Life..Love..Kumbh is yoga guru Aporva Kala‘s debut offering and what a completeness he offers.
It is undoubtedly one of the most difficult books I have read but also one of the most comprehensively complete ones describing human desires, delimas and emotions (dark and otherwise).
When Aporva mentioned that it is a very difficult book to review, it was more of a challenge that anything else to the reader in me. Candidly, accept I must, if not for the challenge and the time target of the TBR (to be reviewed) list, I would have taken my own sweet time to read this one.
While the book talks about love, desires and ambitions it also takes a peek into philosophy and spirituality. It is at the core a spiritual journey camaflouged as a physical one. It is also a book on better living covered in the gloss of fiction. Through the three character’s choices on the fatefull day, Aporva points us to the fine nuances of life – the rights and the not so rights. Chronicling a day in the lives of the three, the book also seems like a tribute to James Joyce’s Ulysses and a par excellence tribute I must say.
While Life..Love..Kumbh narrates some very complex concepts simply, it also has its low points. Like Aporva at certain instances doesn’t seem to beleive in the writing adage of if it is not developing a character or taking the story forward – chop it out. Many characters and details make an appearance that could have been done away with. Secondly the pace at which the sorry unfolds isn’t considerably speedy which will extract some drops of patience from the reader and the same can be said by the language used. It will be safe to say that the writer has mastered the art of simplifying & complicating hand-by-hand.
The book builds on the reader – page by page – word by word like A.R. Rahman‘s music.
It is not an every day book. It is not an every person book. But it is definately a recommended book if you just have the patience to wade through the initial pages. If you want a dose of spirituality wrapped in the accommodability of fiction, pick this one up some time. In the backdrop of the world’s largest congregation of religious pilgrims, the Maha Kumbh, the fine lessons on life get delivered, unhindered and effortless.
Happy Reading.
Title:
Author: Aporva Kala
Publisher:
Pages: 290
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3.75 of 5
Reviewed for: Author
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