Book Review: The Guardian Angels: A Must Read Love Story That Goes Beyond Love

Rohit Gore is a brilliant writer with lots of clarity in his mind the way he takes care of all aspects of writing - story, conceptualization, characterization, streaming, and so on. The Guardian Angels is the fourth book written by Rohit Gore. His earlier books have been well acclaimed with each book adding more fanfare and readers to the extent of the manifold. His third book Circle of Three was a kind of blockbuster. All his books have been well acclaimed by critics and reviewers. Rohit seems to be an intense thinker and quick conceptualization capabilities but when he pens down his thoughts, it flows flawlessly. His writing style is seductive that engrosses reader to its core and keeps carrying along with the story by holding his hand and gripping his mind.

It will not be possible to translate the satisfaction and good feelings that you get while and after reading this book, but if you like philosophical, fiction and love story books, this is for you. You get a calm and soothing touch while reading The Guardian Angels. The story starts in July 1993 when Adi, the lead male character 

was just 12 and was being beaten to the extent of worse by a gang of three buffoons of his school with no crime from his side. The first encounter of Adi and the lead female character Radha, who is also 12 and has joined Adi's school recently, happens during this encounter when Adi is being thrashed up badly and Radha saves her from those buffoons. And there starts a deep, angelic relationship between Adi and Radha. The story of The Guardian Angels, that starts when Adi and Radha are 12, goes till when they reach their early thirties (July 1993 - July 2012).

There are so many ups and downs in the story of The Guardian Angels in the life of Adi and Radha. But every time when either of them gets into trouble, another one comes as a savior. There is a deep, never dying bonding that occurs between Adi and Radha though both of them belonged to two different planets in all aspects except one - their faith, trust, love, and care for each other. In this intense story, you get so engrossed that while reading, you feel the pain behind the smile of Adi, you get hurt when Radha gets hurt, you laugh when they both laugh, you become tense when either of them becomes tense, you will hit by severe circumstances when it happens to either of them. So don't bother if you find yourself smiling at times, or get the corners of your eyes wet; while reading this book.

The Guardian Angels by Rohit Gore carries a touch of the writing style of Maxim Gorky and philosophical writing style of Ayn Rand.

Book Review: Shades of Shadows: Shades of White, Red and Grey in Life

Shades of Shadow by Pushpam Singh is a uniquely different concept of presenting romance. This is a fiction/ romance genre book written in a philosophical manner. As per author there is a shadow embodied to each soul, and in turn, each of this shadow connected to an individual soul has a shade of its own. Every shade, in turn, is having its own unique spirit. Focus in this book is on individual entity, uniqueness accompanying an individual and thus growing into a unique spirit in turn.

Kausar is the place where life began on earth where nature is playing in different forms in full blow. With changing colors of nature and it's becoming more lively, a sweet encounter happens between Kavi and Kavya, uncovering the seed of love between the two. Shades of Shadow by Pushpam Singh is a story of love, hope, and passion arising out of dull and sad moments of life thereby giving it a new transformed shape. The story takes you on a poetic journey of love between Kavi and Kavya.

The cover is simple but symbolic and significantly thematic matching with the description of Kausar, a place where love inculcates between Kavi and Kavya when nature is at its bloom. There have been different colors presented related to life in this book. Credit goes to Pushpam Singh for using both prose and poetry and thus making this love story presented in a unique manner. White, Red, and Grey colors are used as different parts of this book, presenting the beginning of love, peak of love and separation respectively. And finally, you will find the color of red back after many twists and turns in the story of Kavi and Kavya.

Pushpam Singh is an engineer by profession but is 100% poet by heart. You can read different moods of poems in Shades of Shadow when you walk through different streams of life. Overall it might not be everyone's cup of tea due to some very basic factors. First, the writing style though is quite unique but is not very appealing to the heart of the reader. It appears more like a sophisticated, beautiful showpiece. Second, it is a love story, that too a mild kind, in a very hypothetical and imaginary scenario. Overall I would give it 3 out of 5.

Book Review: Reading a Writers Mind By Linda Acaster: A Must Read For Any Genre Serious Writer

Reading a Writer's Mind: Exploring Short Fiction - First Thought to Finished Story by Linda Acaster is a must read for any genre of any level of writer. For any level of the writer because even if you as a writer have attained a 'near to perfection' state, this book will still give you a new thrust in your writing. This book takes care guiding a budding or rookie writer to a matured writer right from the inception of idea towards building a story in a structured manner.

Reading a Writer's Mind by Linda Acaster is not a theoretical guide that will bore you while reading. It is a uniquely written practical guide that will keep you engaged throughout, chapter after chapter. The book helps you right through conceptualization to story building to excellent writing that enables you to create a binding between you as a writer and your readers. This book has a dedicated chapter for each of the genre - Mainstream, Horror, Fiction, Romance, Drama, Crime, Fantasy, and Historical. The author Linda Acaster is herself is an established writer of more than 70 short stories and five successful novels. In a way, Linda has covered almost all genres in her stories and novels.

In this book, an aspiring writer will learn different technicalities required for writing and influencing readers. Learning about how a story is to be built from a character, how to use tone as a tool for description, how to build interrogative ideas so as to engage readers and so on. Linda's stories have been used as examples in the chapters of this fantastic book. Reading a Writer's Mind by Linda Acaster is definitely going to be helpful for aspiring and budding writers, and will be useful for expert writers to sharpen their weapons. Linda has been a successful Tutor, Trainer and Reader in this field with top institutions.

Book Review: Never Mind Yaar by K Mathur: 3 Friends, Poor-Rich Love, Communal Issues And Mumbai

Years back we had management training with a theme – how does it matter. Never Mind Yaar by K.Mathur is almost on the same lines in this debut attempt in fiction genre. Mathur has taken four youth in a college environment to project her plot. Lead characters in Never Mind Yaar are Binaifer Desai, Louella D’Costa, and Shalini Dayal. All are the new entrants to first year in Mumbai’s prestigious and one of the oldest college - Gyan Shakti College. Binnaifer and Louella get surprised and happy to see each other in the college on its opening day, as both had done their studies in the same school. Both of them had a small interaction with one of the most beautiful entrant in the same class – Shalini. The fourth main character in Never Mind Yaar is Bhagu – a student activist who falls in for Shalini having love at first sight.

The story of Never Mind Yaar is about Mumbai having a big heart to absorb different cultures within its heart with same love and warmth. Shalini belongs to a Hindu family, Louella is from a Christian family and Binnaifer belongs to a Parsi family. Having so many cultures in Mumbai is a drawback too, as it becomes culture and religion sensitive thereby giving space to conservatives and modern both together. As far as good part is concerned, reader gets an insight of various cultures (Hindu, Parsis and Christians in this case). This 214 pages novel is about the friendship of three girls and love in between Shalini and Bhagu. Bhagu is a student activist who is very clear in his mind about the current situation of the country and how youth can play a positive role in handling this situation and holding them becoming worse.

If you are able to cross the initial hurdle of 40-50 pages which are very slow and less constructive, you will start liking the story as it gradually moves on further. Bhagu falling in love with Shalini who belongs to an economically high stature family, faces a real life hurdle with a constraint of Shalini’s family not accepting this relationship. Shalini’s grandmother Mem is a good entry in the story. The later part of  Never Mind Yaar becomes more interesting and you would like to check the end of this story. Author has tried to touch economical differences and political & communal scenario that has large impact on personal life of each individual of out country.

There are many shortfalls in this book. As far as cover ofNever Mind Yaar is concerned, it is very basic, simple and comical – overall not too impressive and eye catching.  Another drawback of this book is the too small font size that is painful to eyes and becomes a major factor to mar interest of the reader. Third drawback is the style of writing of K. Mathur. It is not at all connecting to its readers and gives an impression that it is a text book. The content looks to elaborative and extrapolated that it clearly seems the constraint writer had in mind to overcome the minimum words limit to complete a novel. That makes it a very slow read and probably becomes a burden for reader to carry on with boring parts of the story. 

Book Review: High Expectations Are The Key To Everything: Be Self Motivated

High Expectations Are The Key To Everything by Michael Bergdahl is a fantastic self booster and motivational guide. Michael worked at Walmart Headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as Director of “People” and was reporting directly to the Founder of Walmart, Sam Walton. Sam Walton has been a big inspiration in Michael’s life and has influenced him in many ways. Michael is known to possess an authority over the best practices of Walmart and Sam Walton. Currently Michael is a Professional International Speaker and has visited to many countries across the globe. He is engaged with many big global corporate. Michael says for writing High Expectations Are The Key To Everything, his main source of ideas, insights and inspiration has been Sheryl Bergdahl, his wife.

As per Michael it is nobody else that stops us to set higher standards and achieve higher in life, but ourselves. Challenges are there in everybody’s life. Some build courage to cross all hurdles and achieve success whereas others get discouraged by the obstacles in their life and get drifted away from success even if both start with same resources and get same opportunities. There are total 6 keys to success described in this book by Michael by setting higher expectations from yourself to get all round success. You need to set your vision and purpose with a commitment to yourself to move to your goals with passion.

Next key is – you can control your own destiny and achieve success in life but with some gem like mantras – having focused and disciplined approach towards your goals, hard rock determination, and you will have to sacrifice something in your life to achieve something much bigger; with an ability to adopt change with the changing environment.

Overall this is a must read for anyone aspiring for following a tougher path to achieve big results in life.

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/quality-assurance/book-review-high-expectations-are-the-key-to-everything-be-self-motivated/

The Book of Ram by Devdutt bose Pattanaik: ~~~Ram~remains~serene~in~ his~majesty~~~

Author: Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik



Publisher: Peguin India



Price: Rs. 250/-


Author, his passions, his career and his versatility: Dr Devdutt Pattanaik (b.1970) is a multi-faceted personality mastering different streams of life. After passing out his MBBS from Grant Medical College, Mumbai, he spent 14 years working in the Pharma and Healthcare companies such as SIRO and Apollo. After that he started afresh as a marketing consultant and got associated with prestigious organizations like Sanofi Aventis and Ernst & Young. He is also a mythologist by passion. He topped the Mumbai University course in Comparative Mythology and lectures extensively on the relevance of sacred symbols, rituals and stories and their significance in modern times. His articles appear regularly in First City magazine (Delhi) and Times of India (Mumbai). He lives in Mumbai. His passion always being mythology drove him to writing and lecturing extensively on relevance of sacred stories, symbols and rituals in modern times. And it is in this capacity that he has joined Future Group as Chief Belief Officer where his role is to help construct the culture of the entire organization. He regularly writes in Economic Times (Corporate Dossier), Times of India (Mumbai), Hindustan Times, First City Magazine and Sunday Midday. His books have been published by VFS, Haworth, Inner Traditions, Indus Source, Penguin India and EastWest Publications displaying his command over writing superbly. Few of his books include: Shiva – an introduction (VFS, India), Vishnu – an introduction (VFS, India), Devi – an introduction (VFS, India), Hanuman – an introduction (VFS, India), Lakshmi – an introduction (VFS, India), Goddesses in India – five faces of the eternal feminine (Inner Traditions, USA), Indian Mythology – Stories, symbols and rituals from the heart of the subcontinent (Inner Traditions, USA), Man who was a woman and other queer tales from Hindu lore (Haworth Publications, USA), Shiva to Shankara – decoding the phallic symbol (Indus Source, India), Myth=Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology (Penguin, India), The Pregnant King (Penguin, India – this was his first work of fiction), and The Book of Kali (Penguin, India - based on his talks).

The Book: In this book, Dr Devdutt explores the eleven different iconic symbols of Lord Ram presenting relevance of Ram in modern times by examining him in his various roles: as Dashrath’s son, Lakshman’s brother, Vishwamitra’s student, Sita’s husband, Ravan’s enemy, Hanuman’s master, Ayodhya’s king, Vishnu’s incarnation, Valmiki’s inspiration, the Ramayan’s protagonist and Hindutva’s icon. The book tells about various perspectives of Lord Rama as Eka-vachani – the king who keeps his words – always, Eka-bani – an archer who strikes his target perfectly with the first arrow, Eka-patni – a husband who is eternally devoted to his single wife. All his aspects show him as ‘maryada purushottam’ who is perfectly able to balance his life with social values, his Raghu vansh, and the solar dynasty. He is known to be the 7th avatar of Vishnu. Ram word brings peace and harmony in life.

My views: The author doesn’t want to preach via this book. This is a well researched book, which can be kept in one’s personal library, and can be read time and again, whenever a person wants some peace or solacement. This is a though provoking book, with each angle of Ram being reflected clearly that can be carved upon in one’s life. This book answers to many whys and hows, those were unanswered till now. In each man on this earth, there is a part of Ram and Ravan each with varying percentage. Similarly in each woman there is Sita, Ahilya, Surupnakha and Mandodri. A man’s personality has been reflected by many icons – Ram, Lakshman, Hanuman, Angad, Bali, Sugriv, Jatayu, Dashrath, Bharat, Shatrughan, Ravan, Vibhishan etc. similarly woman’s face has been reflected in many icons – Sita, Mandodri, Ahilya, Surupnakha, Mandodri etc. Logically, in today’s world, it is your karmas, or what you do in your actual life, that defines what icon a woman is, and what icon a man is.

The book is a must read, for all ages, all genders. It is short, crisp and with a precision.

Making Friends - Andrew Mathews

Title: Making Friends – A Guide to Getting Along with People 
Written and illustrated by – ANDREW MATTHEWS (author of the international bestseller ‘Being Happy!’ 
My Views: It is a perfect teacher provided you are a dull student.This is book is about getting well along with people, that is how you can improve your relationship with them, how you can understand their attitude, how you can understand their personality, and how to overcome the problem they face and need someone to help them. If somebody has an attitude for seeking tension or problem, and he feels that everyone ignores him, he will try to attract everyone’s attention. People keep highlighting your weaknesses or problems but don’t get bogged down by this, ignore it, swallow it, digest it and silently improve upon it. Don’t let yourself go into a shell because of this, overcome this weakness or problem. If people are not happy with you, or ignore you, seek answers from them why they do it, what is the reason, what do I do that I don’t get ignored. People have a tendency to react sharply if your weakness is highlighted, like if somebody says your body has a bad odor, people, friends around you will start ignoring you, even if they are not getting bad smell at all. More happens on preception and listening than actual experience.
Like yourself, love yourself, but don’t ignore others, like others too, don’t be too proud of yourself.
Stop comparing and stop getting depressed if you are compared. Emphasize that you are you and not that person with whom you are being compared.
Avoid boasters who praise themselves and always let others down
Before changing others, change yourself, adjust, compromise and your life will be happy.
Don’t wait for others to come to you and invite to join a party, throw a party and invite people. That will start a cycle.
Get out of corner, stop hiding yourself.
Don’t wait for other to come and highlight your weaknesses, or improve you, change yourself, who knows you better than YOU.
Don’t fear of a CHANGE.
Don’t let your low esteem work in reverse.
Who is bothered about the pimples on your face, go out of your room instead of waiting in your room for pimples to leave your face (and you stop all your outdoor activities)
Quit playing games, don’t pretend, and pour your heart out. You want to go out for a dinner, but you want your wife/husband to say this. How does she/he know what you have in your mind right now? And how you are so sure that she/he will refuse? But be sure that it is NO if you don’t talk about it.
Sometimes L ive your life to fit your belief system. Mary doesn’t feel good about her. And due to this perception about her, she is usually ignored by most of her friends. Fred likes her, behaves well with her but Mary starts wondering why Fred likes her when she is not likable, and starts ignoring him, responding him. Fred feels ignored and gets a reverse message that Mary doesn’t like him. So he silently moves away from her life. Now a stage comes in Mary’s life when nobody likes her and she starts scolding herself that why nobody is there to like her. Why there are no good persons in my life. Why everyone ignores me? Lucy has a belief system that there are good people around in the world and she can always find the caring and loving people to be with. She decides not to spend any time with the people who don’t like her, or who are rude and aggressive. With this attitude she is able to find good and caring people and leave lousy people for Mary. Decide what you want to be – Mary or Lucy?
Martin has a habit of taking everybody’s work besides his own work in the office. He found a friend, who wanted to help him, but this looked abnormal to Martin and he pushed this friend away from his life. Martin thinks that all the people who don’t help him in his work and who don’t do their own work are normal.
About Book: This book is about enjoying people, dealing with prophets of doom, how to say NO sometimes, prevailing over gossip, pettiness and anger. It is about understanding that IF YOU WANT FRIENDSHIP, YOU MUST BE A FRIEND FIRST. The book is funny reading too with a lot of serious learning. It has lot of comical strips which are perfectly able to convey the message. Like one says – “There are 70% people having problem with their partners. Ok, what about the rest of 30%. Oh, they are singles.” Another one says – “But I don’t want to concentrate on my business, yours is more interesting than mine.” There are lot many more, all interesting, funny but meaningful. Author says “Being Happy” was about yourself, this book is about people around you, people who depend on you, those you want to see, and those you avoid.
About Author: Andrew Matthew is based in Adelaide in South Australia. His first book Being Happy became a worldwide publishing phenomenon after its release in 1988. His writing, illustrating and public speaking talents are in great demand throughout North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia.