Book Bucket Challenge

So, The Book Bucket Challenge has hit IndiBlogger too through Indispire 29^th Edition. I have been tagged by couple of my friends on Facebook and I’m reproducing my response here. Though, here I would be writing a line or two about why they were in my list. Without further ado, here’s my list.

1.     English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee: English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee is the best book I have ever read, and it will continue to hold its place for eternity in my life, since Agastya is the literary character whom I can identify myself the most with. His indifference towards his job, life, relationships was something I encounter almost daily and I want to run away from it all, much like how he does at the end of the book, something, I call “The English, August Syndrome”. It is not easy to do it, but it seems the most sensible thing to do to a world growing increasingly boring by the day. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s language is a different beast. I don’t know how getting high on Hash feels like, but I think it must be similar to reading this book.

2.     The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: I’ll be forever indebted to Ayn Rand and Howard Roark for telling me how to live, how to love, why being selfish in itself is the greatest virtue if we understand the word and the concept of selfishness. I’m nowhere as talented as Roark, nor am I as principled and evolved as him but whenever I feel low, I refer to a few passages of this book. 

3.     Antarmukham by Yandamoori Veerendranadh: I read Antarmukham when I was in my second year of engineering and it was nothing like I have ever read till then. It is the story of a man on his deathbed contemplating on his death and how his relatives, friends and the society reacts to his death from his POV in his last moments of life. It has opened up the society I was living in to my eyes in a way nothing has ever had, and I was never the same man again. In fact this book is my first step towards becoming a man.

4.     Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: In Notes from the Underground, the unnamed narrator or The Underground Man has achieved ennui, out of his sheer laziness and is so paranoid that he would be unable to even have a look at his coworkers. This work from Dostoyevsky has ringed so true about the claustrophobia I felt at that point at my workplace, and it had a lasting impression on me several days after I read it. It is a short book narrated in two parts, full of quotable quotes on loneliness, suffering and individual interests. This one warrants a re-read and I think I will pick this one up only after I feel I’m wise enough for it.  

5.     Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat: It is surprising, that an author I had immense respect for at one point for re-introducing me to reading again, is an author whose books I hate with equal passion now. I would be lying, if I say I did not enjoy his debut work, or re-read it three times till date. It was a story that was simply too good and seemed real and I grinned ear to ear reading the book. It’s a different matter that I no longer am the man his stories are targeted at, but I would forever credit Bhagat and this book in particular, as the catalysts for whatever I have read, whatever I have understood and emulated from what I have read, and for all my reading in the years to come. 

6.     Keep off the Grass by Karan Bajaj: I have not read any book in a single sitting till the day I read this stunning page turner by Karan Bajaj. For that alone, it holds a special place in my heart, though the book is much more than just another story of a hippie. This is about an investment banker, facing an identity crisis who returns to India to know his roots and his self-discovery aided by psychedelic trips. It is consistently funny, introspective, and full of irreverent wit. An eminently readable and instantly likeable work. And it’s a debut. 

7.    Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: To be honest, I read Lolita after watching the movies and reading reviews that none of the two movies did justice to the book. It was a controversial book at that time, so it fuelled my interest. When I read the book, however I was completely blown away by the language and the persuasiveness of the protagonist. He is a pedophile, but he was not a monster. On the contrary, he was an artist, well almost, but the art in which he chose to excel in was the cause of much revulsion. 

8.    Jinnah – India, Partition and Independence by Jaswant Singh: This controversial biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, by Jaswant Singh made him lose a lot of respect from several of his party members and activists, and it might well be where his downfall has started. However, this biography extends far beyond than just following a chronological narrative arc of its lead. It casts a deeper look and the effects of the First War of Independence in 1857 on the psyche of the East India Company, and the role of Jinnah in our freedom struggle before the arrival of Gandhi in India and the eventual formation of the Muslim League and Pakistan. A must read for anyone interested in our political history. 

9.    The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor: One of the finest works I have ever read on the Mahabharat. Tharoor recreates the great epic with his rich imagination by juxtaposing the characters and events from the original on to the political players during and after independence. He created truly The Great Indian Novel in the process. Tharoor’s command over the language is envious and his wit as charismatic as the man himself. A must read for everyone in our country.

10.  Jaya by Devdutt Pattnaik: Almost every Indian knows The Mahabharat, or at least some stories of it. There is endless literature, movies, plays, poetry on the greatest epic and the most wonderful tale I have ever known. Pattnaik’s Jaya is a comprehensive work celebrating the many narratives and stories abounding the tale with many interesting backstories, establishing The Mahabharat as the ultimate “Cause and Effect” morality tale. This book is a must read, especially for the kids who would be doing well to be exposed to The Mahabharat as early as possible, now that we don’t have B R Chopra’s Mega Serial anymore.