It was always there in the library, only I never bothered to borrow it. Then last week while browsing through the library catalogue I saw the book again and picked it up, and no I was not disappointed.
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I have read God of small thing by Arundhati Roy, and ever since felt these booker prizes are like (in Indian context) Presidents award for movies. The more incomprehensible a movie is the
better chance it stands to win the award. In my limited “literature appreciation faculty” found that book boring, and ever since tried to keep a safe distance from these award winning novels. But how wrong I was.
The story is told in a flashback mode. Right from the onset it seems like any school days reminiscing story, but some where there was a disconnect, craftily created by the writer, but not at all decipherable until towards the end.
The story revolves around three primary characters Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, with Kathy being the protagonist, who leads us through the ups and downs of an unnatural or para-natural gripping life and times of growing school kids. The growing up of small children into adults, a life beyond school, a world where dreams are bought and sold, love, hate, self-doubts, the trepidations and a rainbow of human emotions have all been craftily worded.
The people Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are clones who along with several others have been reared to serve the human society in the form of donors as Ishiguro calls them. The word death has been renamed complete and very aptly too.
The story is touching because it so wonderfully captures the double-standards in the contemporary society. Simply replace the clones with the have-nots and what we will find is a true reflection of our times.
On second thoughts may be Never let me go didn”t win the booker because it was too easy even for me to understand, nay, feel.
Posted in Books.
By Anjan Santra
– July 17, 2007
Time management is a virtue. And the ability to strike a balance between professional life and personal life is a quality which is rare.
But there is another angle to it. We always get to hear that professional life should be absolutely segregated from personal life. But is it at all possible?
When I was in school, i made scores of friends, very few are on the radar. In college i made another set of friends, again, only a few are on the radar. Same thing happened in University.
Now in my professional life, my colleagues are becoming my friends.
I love to spend my time with them. I don’t mind coming to work on Saturdays or for that matter even Sundays. Where my personal life amalgamated with my professional life, I do not know.
Now if someone tells me, “Go man, get a life” what can I tell that person. That, this is my life, this is what I always wanted, this is where I belong. And even if I say this (which certainly is true) hardly anyone will believe me.
In India somehow a mindset exists that if you are an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer then you are their by compulsion. In contrast your being a player, singer, dancer proves that you were academically challenged, again, you are their by compulsion.
Yes, agreed if you are like Tendulkar, Sonu Nigam, or for that matter Azim Premji, Narayan Murthy, then you are spared this “If you do then be damned, if you don’t then be damned” cycle. But how many reach that haloed zone.
For a commoner(at least for the time being) like me their is only one way out of this predicament. I just give a damn.
And that brings us back to the original issue of work-life balance.
Hey, this is my life. I love it, I revel in it. I am here by choice, not by any compulsion or chance. Fate had a role, but only till one point. This is my work, nay this is my life.
Posted in Blogs.
By Anjan Santra
– July 13, 2007
First day first show.
Finally blogging got the better of me, and now I too have my own blog space. I do not know what I will do with it.
Let the first srap be short.
Posted in Blogs.
By Anjan Santra
– June 26, 2007
