Love in the time of Cholera

'Love in the time of Cholera' is the first Gabriel García Márquez book that I picked up. I saved it for many days just for a perfect day to start reading it. After one year the perfect day did arrive and Marquez's writing did not leave me grudging.

The story's a love triangle between Florentino Ariza (the jilted lover), Fermina Daza (who dismisses their relationship as just a teenage crush and moves on) and Dr. Juvenal Urbino (the man who woos and marries the lady). Undaunted, Florentino waits for 51 years, 9 months and 4 days for Juvenal Urbino to die; so he can propose again to his one and only true love. He even claims that all these years he had 'saved' himself for Fermina - 622 casual relationships not withstanding. Thankfully for him, love is rekindled.

It's moving, the way Marquez strings along the inevitability of old age and the daily trifles of ageing couples. As you put the book down, it just leaves you with one thought - that even at 80, love might feel the same as it did the first time at 16.

[Original pic by tricia ward photography]

Ruskin Bond's 'Roads to Mussoorie'

One of my friends, during travels, was thoughtful enough to get me a personalised copy of 'Roads to Mussoorie' autographed by Ruskin Bond himself. This copy was even bought from the very Cambridge Book Depot on Mall Road (Mussoorie), made so famous in Ruskin Bond's writings.

Like any other book by Ruskin Bond, this one too comes with a soul. It's a collection of 12 stories based in and around his home town - the picturesque hill town of Mussoorie in Uttranchal. Each story is a simple account of the ordinary that's both wickedly funny and benignly kind. Laced with every day gossip and scandals from the not-so-quiet hill town, it's one book you will find difficult to put down until you finish the last page. And even thereafter.

My only grouse is with the publishers (Rupa & Co) of this book. The book could have benefited with a better cover and diligent proof reading. For his part, the author more than makes up for it all.

[Original pic by Dey]

"We all came out of Gogol's 'Overcoat' ''

So claimed Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, or both. But it was the reference made to 'The Overcoat' and 'Gogol' in the 2007 movie 'The Namesake' that left me sufficiently intrigued about this Russian writer and this particular story.

So while rearranging my bookshelf the other day, I was more than happy to chance upon 'The Overcoat' by Nikolai Gogol as one of the stories in this really old book by the title of '6 Great Modern Short Stories'. Understandably I began with some intrigue and absolutely no warning of things to come.

The story revolves around this loser clerk from an unspecified department; and how a new overcoat makes his life rather eventful -at first for him. And then, for the residents of St. Petersburg.

It's a good read any day. A better read after a bad day at work. And if you get Monday blues like me, it's best read on Sunday night. The morbid absurdity, the endearingly mundane situations and the comic mixed with tragic kept me hooked - and smiling - till the last line.

Next on my agenda is his short story 'The Nose'. It's a story of one man's search for his lost nose. I should hope that it's nothing short of absurd, again.

[Original pic by seriykotik1970]