Friday, June 14, 2013

Book Review: The Homing Pigeons by Sid Bahri



What the book says:

In the middle of the catastrophic 2008 recession, Aditya, a jobless, penniless man meets an attractive stranger in a bar. Little does he know that his life will change forever.

When Radhika, a young, rich widow, marries off her stepdaughter, little does she know that the freedom she has yearned for is not exactly how she had envisioned it.

They say homing pigeons always come back to their mate, no matter where you leave them on the face of this earth. The Homing Pigeons is the story of love between these two unsuspecting characters as it is of lust, greed, separations, prejudices and crumbling spines.

About the Author:

A hotelier by education, an ex-banker and a senior executive in the outsourcing industry, Sid gave up a plush career in the outsourcing industry to follow his passions. Based out of Ranikhet, he is now a struggling entrepreneur and a happy writer. A self- proclaimed eccentric, he is an avid blogger who loves to read and cook. Cooking stories, however, is his passion. The Homing Pigeons is his debut novel. He can be reached at sidd.bahri@gmail.com

The Review

To begin with this is one book that has made me miss my metro station twice and the bus stop once. Yes, that is the kind of interest it builds in the reader. The book talks about love, lost and found and then lost again. It’s about two individuals and their journey of love, well not just love but life too. Love is just the more important aspect out here. The story begins with Aditya, a man in his thirties living jobless in the times of recession and Radhika, a rich widow who has absolutely nothing to do. While Aditya is too tired of surviving on his wife’s income, Radhika isn’t actually enjoying the freedom she has earned after the death of a husband who was eighteen years older to her. Even after years of separation there is a void in their lives, they haven’t been able to fall out of love. Radhika still loves Aditya and so does Aditya but will they be able to meet? Will the misunderstandings give way to a new relation? Will the emptiness of such a long duration get filled? Will the mess in their lives clear up? Take a ride in their past to know how their present helps form a future.
Creating suspense in a romantic fiction is something we need to learn from Sid Bahri. You won’t be bored reading it. The swiftness, the flow in the story is mind blowing. Each phase brings a new direction to the story. The best part of the book is that we get to know the side of both the parties which is generally not the case. The book is either narrated in the first person or the third but here, the good part is both the characters speak. We know what they feel. Being a male, expressing a woman’s feelings in such an amazing way is something the author has done very well. As a debutante, the work is definitely A+. Not even once would you feel that this is someone’s debut work.
Highly recommended. Go for it, this book shouldn’t be missed.

Get a copy of this book from Flipkart


Saturday, June 1, 2013

Are We Humans? #2

So today I was just sitting with a my project team mates in the canteen discussing about the viva and how all of us are going to give the presentation. The weather had already been giving us a heavy time and all this topped up with the tension of project presentation was becoming too tough to handle when a fire broke out in the kitchen.
There was some issues with the gas cylinder and a guy got injured in the process. He was saved from burns but then he did deserve to be taken to the hospital but to our utter shock and dismay, none of the workers or the canteen head stood up to take up the poor guy to a doctor.
Why?
Just coz he was poor and worked hours in the heat for a meager amount of salary?
Why did no one care to help him out?
Even the few students who were present in the canteen got up to help him but why wasn't he taken for a treatment.
The victim didn't say anything for sometime but then he began to weep horribly. He kept on wailing for how long I do not know but sitting there certainly brought shivers in my body.
In this case, even I find myself on the wrong side. Why didn't I stand up and raise a voice for him? Why was he simply given the homely cure? And that too because he cried for a long time. Why was he not taken to the nursing home? I still do not get this.

Is there any humanity left today?
Is it high time we gave it a thought?