Life of pie

Some books haunt us long after they are read and this book is one of them. The book started as an ordinary book. It brought back memories from reading, “A tiger for Malgudi” 

It’s amazing how this book converts itself from an ordinary tale to a mind boggling piece of work at the end. I was fascinated by the first half where he describes his childhood in India and the incidents he encounters after the shipwreck but the ending came as a bolt from the blue and I still can’t get over it. 

It made me ask the question, would you be the pray at the face of death or would you awaken the Bengali tiger in you?

Shantaram

The first half of the book was a masterpiece and I really wished it was more compact. I was re-exploring every part of India through the eyes of Lin. The love, simplicity and genuineness in people made me realize why I miss that part of the world so much. In this book I met the happiest person I’ve ever met in a book, “Prabhu” whose smile is clearly engraved in my mind.  I agree with the writer when he says, “Indians are the Italians of Asia and vice versa. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is the music inside the body and music is the food inside the heart”

The story takes you to all the corners in slums to five star hotels and rewards you the company of people from different walks of life. All in all I loved the book but it was exhausting to read through some 2000 pages on my e-reader. Also I felt that in the latter part the book lost its charm compared to the first half.