Despite Stolen Dreams is a literary fiction by Anita Krishan which is serious as well as constructive in tone. You might have been reading the novels based on terrorism in the valley of Jammu & Kashmir in the past days and you might have praised them as well. However, my personal experience with the fiction based on terrorism of any kind has not generally been well; most of the authors, in this or that way, tend to demean this or that thing and eventually, they tend to come to conclusions which are not conclusive – either the abstract from the excessive practicality is missing or the practicality of the excessive abstract is missing. However, Despite Stolen Dreams by Anita Krishan is a different kind of novel altogether. It has emotions, but it’s certainly not all-emotive. It implies rational; however, it does not offer an over the counter rationalism to the readers. READ MORE
Sadly, women have been kept in the background – whether it’s the case of movies of the case of literature. Most of the times, women characters have been offered the secondary roles only. Even if when the authors tried, they were not bold enough to let the women characters take the command of events in their hands and do whatever they wanted to do. Palak Kundra, in her very debut book entitled Bleeding Queens, has done something which we rarely see in the fiction of today. She has let her character run all the show of valour and make all the decisions of importance and take the proceedings in the entire narrative. Her protagonist, who is not only a rape survivor but also a courageous woman to hit back at her rapist, is a girl from a typical middle-class family – Diljit. She also has dreams like most other women do; she also wants to do something special like most others want; she is also raped by the criminals with sick perversion like many others; however, she does not accept everything with a mute like most others do. She comes out of the four walls covering her shadow and challenges the savages and defeats her and also teaches the world a lesson that silence and acceptance are not always a good option!
Bleeding Queens, a novel in Hindi, is surely a modern fiction book but the plight of a woman is the same – male dominance and male corruption with silent women and some crooked ones as well. Diljeet is supported by her brother Karanveer and her lover Rohit. She gives the readers something to think and she also gives the readers something to seriously ponder. As an author, Palak Kundra has been successful in creating the fiction which pinches the readers with the dusky realism. Nevertheless, she has not been quite at the same level with her plot as she has been with her theme. Maybe she wanted to keep the scope of the fiction limited to one character just to bring a new kind of narrative-force in the limelight – to say – a male Tamburlaine maybe!
The novel is written in common language which we speak everyday in India and the usual hint of Punjabi words are easily evident and shows us that the author, as well as the leading characters in the novel, are never out of their Punjabi roots. Diljit is a woman who wants to be an actress but he dreams are put on a hold when her soul, as well as her body, are tortured with the stigma of being raped. Nevertheless, she doesn’t lose all because of this crime against her. She has her courage and boldness and she fights back with a great valour. Her clinical insight in eliminating her culprits is as good as some serious detective novel. The readers will surely enjoy it!
To conclude, I will only say that this might seem an experimental novel to some of the readers with the foci being highly on Palak’s mouthpiece character Diljit. Nevertheless, the seriousness of the novel and the gravity of the theme cannot be neglected at all! How long will the women bear crimes against them with a mute reply? If the law fails to take its course, the hopes begin to despair and the justice is kept as captive, there will be bloodshed! And the same has taken place in the novel Bleeding Queens.
I will suggest the readers please read this book and make sure you leave feedbacks for Palak Kundra on her book on the Amazon page or on Goodreads. You can buy the book from the link below:
by Raju for BTR
Poetry as a form of art and poetry as a genre of literature might seem quite equal in nature but in my view, these two things are certainly different! Poetry as a form of art may not have certain parameters and dimensions which might limit it to a certain form. For example, if I wish, I can show my life as a poetry. However, on the other hand, poetry is a genre of literature has its limitations and frontiers. A person cannot writer absurdity and name it poetry. Yes, there are prose poems today and that is extreme that we could do. Some good works, which are in rare today, of course, let us enjoy the poetry in its best form! I am reviewing one such book today which is titled An Apology for Shakespeare. According to the poet, S A Joseph, he has written a defence of poetry in this modern age because he feels that poetry as a form of art is decaying every day. We might differ in our opinions but we all have our concerns for poetry and we cannot write off the burden at once.READ MORE
For most of the readers in India, who are the fiction readers, Jeet Thayil was born after he was shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2012. However, Thayil was writing poetry way back and has also won some of the prestigious awards for his poetry. He dived into novel writing a little later. His debut novel, Narcopols was published in September 2012 and went on to become one of the shortlisted novels for the Booker Prize as well as the Man Asian Literary Prize. With his very debut novel, Thayil won the acclaim and the recognition because he defied all the traditional norms (supposedly) set for the Indian writings. Narcopolis is about sex, drug, underworld, crime, lust and all that are not accepted as ‘good things’ for the novels!READ MORE
What could be a better joy than reading something which takes you to the pit of self-pity and to the heights of perfection? Reading The Guide by R. K. Narayan is no less than a feeling of satisfaction and happiness for the destiny the characters meet, especially the character of Raju because there is always a sense of connect between Raju and the readers throughout the novel… Raju is there everywhere in the novel – from the beginning to the end, with Rosie and with Velan… READ MORE
