In our daily life we encounter countless people and incidents. We receive advices and lessons from varied sources. Things happen to us or someone near to us, from which we learn how to tackle a situation more effectively in the future. Many instances happen in which our whole paradigm about the world and it's workings shift dramatically. But how many of us stop by and appreciate them and the impact they have on our life? How many of us show the courtesy to acknowledge them and how many of us transfer these lessons that are learned in the hard way to others, so that they benefit from it?
These are the reasons why after reading it, I appreciated the effort of Biranchi Acharya for his effort to pen and publish a book like Tale O'12. This book is jointly published by blogadda.com and BecomeShakespeare.com as part of their Blogger to Author program. It is a collection of twelve fictionalised re-tellings of incidents from author's life. They deal with a variety of subjects, like economy, psychology, spirituality, politics and civics. Many of the stories are basically conversations that happened between friends, acquaintances or even total strangers about a particular aspect of an everyday issue that relates to every common man.
The tone of the stories are benevolent and kind, without taking an aggressive or emotional stand anywhere, though the issues they raise have every reason to be so. For example, in the story Religion vs Dharma, an old man convinces a young sadhu that Hinduism is not an organised religion, but a Dharma which in-fact hold together a collection of different religions, beliefs and ways of living. After reading the story, you may either agree or not agree with this point of view. But the tone of the story and the method in which the arguments are organised, motivate you to re-evaluate your personal ideas about Dharma and religion. This I feel itself is a great advancement in a country that takes up issues like religion, politics and spirituality too much emotionally to have an argument devoid of biases.
Most of the other stories follow a similar pattern, but asks questions and try to decipher different issues. My favourite is the one titled The Art of Being Happy. In that author, on a particularly stressful and eventful day, is on his end of his wits. He encounters someone who shares with him the secret to be happy even when misfortune strikes. The idea may sound too superficial and impractical but when we consider that it is our response to an incident that defines our happiness, it makes perfect sense. I would definitely recommend this book for its practical approach to everyday issues that can be helpful to all. The language is very simple and ordinary and easy for anybody- of any age or education, to comprehend.
Now, the only complaint that I have, which I have raised in many other reviews of Indian books, is about something that hampers the enjoyment of even the most well written books with greatest of intentions- lack of proper proof reading. The book has many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, punctuation errors and I have even spotted a few mistakes in capitalising. Believe me, these things may sound like silly cribbing but for a serious reader even these grossly undermine the reading experience. This has to be taken care by publishers because the writer has used his imagination and intellect and made up this great book of 200 plus pages out of his toil, a few errors are bound to happen. A professional editor and proof reader has to polish this diamond before releasing for public consumption. These mistakes are great disservice to the efforts of the author and I believe the publishers have a responsibility to ensure such errors are corrected.
Loved The Riview...especially the last para is very meaningful and should help out the aspiring but naïve authors across the country. !!
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