Most of my weekends are spent rather uneventfully, in monochromatic shades of my bedroom palette...I dread weekends. Try as I might , I always end up waking up in time. If I force myself to lay in bed, it gives me a head ache, but that could be the gastric too. I have nothing to look forward to on a Saturday. All my friends have their office to go to. Not to mention, the heat- its stiffling! I do not have an internet connection. And my lappy is just not in the condition, even if I had net access.
My irregular blog posts must have atleast made my laziness very evident. So I spend my weekends wishing it away...
Well, it's not all that melodramatic, but you get the point, right?
I do end up meeting my bf in the evening when his office is done...
But this last weekend, I discovered this book rental service in my neighborhood. They do home delevery of the books. Just the thing for lazy arse-holes like me! The outlet itself didnt have much to show off("They are just a sample, mam") with most of them being Mills and Boons, though the online portal claims too have above fifty thousand. Anyways , I picked myself a Chitra Divakaruni, "Queen of Dreams"
So far, I had read two of her books: The Palace of Illusions and One Amazing Thing.
I loved The Palace of Illusions. One Amazing Thing, however left me drifting towards the end... I kept waiting, wanting for a conclusion which never came. But then that's just my way of interpreting it.
So when I saw this one in the rental house, I was a bit skeptical about it. But then I did not have much of a choice, what with all the M&Bs on display and everyone deserves a second chance...
But this one too was like Amazing Thing... Her writings are no doubt good... but they paint this really mystical picture of India...One of sadhus, tantras, spices, magic, myth...And lets face it, no matter how amazing it would be if India really was just that, it's hard to relate to that India when you are living in the heart of a metro city in India, with its noise, pollution, gossip and just about everything that is in stark contrast to subtlety, pixie dust, folklore let alone dream interpreters.
The Queen of Dreams is based in America. It is about this woman called Rakhi whose mother can read dreams. Her mother has sort of always lived her life in duality, never able to commit herself fully to either her family or her 'dream gods '. Rakhi, a mom herself, has to deal with a broken marriage and a dying business.
In the midst of all these, her mother jumps of a bridge. Rakhi, is left with nothing but a couple of her mother's diaries to explain why her mother's inexplicable ways. In the backdrop is the World trade Center Attack.
On the whole, it was a good read. But what i didn't like was its loose ending... it was not an open ending, mind you. Although that is what the author must have intended.Both her books, Amazing and Dreams had this distant NRI p.o.v. India. And although I must admit, that That India is way more fascinating than the India I live in, it is precisely why I cant buy it...It's like looking at the moon and imagining a lady's face in it.
The India where dream interpreters exist in hidden mountain caves in some forbidden land is fine with me. But when you try to make it too abstract to make out any meaning out of it, the story looses its pace. But that could also be, cause I am not a very patient reader.( I never got around to liking Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist).
The parts which talk of her mother's diary excerpts are just too slow. And then when you are supposed to find out meaning out of mundane dreams of ancient kings, that's the part I found exceptionally boring to read. The problem with Chitra's writing (or rather, my reading) is that when I come across these stretched out parts in her books, it just tends to lead me on to a conclusive ending which sadly never comes( atleast not in the last two books that I've read of hers).
But I 'm not giving up on Chitra as yet. And apart from her loose ends and stretched out bits of mysticism, I do not have much to complain about. not when it saved my weekend from being wasted in bed
