Gently Falls the Bakula

Title: Gently Falls the Bakula

Author: Sudha Murthy

Genre: Fiction, Light Drama

Written originally in Kannada some thirty years back, this small fiction by Sudha Murthy is the tale of a lower middle class couple from North Karnataka and their struggle to find their own individuality. Srikanth and Srimati are neighbors in Hubli, their houses separated by a not-so-beautiful-but-still-so ‘bakula’ tree. Both of them are the treat of the school each standing first or second in the class. Childhood competition slowly culminates into romance inspite of rivalries between the two families. While Srikanth goes to ‘Bombay’ to study in IIT; Srimati, who was incidentally academically better than him stayed back to study her passion for history. They get married and while Srikanth rises meteorically in his career, Srimati has a hard time discovering her true purpose of existence. And hence begin a struggle of a brilliant house wife to find her own happiness.

The book is written in a very simple language and though the subject matter deals with emotions of every day life of a couple, it fails to keep the reader interested in the subject. We see these kind of stories everyday now. In daily soaps and in the neighborhood. The story is definitely short and precise but in the end you will feel that it’s incomplete. I won’t say more tragedy would have done any justice to the novel. But somehow, one is unable to feel the emotions that Srimati goes through. The choice of words and the simple writing style may well be the bane of this novel.

What one can understand from this novel though is that there is a perspective to everything. Men who have to earn a family’s bread have to be ambitious and hard-working and motivated but do they have the right to neglect their family in the process? Women have to manage a home and take care of the kids but do they really lose their own integrity in the process? The book raises societal questions. And though no one turns out to be wrong, the question of who is right and whose sacrifice is greater than the other looms. This book is hence a debate between men and women. Perspective, as it is, always ends in a question mark.

The Fountainhead

Title:     The Fountainhead
Author: AynRand
My comment: Read the book to find how imperfect we all are...


A lot has already been written about this book. This one book has changed millions of people around the world. People studying literature have done thesis on the characters, theme and philosophy of this book. And I, quiet naturally, feel humbled writing about such a great novel.


What makes a book or a story or in a broader sense – literature – ‘great’? What are those elements that imprint the words upon reader’s mind? What makes the reader feel connected with the literature he reads?

It’s the characters.

Howard Roark, the hero, the human who believes in the ‘I’ and not the ‘We’ of collectivism is the identity of a true man fighting and braving the world to stand by his principles.

Peter Keating, the exact opposite is what every person desires to be but in the end cannot be – ambitious, successful, admired.

Dominique Francon, a lady who knows the true worth of a man and is ready to sacrifice herself to save the other.

Gail Wynand, a multi millionaire, power hungry, appreciates art but has the habit of collecting it just for him and for no other.

Ellsworth Toohey – perhaps the most dubious character in the book who shows how there is no white and no black - only a grey, which is perhaps the dangerous of all.

These characters are what we actually are. They are not larger than life. They are not out of the world images of God, Goddesses or Demons but humans who actually exist within us and around us. How simply these characters have been written on a piece of paper, impresses upon the reader the mastery of the writer.

The story revolves around architecture and sky-scrapers. It is the story of Howard Roark, the architect who finds himself fighting the society, the rich, the poor, the common man and even his love. Only because he is the egotist not ready to give up on his principles and ideals he holds so dear. He represents the ideal man - a man as he should be.

“Look at the man standing infront of the skyscraper. The man seems dwarfed by the building. But remember – it was built by him”

There are various philosophies associated with the book which later take form of Ayn Rand’s own philosophy of Objectivism. But the true essence of ‘The Fountainhead’ is to value an individual as a whole, to place oneself above the rest for only then we will be able to feel no remorse, no sadness and no jealousy. The book explains why selflessness is the biggest fraud of virtue man implied upon himself because there is nothing of ‘self’ left in selflessness.

This book isn’t a story of men. It is a fight for men. It represents everything we stand for but never have the courage to fight for. And after you have read it you will be left asking – can I be like him? Can I be perfect? Can I be like Howard Roark? Read this book and find how imperfect you are.

Midnight's Children

Title: Midnight's Children
Author: Salman Rushdie
My comment: The Indian spirit in the words of a true story teller..


Ofcourse I had heard of the book. Who hasn’t? It won the Booker in 1981 and then Booker of Bookers in 1991. In 2008 this book won the people’s choice award for the best book to ever win a booker. I had heard of the writer too. Salman Rushdie, against whom many fatwas had been issued. So there was nothing much to think before purchasing it since it had all the elements of a perfect-home-take-away-novel – Booker prize and a controversial author.

I read the first six pages and didn’t understand a thing. Though as a consolation to Mr. Rushdie, I must admit that I was a little sleepy too. I didn’t touch it for a week and then started it all over again, reading each and every word carefully this time, grasping the meaning of every word, forming it into a sentence, each metaphor carefully woven and satire placed at the right corners. And this time I slept with the book and woke up with it besides me.

Once you grab hold of Mr. Rushdie’s style of writing, the words will look like a flowing river, almost naturally at place. The magic that Mr. Rushdie casts upon the reader through his mystical style of writing and inter-woven, often out-of-chronology events is just fabulous. It didn’t take me long to recognize why the book has been deemed as the best of the best among modern writing.

The book begins with the protagonist Saleem Sinai, who narrates the story of his grandfather Aadam Aziz in Kashmir to his dung-goddess and then takes us through the history of India till second generation following the roads to independence, the five-year plans and the emergency under Mrs. Indira Gandhi. In this journey he explains how the cosmos planned his own birth at the opportune moment at the stroke of midnight hour when India itself became independent on 15 August 1947 and then how this birth was inter-woven with the bearing of his nation.

With Saleem, were born, thousand and one more children known as the children of midnight or the midnight’s children, each born with a special and unique power. This is the story of how these children realize their destiny of being and the true purpose of these powers. In this book what starts as a love story through a perforated sheet becomes a saga of human nature, mystique and will.      

As Aadam Aziz fell in love with Saleem’s grandmother through the hole in the bed-sheet, I fell in love with the book. As baby Saleem was being born in the hospital ward at Bombay (Mumbai), I was with Jawaharlal Nehru witnessing the midnight speech and as baby Saleem spied on his mother…I think I have said too much. And this is just half the book.

Mr. Rushdie, as the world now recognizes is a master story teller who, in this novel has told the story which people will associate to because it reaches such depths of human emotions and with such ease that you will find yourself living in the time as Saleem Sinai, the radio child. A must read for the English speaking community.

As an advice, just remember to keep a Webster’s dictionary with you while reading because Mr. Rushdie has probably used every available adjective in English language.