Beating the Blues

Beating the Blues : A Complete Guide to Overcoming Depression

by Seema Hingorrany

Paperback, 224 pages

Published: 2012

Publisher:  Random House India

ISBN:  9788184002836

Blurb: Can’t sleep soundly? Don’t feel like stepping out of the house? Having suicidal thoughts? You might be depressed and don’t know it yet. According to a WHO study, a mindboggling 35.9 percent of India suffers from Major Depressive Episodes (MDE). Yet depression remains a much evaded topic, quietly brushed under the carpet by most of us. In Beating the Blues, India’s leading clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and trauma researcher Seema Hingorrany provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to treating depression, examining what the term really means, its signs, causes, and symptoms. The book will equip you with: • Easy-to-follow self-help strategies and result-oriented solutions • Ways of preventing a depression relapse • Everyday examples, statistics, and interesting case-studies • Workbooks designed for Seema’s clients With clients ranging from celebrities and models to teenagers, married couples, and children, Seema decodes depression for you. Informative and user-friendly, with a foreword by Indu Shahani, the Sheriff of Mumbai, Beating the Blues is an invaluable guide for those who want to deal with depression but don’t know how.

A thing that is seen all over around us these days ubiquitously is depression and stress. People suffer from this noxious illness even without being aware of it for ages. Research has proved that about 35% of Indians suffer from depression. Many of them don’t know it, those who do either don’t take it seriously or don’t want to seek help professional help about it.  Here, Dr Seema Hingorrany comes to the rescue of such people.  

This book helps a person understand this under estimated disease better, and it would help you figure if you are a victim, and if you already know it, it’d make sure you see a doctor about it. The best thing about the book is that it tells us how to identify depression from normal life stress, for the term ‘depression’ gets misquotes a billion times in our day to day lives.

From explaining the symptoms to telling us stories of her own patients, Ms. Hingorrany had tried her best to get us acquainted to the malady and has made reading the book exceptionally interesting.

One more thing I would want to talk about Beating the Blues is the cover. Whether a person is suffering from depression or not, he would invariably get attracted to the book just seeing the cover. From my five year old cousin to my forty year old uncle, everybody would sneak a peek at the book just because of its cover, and most probably would comment on it.

This book is a bible for people who are under depression or know someone who is. It not only helps you understand the disease better, but it also helps you come out of it. It most importantly breaks the myth about shrinks. Dr. Hingorrany says that there have been times when a person would tell her that they didn’t see a psychologist because they were scared. Some would even fear that they would be given shock treatments right on the first day. Beating the Blues explains almost every step that comprises the treatment of depression. From Play Therapy to side effects of anti-depressants, the book has it all.

I recommend it to everyone who feels the need to know about the subject, and to the ones who wonder if they are the victims of the disease or know someone who is or might be. It is a Must Read!

Word Power Made Easy

Word Power Made Easy

by Norman Lewis

Paperback, 686 pages

Published in: 1978

Publisher: Pocket Books

ISBN: 9780671741907

Blurb: Do You Always Use the Right Word?
Can You Pronounce It -- and Spell It -- Correctly?
Do You Know How to Avoid Illiterate Expressions?
Do You Speak Grammatically, Without Embarrassing Mistakes? 

If the answer to any of these questions is NO, you ought to read Word Power Made Easy. Now thoroughly revised to eliminate outmoded references and to reflect current idioms, it remains the best and quickest means to a better vocabulary in the English language.
Each chapter ends with review. Each section ends with a progressive check. Numerous tests will help you increase and retain the knowledge you acquired. Word Power Made Easy does more than just ass words to you vocabulary. It teaches ideas and a method of broadening knowledge as an integral part of the vocabulary building process.

I didn’t have any exposure to vocabulary building books before I decided to pick Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis. Why I decided to pick this book is a reason very simple. I saw it in the best sellers list on Flipkart every time I checked the said page on the site. I wanted to see what was so good about the book that made it sell in a bigger quantity than Paulo Coelho’s books (For me he is the author everybody should read. Anyway, we’d discuss that some other time).

To be honest, this was one of the longest books i have read. I am not that used to reading books very big in size. A seven hundred page book is often a mammoth for me. But this was the book that keeps you completely gripped. It leaves you awestruck with the ability of the author to make you learn new words and with your own self learning them.

I always wondered what vocabulary building books would be like. Probably a lot of preaching and a bazillion words in a list that you are supposed to memorise kind of thing was what my imagination suggested. But Word Power Made Easy was nothing at all like that.

Norman Lewis interacts with you. He tells you stories, the histories, jokes with you, is sarcastic of several things, supporting many, and giving you wonderfully superb pieces of advice that you love to take. It is no preaching. It is a friendly relationship with the reader and making him learn many, many useful things.

The idea that Norman Lewis upholds in the entire book is “No Learning Words. But Learning the Ideas Behind the Words.” It is quite hard to guess what exactly he means by that initially, but as you leaf through the masterpiece, you realise that it is the ideas that you need to build your vocabulary, not a list of words.

Norman Lewis exposes to us the world we would never have given a thought about, normally. If there’s a word we use, how did it come to existence, and from where. Lewis tells us the stories behind innumerable words which are hard to forget. You might have a faulty memory about remembering words, but the idea stays with you and so does the word.

 I still remember many stories about the words that Norman Lewis tells us, and it still brings back the scintillating memories that I’d get while reading them.  

This ‘idea behind the word’ is Norman Lewis’ weapon to make you remember the words you have never heard of before. And the idea of the ideas simply rocks. Also, the way he puts them, is exceptionally witty and it compels you to fall in love with Lewis’ sense of humour. I haven’t smiled as much reading any book as I have smiled while reading this one.

Trust me, it is a treat to read this book.

One of my favourite ones is this, from the segment: How to Talk about Various Speech Habits:

Saying little – meaning much

There is an anecdote about Calvin Coolidge, who, when he was the president of USA, was often called (though probably not to his face) ‘Silent Cal’.

A Young newspaper woman was sitting next to him at a banquet, so the story goes, and turned to him mischievously.

“Mr. Coolidge,” she said, “I have a bet with my editor that I can get you to say more than two words to me this evening.”

“You lose,” Coolidge rejoined simply.

The adjective: laconic.

I would highly recommend this to everybody who loves words or wants to add to his vocabulary. This is certainly the best book you would find of its kinds out there. 

Life Is Always Aimless

Life is Always Aimless.......

Unless You love It

by Ratnadip Acharya

Paperback, 216 pages

Published: January  2013

Publisher: Srishti Publishers

ISBN: 9789380349831

Blurb: Do we you really know how much courage is required to listen to our own heart? 

Meet Akash, an young engineer, who dreams of becoming a writer. But all his works meet with is rejection from publisher. Will he ever be rewarded for listening to his heart? 

Smitten by wanderlust, adventurous Sandip does not care much about career, marriage or making a family. How will life treat him for listening to his heart? 

Possessor of a charming personality, Chirag, has a deep penchant for women. But deep down the motherless Chirag is terribly lonely. What is in store for this vulnerable young man? 

Maria Fernandez is a lonely and a less-than- looking young girl who firmly believes that possessing a tender heart is enough to make her world beautiful. Will ruthless life shatter her belief? 

As their life got seamlessly inter-wined with many others they realized that Life is Always Aimless .... Unless You Love it.

I’d been closing on reviewing once I got this book to review. Supposedly, my last one at that time, I accepted it with open arms.

The book starts with a bunch of people staying at a hostel for the new recruits of ICL. Away from home, and adjusting with multitudes of people and ideologies, this book divulges us into the different stories of a group of these people.

The cover of the book with the shades of violet, blue and lavender, a reader like me would be instantly attracted to it. But, I felt a little lack of detail in the design which might prove to be a down for the mass market buyers. The billboard of the book might attract some, while some will just pass the glance over it. Nevertheless, the cover is in sync with the plot.

A wonderful thing about Ratnadip Acharya is that he hasn’t just followed the trend. Yes, we do have engineers in it, but it is beyond the contemporary Indian fiction we find in the market. Ratnadip Acharya has thought out of the box, leaving aside banal conversations and unnecessary intimacies. The plot, compared to the rest of the contemporaries in the market, is serious and mature. It is a daring step enough in itself for defying the trends doesn’t work all the time.

Though the story is fine, but a little hindrance to successfully finishing the book would be its slower pace. The plot moves excessively slow, especially in the first half. By the time it picks up momentum about after half of the book, the reader might as well have stopped reading much before it. I found certain parts of the chapters quite unnecessarily having a place in the text, while they technically contribute very little to the main plot of the story. At such point, the story seems to just drag a little.

The language of the book is lucid. The text is in cohesion and the descriptions and POV’s are well taken care of. The chapters, if could have been a little less longer, would’ve provided a breeze to the flow of the book. The book stands by its title until the end of it, which wins it another plus point.

The other things that should’ve been taken care of are the sudden introduction of a village of characters right in the first chapter. If you read one chapter today, and the next tomorrow, you might even forget the who’s who of the book, until ofcourse, you get used to it.

Above all, the book stands upto the expectations and has a nice rhythm to it. If you are to spend a lazy weekend this week, have a buy at Ratnadip Acharya’s Life is Always Aimless.

I wish Mr. Acharya all the best with the book.

Our Moon Has Blood Clots

Our Moon Has Blood Clots :

The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits

by Rahul Pandita

 

Hardcover, 256 pages

Published on: January 22^nd  2013

Publisher: Random House India

ISBN: 9788184000870

Blurb:  Rahul Pandita was fourteen years old in 1990 when he was forced to leave his home in Srinagar along with his family, who were Kashmiri Pandits: the Hindu minority within a Muslim majority Kashmir that was becoming increasingly agitated with the cries of ‘Azadi’ from India. The heartbreaking story of Kashmir has so far been told through the prism of the brutality of the Indian state, and the pro-independence demands of separatists. But there is another part of the story that has remained unrecorded and buried. Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the unspoken chapter in the story of Kashmir, in which it was purged of the Kashmiri Pandit community in a violent ethnic cleansing backed by Islamist militants. Hundreds of people were tortured and killed, and about 3,50,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes and spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country. Rahul Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss

After having read and loved Basharat Peer’s memoir on Kashmir- Curfewed Night four years ago, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Rahul Pandita’s Our Moon Has Blood Clots when I heard about it. And the young Kashmiri in me never lets go any opportunity to know of the times my land and its people have gone through.  

The book, Our Moon Has Blood Clots, as the blurb says is a memoir of a young Kashmiri Pandit, who was forced to leave his land, his home- Kashmir in the turbulent times of 1990. It was the time, as Pandita says in the book, when people would say that they’d collect the next ration in Pakistan. The time people saw Azadi at the threshold. The time insurgency had set its foot in the land of Kashmir too strongly. The time when most of the Kashmiri Pandits had to leave everything behind and find a safer place for their lives.

The book, primarily tells a heart wrenching tale of these Kashmiri Pandits. By giving us the details of his firsthand experiences, he explains the wrath the community had to face in general, here in Kashmir and out of it. It explains how the situation compelled the Pandits to leave the valley and how after being disowned in Kashmir, they weren’t even accepted in Jammu, a place they had eventually pinned all their hopes to. No doubt the memories of the city leave a bitter taste in the writer’s mouth, or for that matter any Pandit who was looked down upon by the native Jammuites. After more than twenty years of the exodus, the Pandits might have even left Jammu and got virtually settled in the other parts of the world, they still long for the feel of home, of Shahar, of the land they belong, of Kashmir. It is important to mention that the writer also talks of the Pandits who still live in Jammu due to a multitude of circumstances, of the families that chose to stay in the valley when everyone was leaving, and the ones who decided to come back after some time.

The thing that you notice right from page one is that Pandita has written the book marvellously. Though a memoir, it reads like a novel. Days ago I was saying that I hated books without many dialogues, and days later I loved reading Our Moon has Blood Clots. Even for the ones who aren’t much into nonfiction, the book will keep them gripped. The beauty and mastery with which Pandita has put together the pieces is absolutely worth applause.

Though, I could identify with many a thing Pandita says in his book, there were certain things that found it too hard to sink in. One of these, and a major one, is that it shows the Muslims in Kashmir as utterly lecherous and lascivious, giving a truly very wrong concept about them to the people who live outside the vale. This hit me right at the moment he talks of a speech made by Indira Gandhi in Srinagar and the ‘completely indecent’ acts the men did to show their disrespect. I found it too hard to believe this fact, even if it is a fact, I doubt. He also says that the guys of his locality, just as the exodus was taking place, were eying their houses and their women. I might even  believe the former, but the latter would still take time to sink in. The thing that seemed absolutely laughable was the point where he says that one of these very guys at the very moment, did some actions, imagining to rape a girl of one of the houses they eyed and then having an orgasm! Come on Mr Pandita, you were just a fourteen year old at the moment! I still wonder, if even in today’s Kashmir a fourteen year old would know what an orgasm is. This was the point I felt that Pandita might truly have fictionised the reality to some extent. Or, the science is absolutely correct saying that memory can easily get distorted.

Talking of memory, if we compare the Our Moon Has Blood Clots with Curfewed Night, the major difference is that Basharat Peer doesn’t just dwell on his memory. He gives us every little detail of how he gathered the facts that he puts before us in the book, on his re-visit to Kashmir. While as Rahul Pandita just keeps the facts in front of us, not telling us anything about where he got them from. As a neutral reader, without knowing the source of the information, I find it hard to figure out which one to believe.

One last thing that I didn’t like about the book is that it pictures almost the entire Muslim community of the valley as villains. I know the Pandits had faced a lot at the hands of the black sheep of the community and it would naturally make the Pandits hostile to the whole lot of Muslims here. But once you’re writing a book, and picture the entire community as bad, I think it isn’t justified. It is as if he’s taken out the frustrations of a fourteen year old against the community in the book.

Overall, the book is totally worth your time. It is filled with emotions. By the end of the book, your heart will ache for a long time if you read it as an unbiased reader. But sadly, you wont know how much of it is truth. Which I believe, must not be a great much. 

Dear John

Dear John

Nicholas Sparks

Paperback,  335 pages

Published on:  December 01, 2009

Publisher:  Little Brown Book Group  

ISBN:  9780446567336   

             

Blurb:  When John met Savannah, he knew he was ready to turn over a new leaf. Always the angry rebel, he had dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life. Then he meets Savannah. The attraction is mutual and quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah vowing to wait for John while he finishes his tour of duty.

What neither realizes is that 9/11 will change everything; prompting John to re-enlist and fulfill what he feels is his duty to his country and fellow soldiers. And, sadly, as so often happens when lovers are young and separations are long, Savannah falls in love with someone else. 'Dear John . . . ' the letter reads, and both their lives are changed forever.

Years later, when John returns to North Carolina, he must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still the only one for him. Now John must make the hardest decision of his life.

I had come across Nicholas Sparks accidentally after getting my hands on his marvelously written book, A Bend in the Road. After I was mesmerized by the tale telling capabilities of Sparks, I immediately added him to the list of my most favourite authors.

There is one more thing that Nicholas Sparks owes the credit for in my life – my affinity to the Romance genre of Fiction. I won’t have been a lover of Contemporary Romance novels had it not been Dear John, A Bend in the Road, The Last song and of course, The Notebook.

Dear John, is undoubtedly my most favourite Sparks novel. The story of a cop of the US Army- John Tyree, and the love of his life- Savannah.

John has come on a leave from his army camp, when he meets Savannah at a beach. Savannah is in North Carolina on her vacations, volunteering in building houses for the poor. Though he sees her a couple of times, he doesn’t get enough dime from Savannah until he fetches her bag that falls in the water.

This book is filled with emotions. You will feel love, hatred, envy, longing, desperation, heart ache and everything you can think of getting from a perfectly emotion packed novel. This book gave me one of the best emotional experiences I have ever had reading a book. And THAT is what makes it one of my most favourite books.

The characters of John, Savannah, Tim, John’s father - Mr. Tyree are all extremely well drawn. While I was absolutely empathetic towards John, I developed a love-hate relationship with Savannah.

Many people say that they totally detested Savannah, but I don’t think she’s that detestable. The novel was very, very realistic. If we see it from John’s point of view, Savannah might be a bitch. But see it from Savannah’s perspective. I think it is only in idealistic situation that Savannah won’t leave John. But whatever she does, was quite natural for any other girl to do. Had I been in her place, I would have done the same. Savannah, I totally understand your situation.

The dialogues in the book are very realistic as well. Some of them will take your breath away. Even though it has been two years, I still remember many of the dialogues and monologues of the book by heart. They’ll remain etched in it for eternity.

The only think that made this book lose a star is that Nicholas Spark has downed his writing style a great deal. It was as if a teenager has written the book. Or a naïve man in his twenties. Although it was in first person’s voice, the voice of John Tyree, but I still didn’t like the difference I noticed between Sparks’ writing style in A Bend in the road or The Notebook and Dear John. It seems as if a completely different person has been hired to pen down this one.

But, people, if you want to read a marvelous piece of Contemporary Romance,, I recommend Dear John. You will love it!

Arranged Love

Arranged Love

By Parul A Mittal

 

Paperback, 256 pages

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published in: 2012

ISBN: 9780143418825

Blurb: Suhaani is enjoying her independent status in the US and her sexy Indian American boyfriend, when suddenly she loses her job to recession. And she's forced to move back to India where her father has selected a boy for her from his guitar class. 

Suhaani doesn1t know how to tell her Internet-savvy dad and Farmville-addict mother that she's not interested in an arranged match, especially to an IITian. She decides to dislike the guy. 

Except that he's not too thrilled about her either. 
Even when they end up working together, Suhaani decides she will not fall for this guy. 
But before she can turn him down, he rejects her!

A graduate at UMich, Suhani is head over heels in love with her Indian-American boyfriend Jay aka Jayant Guy. A painter at heart, Suhani is all set to make money out of a nude painting of her boyfriend. Looking at this American Adonis and getting the features of his exposed body on the canvass, all the accumulated libido is vanished into the air when Suhani’s father calls her up from India and asks her to check her email only to find the photo of a guy from her father’s guitar classes. A potential suitor for Suhani.

Things aren’t getting better when she even loses her job to recession and is compelled to fly back to India. She calls herself lucky when she finds a job at iTrot. But of course, she doesn’t know the boss is the Potential Suitor- Deepak Goyal.

The Chick-lit by Parul A Mittal is the story of So-Honey, as Jay calls her. Suhani is an average Indian girl like anyone of us. The only child, spoilt by her parents and loves unconditionally, she is one of the bubbliest characters I have come across in any Indian novel.

 Soon after you are through a few pages, you will immediately fall in love with Ms. Mittal’s quirky and witty humour. Though the plot can be very flimsy at times, you will find yourself giggling really very often. Humour used by Ms. Mittal is truly a thing worth Kudos to her. I loved the way she made me giggle.

For the people who loved Heartbreaks and Dreams: Girls @ IIT, Arranged Love is going to be a treat, undoubtedly. You will find the protagonist of Heartbreaks and Dreams, Tanu, treat you after every few pages.

Just like the highly well developed characters, the dialogues are exceptionally amazing. It is as if you are hearing the conversation of two people sitting next to you. Very real and crisp dialogues and sentences respectively were my favourite part of the book.

Another thing about the book that I absolutely loved was the mention of different songs at appropriate occasions. I could almost play them all in my mind.

The thing that irked me a little was that the author has portrayed the characters in a way that give more than necessary importance to physical pleasures. I do not think the girls today, or even in the past would have been that sex crazy as Ms. Mittal shows them to be. No doubt that our protag, Suhani is a virgin until the end, but I don’t think that could justify her or her friends being lewd at several instances.

The author has nicely pulled of Tanu’s story hand in hand with that if Suhani’s. But at places, I hated the mention of Tanu. I wanted to concentrate on the tragic comedies of Suhani’s life, and Tanu’s life barely meant anything to me for I  had not read Girls@IIT. But like I said, for the ones who wanted a sequel to Heartbreaks and Dreams, this one is a must read for them.

The ending became predictable a little before the book finished. But it could certainly have been something better. I personally was expecting an ending I would cherish, but sadly it was given a little less crunch than that it deserved.

Overall, this is a totally gripping read. If you are looking forward to a breezy, quick weekend read Parul Mittal’s Arrannged Love’s got to be at the top of your list.

I am eagerly waiting for her upcoming works.