Love, Peace & Happiness - Review

This book explores the theme of the relationships in this modern age through short stories. If we compare the relationships of the older times and the ones formed in this modern age, the one glaring thing which comes across is that relationships have become too practical or too difficult to manage. 

This book tries to bring out those difficulties being faced, the complexities of this real world, the chaos in which we live, the uncertainty, the aimlessness and the lack of direction being faced by young people today.

Maybe, we know how to pursue our careers, but we don't know how to work on our relationships. I think it happens, because of the lack of experience we have, and the kind of dichotomy of the world in which we live.

We are stuck between the generation which had happy arranged marriages, and our next generation which will be more of a society which encourages and accepts free love.

One of the problems, is not finding someone good enough for yourself, as it comes across in the first story itself: "A high, like Heaven". When the guy Ashish tells Sneha "You are just very very average", it sort of resonated, as we keep on trying to find the perfect right match, the soul mate, the person who should be a clone of our inner self at an intellectual level. It's so important to be able to talk to and to be able to understand your companion. This story brings out how a lack of understanding between two persons leads to a loss of the relationship.

The real life is the one which we live, which is a constant struggle to achieve "Love, Peace and Happiness". It's a pursuit to achieve what we consider "The Perfect Life". 

Like the Beatles said, "Love is all you need". And I sure believe that at times, it's true, that we all do, what we do to find love. Our emotions are the true reasons for our actions, which we then try to rationalize through logic.

And the real life has no straight forward rules, no perfect story line to follow, and the melancholic nature of the stories bring them out. The stories work at various levels and I will definitely read them again to understand the underlying messages and themes. 

Is our life a series of coincidences and a result of some of our actions, our choices and the paths we took ? Or is it something ordained by fate? I think, we like to believe in the fateful crossing of the stars which have brought the people in our lives, with whom we are sharing this journey. Author tries to bring out this discussion for us near the end of the book, when the book turns even more introspective and philosophical.

We want our lives to be stories, the stories which can be told like fairy tales. The stories which start with "Once upon a time" and the ones which end with "And they lived happily ever after". The book here brings out more realistic stories, which play out the drama of the real life. Thus, as you can see, this book has made me think, and it's all I want from the book I read !

And the characters in this book aspire to understand the life, and the meaning of life. And everyone in the book as usual aspires to achieve " Happiness, A high like Heaven '. 

Recently read books !

Once upon a time I wrote my last blog entry. So I decided to come again and write a few hundred/thousand words. The topic is not yet decided, but I think discussion of recently read books should suffice!

I have read 3 mistakes of my life - latest by chetan bhagat, infact read it twice. I liked this latest literary sojourn by chetan bhagat a lot too. As per my rankings it's perhaps better than one night at the call centre, but Chetan Bhagat will perhaps never again beat his own masterpiece - 5 point someone. My taste is realistic one, and whenever anybody starts getting too imaginative I start drowning in the literal liberty taken by the author.

Coming back to 3 mistakes, the underlying theme is of the friendship of 3 friends, with cricket and religion getting weaved in the medley. The story has turned out to be interesting keeping the curious reader pasted to the book till it ends.

Another point which I have noticed about Chetan Bhagat's writing is the way he writes about the boy's angle in a relationship and his views about the girl. The guys always feel sarcastic about the way girls' behave, noticing tiny little details about personality quirks. Still the dear guy would fall hopelessly caught by visual and verbal antics of the girl.

The other one which I bought is Andy Grove's biography, one of the many books written about the persona. It gives an insight in the managment guidelines, observed from the way people and processes are managed in Intel. An interesting and knowledgable read, no doubt about it.

The third one I recently tried to read was Paulo Coelho's Brida which turned out to be simply disappointing. All that spiritual connect, the twists and the realtions to the old mythology lure present in all Paulo Coelho books turned out to be missing. I havent managed to complete it and my best friend reading the same copy condemned it too. Still I think I will try to read this "set of pages cast in a good cover but bad content" once again to get some value of my hard earned money spent on this book.

And the book I am planning to read is "Almost Single" by Advaita Kala. I believe I will enjoy that book having sampled an excerpt. And I plan to read "The Living" by Ayn Rand too, but I think it's a sad book, hence never managed to make myself read it.

I think I am done with the current review, and will continue with the next review some time later, perhaps the next review might be about latest movies.