Skip to main content

Let yourself bloom

 


Book Review

Title: You are Blooming

Author: Swarnali Nath

Amazon E-book, 2020

 “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side,” Rig Veda exhorts. We live in rather ignoble times. A global pandemic has revealed more potently than anything else our vulnerability even before a microscopic virus. In spite of that, we don’t seem to learn the essential lessons. We keep fighting in the names of gods and religions. We keep chopping people’s heads to prove the might of our gods. Nations threaten one another for a few acres of land in the border areas. Men rape and kill little girls for reasons that only they and their gods know. No, we won’t ever learn lessons.

That is why certain lessons become more and more relevant in spite of the fact that they are not new. Certain stories of love and compassion, grace and beauty, sunshine and bliss need be told again and again. We need be reminded again and again of our capacity for regeneration, the urgent need for that regeneration. This is what Swarnali Nath’s e-book, You are Blooming, does. It is yet another much-needed reminder that we can redeem ourselves at any time, however tough the going is getting.

The book is divided into three parts of equal lengths: Hope, Beauty, and Grace – each part has 7 chapters. Rather, 7 letters addressed to the seeker of happiness. The author speaks in the voice of a spiritual guru speaking to her disciple. The style is conversational though monologic and it is meant to touch the heart rather than the intellect. Certain transformations need to take place in the heart and not in the intellect. Swarnali is speaking about such transformations.

Here is a voice that seeks to bring more light into an increasingly darkening world, more love into a world being smothered by bitterness, more hope against the mounting despair. Here is a book that seeks to release the bird with broken wings back into the sky to which it belongs. This is a book that adds grace and charm to life, bringing noble thoughts from every side.

The book is available here.

PS. This blog is participating in the #MyFriendAlexa campaign of the Blogchatter.

Comments

  1. Sinjana GhoshOctober 29, 2020 at 10:47 AM

    What a lovely review. I've read some of Swarnali's articles and I'm sure the book will be awesome. But your insights are equally great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jyoti JhaOctober 29, 2020 at 10:58 AM

    Very befitting and precise review! Completely agree that the book is a beautiful 'much-needed reminder that we can redeem ourselves at any time, however tough the going is getting.'

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aishwariya LaxmiOctober 29, 2020 at 11:07 AM

    Nice review! Must read this book soon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Radhika AcharyaOctober 29, 2020 at 12:29 PM

    What a beautiful review of a beautiful book.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ira MishraOctober 29, 2020 at 1:14 PM

    What a beautiful review Sir. Very rightly said certain things really need to be repeated again and again to ourselves if not to others and this book of Swarnali's is certainly a reminder of how we can awaken that goodness within us.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rethink MindfulOctober 29, 2020 at 5:35 PM

    Thank you so much for the beautiful review Sir. I am overwhelmed and honoured. I am grateful for the abundance of love you have showered on my book. This means world to me. Thank you Sir. Gratitude 😊🙏🏻

    ReplyDelete
  7. ThevagabondOctober 29, 2020 at 7:50 PM

    I have started reading it and I agree it's a voice of positivity in these turbulent times

    Ruchi Nasa https://thevagabond.me

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sonia DograOctober 29, 2020 at 11:09 PM

    There is a certain softness in Swarnali's writing and it comes across in the book. Yet to read it on Amazon. I just say that from my memory of it on Blogchatter. Wonderful review sir.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuOctober 31, 2020 at 8:16 PM

    What a crisp & beautiful review sir. certainly during trying times, certain noble thoughts need to be repeated.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
12 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more