Book Review: Urban Shots

The back cover of my copy of "Urban Shots" quotes "has all the ingredients of a breezy read…". That sentence is incomplete. 

This ostensibly simple collection of love stories has the ingredients all right, with short tales of love written lucidly making you turn the pages, but still manages to be anything but a breezy read. Because every now and then you find a story tug at something in your heart - invoking emotions, asking questions, rising memories - and you find yourself engulfed in a reverie of your own, not turning to the next story anytime soon. And every now and then you find yourself wondering what next would have happened, dreaming about a world you can see but don't live in, angry at the author for not telling you more. And if you're any bit of a hopeless romantic like I am, or are otherwise soft at heart, at least once you will find yourself shedding a tear or two for something you won't entirely be sure about. 

Urban Shots may not be pathbreaking fiction, era-defining literature or even a book you'd remember the title of a few years down the line, but in its quintessential simplicity it is something that carries a bit of us, all caught in the mad whirlwind of pacy urban lives, complex relationship dynamics, un-understood demands of the heart and irrational rationality of the head. 

With 31 stories themed around love, not even 10 pages each in length, and many by first time authors, you expect a bit of sameness and you get it. Actually, most of them are not really stories, they're like screenplays with context of random scenes we see around ourselves each day - two girls talking over coffee, a woman walking out of a mall having met a date over lunch, a phonecall from an ex-lover never really forgotten, an outburst between two strangers bound by something close in common. For the better stories, you can immediately see it happening in front of your eyes. For the best ones, you can feel them happening to you. That's why I think the top picks for every reader would subjectively vary with where they saw themselves at that point in life. Having said that, would recommend "Beyond Reasonable Doubt", "The Last Look", "Making Out", "A Good day", "Strangers", "Twisted", "High Time", "Reality Bytes"

The biggest letdown of the book for me was that a LOT of the stories sound the same, in terms of the voice of the narrative. The editor's voice feels too strong at times, the writing style too homogenous for a collection, and that takes away some of its freshness. Barring a few exceptions, the ones which retain heterogeneity actually feel badly written though, and therefore I can't judge whether they're a result of some mellowing by the editor on something even worse, or the writer's insistence to leave a few tales alone. The ones that feel freshest are the ones where the writer's semi-autobiographical voice seeps through a line or a setting, and you smile to yourself, almost trying to tell the writer - you understand. 

----------

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at Blogadda.. Participate now to get free books!

Believe it or not...

Rationality makes stupid decisions more often than irrationality does.

Choices

I have learnt something incredibly important, and I hope and intend to remember.

In life, there are often phase which seem tricky, treacherous and confusing. And all too often, there are choices to be made. There are always some options that seem easier or faster. It is always tempting to choose the convenient. And yet, fact is, in the long run, the most convenient choice you can make is the one for love. Love and compassion, is indeed the primary driver for true happiness, comfort and convenience. 

When faced with difficult choices, pick for the right reasons, not for the right apparent results. 

I cannot say I didn't 'know' this before - everyone has heard and read the "morals" and the "rules" all the time. Yet today I truly understand and appreciate. 

And I hope I never ever forget.

PS Now as I sit to write this and mull over, few words I heard earlier this week come back to me "...the temptation to go on was there, but I knew, that any longer from hereon, and it would be for the wrong reasons...so I couldn't". If only one could top infinite respect with a little bit more...

Injurious to health

There's a story I want to tell, but I am not sure how it ends. I am not exactly sure why I want to put it into words though, because it's a story of unspoken words, and therefore I am likely to fall short. But "they" say that saying things aloud heals faster than letting tears wash them away, and the idea is tempting. You know how people sometimes complicate their own lives - there is this girl I know, who does it, unfailingly, all the time. For as long as she knew love she'd loved one guy, but as soon as she got him in her life, she refused to believe that he loved her back, as opposed to some charitable affection, and drove him away lying to him she didn't love him at all. Ego, pride, sheer stupidity? Who knew?

Several years now she's spent in secret silent misery loving him more than ever, unable to truly look at a life beyond. Yet, a mere public mention of him, let alone a sight or a meeting, brings out a reaction that wouldn't betray anything but hate and disgust. I wonder who is the show for. Is it for him - whose hurt at her betrayal has been for all to see and suffer, but surely in all this years that has turned to indifference? Is it for the world, who frankly couldn't care less anymore - it is old gossip after all? Or just for herself. 

Once upon a time she used to be the closest of my friends, which is how I knew how deeply and passionately she'd always loved and desired him and how happy she was when they first got together. I had been more than a little jealous, I'd confess. Did the jealousy of mortal folk like us become the cast of evil eye on her life, and frankly, on her sanity? I don't know. I don't know what exactly happened. I haven't been privy to her feelings or her life even since; I suspect no one else is, either. But I know her well enough to understand the misery she's really in, the pain in her eyes and the facade she stubbornly puts up. More than once I've tried to break in, but never succeeded. To be honest, I gave up. It just felt like it wasn't worth me, or I wasn't worth it, whatever it was. And I moved away for some years. I was selfish. Isn't everyone? 

But I cannot stop thinking about it now. I saw her yesterday and it broke my heart. She couldn't have been worse. She lives alone, barely survives on what seems like a horrible job, and has no social life. And the way she looked at her, I was convinced he must have done something horrible to her, something so hard to get over it's destroyed her life. So I tried everything from provocation to empathy, anger to friendship, and all I got was tears. Silent tears. Something that told me that no matter how infinitely bad it looked already, it was only getting worse. 

But I want my friend back. Whole.

So I went to him and asked - what the hell had happened. And how could he do this to her. To my surprise he broke down, because he doesn't know either. In all this years, he hasn't known, and hasn't been able to get over constant hatred and rejection from her. He knew she once loved him, and  that incomplete knowledge made it impossible for him to successfully replace her in his life. He tried hard, but he couldn't give himself to another relationship, and it didn't last. He'd told himself to not ruin his life over someone who barely knew he existed, but couldn't stop. He knew he couldn't live like this, dangling in the middle, mentally neither here nor there. I don't know what made him open up to me - we'd never exactly been friends. Maybe it was hope he saw, in some convoluted way, in my initial accusatory words that betrayed how much she still suffered over him. 

All this is truly fucked up. Big mess.

So I am trying something different. Why? Because I cant bear the pain all this is causing me. Me, who's otherwise a non-player in this cruel game, and yet, anguished merely by witnessing some of the anguish. I am selfish about it, because I hope by trying to set something right, I might tempt Karma to forgive me for some of the wrongs I'd done in my own life. I can't find out more by asking, so I am taking a convoluted detour that might, if it goes well, end up in the two of them telling each other what they really feel, and what that means for the past and the future. I do believe in jinxes and evil eyes a lot more now though, so I won't tell you what it is. 

I don't know how this ends. That the pain is intense is proven by how it affects even me, who's just a bystander. I hope I leave it better rather than worse. Quite unlike my own life.

All these one-man women are ridiculously stupid. And injurious to their own health. 

Thank You Rahul

Feeling silly as I want to cry and smile at the same time as Rahul Dravid says " My approach to cricket has been reasonably simple: it was about giving everything to the team, it was about playing with dignity and it was about upholding the spirit of the game. I hope I have done some of that. I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying. It is why I leave with sadness but also with pride."

It is the spirit of failing, and never stopping trying that is so human, yet so beyond-human, that makes him a perfect role model.


I am speechless.

Random survival tips

God knows which one comes handy in which situation for some of us:

- don't stress over someone that barely remembers whether you exist
- take it or leave it. Do one.
- don't worry about what you can't change or control. Worry about why it makes you feel helpless.
- everyone is basically selfish. It is ok. Don't blame them for looking out for themselves.
- if you feel like you're giving your best but nothing is changing, stop. Step back. You're not worth it. It is not worth you.
- if you don't respect your feelings, no one will
- if it feels so bad it couldn't get worse, stop. It could get worse. It will get worse. It is already worse for someone else somewhere. So what? Chin up.
- die. Or live. Don't dangle in between.