Chaitra Pai

ONCE UPON A BLINK - GAYON Genre - Flash Fiction 5/5 FIVE REASONS TO PICK UP THIS BOOK- 1. This book has small doses of a variety of genres, from sci-fi to romance to horror. You can try a bit of this and that and figure out a new genre you would like to explore more of. 2. The act of randomly selecting stories can sharpen your decision-making skills and heighten your sense of acccomplishment. 3. Provides instant gratification of finishing a story in minutes. You can dive into a story and experience a variety of emotions. It’s like a literary shot of espresso, waking up your emotions and leaving a lasting impression. 4. Fits into even the busiest schedules, allowing you to squeeze in some reading whenever you have a spare moment. 5. Accessible to all, whether you’re a beginner or a time-strapped workaholic. This diversity ensures there’s always something for everyone, and you can explore new genres without committing to a full-length novel. WHY THIS PARTICULAR BOOK? Each story in this book is a complete world in itself, evoking strong emotions and thoughts. There were many that I loved so much, I would like to read expanded versions where I can delve deeper into those worlds and experience them further. The language used is concise and beautiful which made it impossible to put the book down. I read this book in between chores, sneaking in a few minutes of reading, and the experience was fulfilling. I was delivered a well rounded story in minutes with a burst of emotion and thoughts. If you are looking for a story a night, and want to explore genres, this is the best of the flash fiction I’ve read. You can find this book on Amazon, and you won’t regret it!

Don’t go by the misleading title of this book. Neither is there an alluring Sakina, nor does she kiss anyone. And most importantly, this is not a romance. At first glance, this book appears to be a straightforward tale of a family and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of their daughter. However, upon closer examination of the underlying subtext, its intelligence shines through. Shanbhag demonstrates a remarkable ability to convey profound ideas using simple language, as seen previously in 'Ghachar Gochar,' and the metaphorical meaning conveyed is astounding. The book had its moments of amusement - from the romantic interludes between the couple to the comical scenarios involving self-help books and Viji's disdain towards her husband when he quotes them. Additionally, the bickering dynamics within the family and the complexities of father-daughter relationships were noteworthy. The family appears patriarchal, with the father striving to assert control after losing grip over his wife, attempting to rein in his daughter through strictness. The family home, and its ownership, casts a looming shadow over the narrative, forming a backdrop to the story. The title is exceptionally clever and conveys a crucial message about how things can be misinterpreted when taken at face value. The title stems from this scene - when attempts are made to transcribe Raman’s indecipherable letter, it is misread, resulting in uproarious laughter. However, the second attempt to comprehend it brings the gravity of the situation into perspective. The ending is what got me - although cleverly crafted, I was left with more questions than answers. These kind of books have a lasting effect on me, as they tend to be a earworm that keeps niggling in my brain for a long time.

This beautiful book tells the tale of Meena, who is wedded at the tender age of 14 to Manmohan, and uprooted from India to the far flung regions of Nepal. The city-bred Meena is flung in the middle of a Neanderthal-village, which doesn’t have even the basic necessities, and this shapes Meena’s mental faculties, especially in the absence of her husband and an abusive mother-in-law. The descriptive village life is oppressive and breath taking at the same time. We go ahead to learn about her extended family and eventually her children, and when all this is put together we are wrung through a kaleidoscope of emotions. A brief insight into the 1990 People’s Movement in Nepal makes a stunning entry midway through the book giving a snapshot of the political scenario filled with load shedding, general unrest and curfews which shaped their lives. The Monarch also makes a brief entry in the form of a cavalcade witnessed by Meena. Weighty topics such as grief resulting from miscarriage, mental health, same-sex attraction due to a lack of outward stimuli, and the mother-daughter relationship are addressed in a breezy manner. Various characters in the book take center stage to narrate the story from their perspective which gave the book depth. I loved how magical realism, and fables were used to drive a point home. After our book club discussion, we were fortunate to meet Smriti Ravindra, who provided fascinating insights into the book’s writing process. What made this book special for me is that a significant portion of the narrative is rooted in her own life, with embellishments of her mother’s presence added to the story. Smriti has crafted most, though not all, of the folklore herself, and this fact truly impressed me. This hauntingly melancholic book breathed life into the yet unexplored regions of Nepal, telling a multigenerational tale. I thoroughly enjoyed the folklore binding the whole book together and the details about the Nepali upheaval were a revelation for me.

#9 Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 After reading some heavy books in the Longlist, I felt I deserved a light and humorous read. I thought Because of You was the best remedy, but I was surprised. The first few pages made me a little uncomfortable, and I felt the underlying humor in describing a still-birth, and the events that ensued was tactless. But when I mentioned this to @lucywaterstoneschallenge, she couldn't stop talking about it. She convinced me to keep going and that I wouldn't be disappointed. I am so glad I followed her advice! At the turn of the century, at midnight, two babies are born in the labor ward. One a still-birth & the other a beautiful, kicking bundle of joy. What ensues is pandemonium, when each mother goes through sadness and joy respectively, and then unexpectedly, the tables turn. The world goes topsy-turvy, and the ending confirms that Karma plays games in mysterious ways. I saw a lot of negative reviews, but my advice is - read this book as fiction. The events described can not happen in the real world, & even if they do, I would think it would play out differently. This book is an emotional rollercoaster, playing with our family values, motherly instincts, & the power of love. I loved the contrasting emotions of the mother who lost the baby and the successful birth. I went through an emotional upheaval reading what came next (I can not give this away without spoilers), and the descriptions of the contrasts are so striking. I cried buckets, literally buckets, when I read the last few pages. I took a lot of time to console myself, and the closing words - "There, loud and clear, was Hope" was the last straw. The contrast between the two fathers, one an egomaniac, and the other, so benevolent and compassionate, to the point of giving everything up, is so beautifully described. I am glad I soldiered on, and the takeaway from this book is very precious to me.

The most unexciting one I have read to date, this book is proof that running blind into a book without reading the blurb is a bad idea. I thought being longlisted for Dylan Thomas & The Women's Prize would hold weightage, but no great shakes there! Ava, an Irish girl, moves to Hong Kong, to pursue a career as a grammar school teacher that categorically employs only whites. The matchbox-style living conditions in HK push her to acquiesce to a live-in relationship with a well-off British banker, with a sullen attitude, who refuses to put a name to their relationship. When he returns to London for 6 months, she gets entangled in an intimate relationship with a lawyer woman. Her turmoil is real when he returns, & it comes to choosing between the two. And that's about the size of it. I think I have summarized the whole book here, just fill in the blanks with boring conversations, and now you do not need to read the book at all. The highlight was the descriptions of the famous streets of Hong Kong, which gave me flashbacks of my travels there, and I could relate to drinking at LKF, shopping at TST, & eating at Stanley Street. Ava, being an Irish woman, teaching British English to Hong Kong kids, found the grammatical differences entertaining. These observations were an object of amusement for me. Especially the bring/take rule, which we native speakers do not give too much consideration. "'Bring' was for things that were going from 'there' to 'here'. 'Take', however, was for things you were moving from 'here' to 'there'." Finding her sexuality was the theme which this book tackled. Her comfort with a man and her love for a woman, simultaneously, made her question her sexuality. She vied for both their attention & when the three socialized together, the dynamics were skewed. She realized she behaved differently with each of them. This one ticks the 6th book off the Women's Prize longlist. Next in line, Small Pleasure, which I know I will not stop gushing about.

"When the world felt dark and scary, love could whisk you off to go dancing; laughter could take some of the pain away; beauty could punch holes in your fear." When a romance writer, January, crosses paths with literary wunderkind Augustus, sparks are bound to fly. Add a fling in the past and a college rivalry to the mix, a love-hate relationship blossoms. Adjoining beach houses and their halted literary careers because of a writer's block does not help matters. They come to a truce and decide to swap their respective genres. January decides to write bleak literary fiction, and Augustus a Happily Ever After, and therein their journey begins to broken dreams and insecurities. Trigger Warning: If you are expecting a breezy beach read to escape from the problems of the real world, this book is not for you. The characters in this book have more issues than a magazine. I felt January was self-obsessed. Her mind stuck on her father's one flaw, and she did not want to see beyond that. All the beautiful years spent together as a family were forgotten when, after his death, she discovered her father's affair, to the point of refusing to talk to her cancer-stricken mother. Augustus, on the other hand, grew up in an abusive household and got dumped by his wife, and therein lied his insecurity that everyone would leave him. He focused on self-preservation and acceptance, and once he achieved that, was so scared he would lose his loved one, he had a hard time coping with it. I loved their writing routines and the Friday and Saturday night escapades in the name of research. The description of the book January wrote sounded like The Night Circus, and I would have loved to read the one Augustus wrote about the Suicide Sect. This is a cosy slow burn contemporary romance, with a few slapstick funny bits in between, set in a beautiful beach house, and any writer would love to read about the shaping up of a novel.

This book follows an African American in her 20's, Edie, who is involved in the lives of a white married couple in an open marriage. The scrawny handwritten rules of the wife, dictate their relationship & she surprisingly makes her part of their family. The narration is that of a gushed confession, trying to make a bare chest of her sexual dalliances & her critical observations of her surroundings. Edie's views on racism, body issues, capitalism are highly suggestive. Edie is a lost soul making peace with her work, body, life, relationships. She observes her surroundings keenly, is so aware of her body. Wanting to be comfortable in her skin, to be liked, looking for affirmation by offering it & then observing their pleasure is her undoing. The inner turmoil is real. The observations are stark. Did he like it, does he like me, being a black American in a sea of whites, she tries to find her place. I found the wife hard to read. She welcomes Edie, the mistress, into their lives, not behaving like the scorned wife. She offers clothes, a home, money, a slice of their existence. And then Edie finds a kindred spirit. The 12-year-old black adopted daughter going thru the same dystopia as her becomes her solace. Helping her with her outrageously curly hair & making her comfortable in her skin, is like a balm to her soul, a loosening of knots in her stomach, a finding of herself through a young child. Like guiding a younger self into the big bad world of white wolves. I loved this book for its starkness & acerbic narration, sometimes shocking me with graphic descriptions & witty remarks. The subject matter reminded me of Such a Fun Age, especially the police brutality. I am so glad my 20's are gone because her struggle with body image issues was real.

If I was a panelist of The Women's Prize, this would be my choice hands-down. I loved the premise, was smitten with the characters, lived through their ups and downs, and was ravaged by the conclusion. It just hit me out of the blue. As mentioned in the Afterword, inspiration was drawn from a BBC Radio 4's interview, where a competition to find a virgin mother discovered a bedridden woman at the time of conception. The Lewisham train crash of 1957 seemed to be the perfect setting, and that is how the novel was born. My Thoughts- - I loved the third person writing style, and the unraveling of the mystery was delicious. I waited for the result of each virgin birth test, and each inquiry made, as if it were mine. -Jean's life revolved around her socially paranoid mom. Her day began and ended with doing chores for her, and in between that, she worked as a features writer at a local newspaper. The troubles of another woman, whose mother had dementia, made her realize she was better off, and she started to ask for help. -Margaret, the 10-year old by-product of the virgin birth, heard angel voices in her head. Saddened with her inner turmoil, and the situation she was put in, made me angry with the bullheadedness of the elders. -Gretchen, the virgin mother, had a dark secret, and from the start, I figured out her plot to get her husband and Jean together. Her naive need to prove the virgin birth for the sake of love was so pure. -Howard, the husband, was the victim of the situation, and I do not blame him for the turn in events. He had found true love, and although he was mentally loyal to his wife, his stolen moments with Jean made me feel that it was meant to be This moving story has layers of deep meaning which will stay with me for a long time. It is not just about a virgin birth, but also about true love, priority of one's commitments, perseverance through mortal illness's and twist's in destiny which are not in our hands.

This tender and raw masterpiece hits hard where it really hurts. A shy person by nature who is perpetually bullied for not talking, I found myself in a very vulnerable place while reading it, arousing emotions of anger and helplessness. This book follows the life of a 14 year old boy, Momose, who is physically tormented by bullies for having a lazy eye. He soon finds a kindred spirit in Kojima, the common factor being the bullying, and they become fast friends. As they try to make peace with the constant browbeating, we are made privy to the whirlwind of emotions whipped up within them, as we come to terms with it along with them. Bullying is not the only subject in the limelight. The whole growing up process which is excruciating is laid bare for us to examine - the lack of empathy and tact, rude teenage behaviour, the herd mentality of following the leader despite knowing it is wrong, the sense of belonging one experiences being a part of a group tormenting a weak person and the relief of not being the victim. The conversation between Momose and the bully, on this subject is enlightening. The short lived blossoming friendship between Momose and Kojima was the only sweet spot. The “little fish-bones” handwritten notes passed discreetly, and the clandestine meetings, the only hope of light. In contrast, the graphic bullying, cramming Momose into a locker, making him eat chalk, playing with his head like a football - made me see red and I had to take frequent breaks to calm myself down. Seeing someone bullied and feeling helpless, even though it is on the pages of a book inflamed the ire inside me. This book is a reflection of how we see others, how words can hurt and how malleable young children get hardened due to frequent pressure which can shape their future for either the good or the bad. They either come out victorious becoming unbreakable or bow under the pressure and break easily.