The Moony Girl

(11 of 2021) 📚 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 📚 At the cost of repetition, nonfiction is macros for me, fiction is micros. Community vs individual. Statistics vs emotions. Call me partial, but latter is what I enjoy. Pachinko is a story of four such generations of Koreans who migrate to Japan during the Second World War. 📚 Starting from Yangjin and Hoonie giving birth to Sunja in Yeongdo, Korea and her journey to Osaka, Japan, the story transcends through the life of her children Noa and Mozasu and ends at the fourth generation represented by Solomon. 📚 It was a long winded novel spanning over 79 years. It had to. Because it represents how the feelings towards motherland change with the passage of time and change in political and economic status. Where Yangjin never accepts Japan as her own, Solomon can never dream of embracing Korea. This book is a must read for expatriates struggling with the dilemma of their next Gen being engulfed by the 'foreign' country. 📚 Painf...

(10 of 2021) 📚 'Don't Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight' by Rujuta Diwekar #latepost 📚 If you regularly follow my posts, you must remember I posted about 'The Mindful Diet' last year. This book is a smarter and practical version of it, because as Rujuta Diwekar's dieting school goes, (i) it talks in terms of your genetic makeup, and rather than eating fancy super foods, it talks about why you should stick to the meal that your nans and grans promoted, and (ii) for a mean-but-not-lean Punjabi like me,  (and it's a big deal - because I've tried most of the (free and not so free) diet plans on the market which talk sh*t challenging your sanity) it won't stop you from consuming Ghee or dairy. 📚 The best thing about RD and this book is - it won't make tall promises and it simplifies eating for you. Praying for a waist like Kylie or a jawline like Kareena (bee-tee-dubs Kareena follows RD too 🤩 - I was sold at that point itself), we forge...

(9 of 2021) 📚  'भैरवी' शिवानी द्वारा ft. रूढ़िवादी मानसिकता  📚 शिवानी 'गौरा' पंत मेरी पसंदीदा लेखिकाओं में से एक हैं। उनकी कहानियों में व्याप्त सादगी और पहाड़ी जीवन का पुट, ख़ासकर आजकल की लेखनी में, सहज ही देखने नहीं मिलता। परन्तु, चाहे तुच्छ ही सही, एक समीक्षक होने के नाते किसी रचना में दिखे दोषों की बात करना भी उतना ही ज़रूरी है जितना कि उसके गुणों का। इन्ही  की कृतियों की समीक्षा की श्रृंखला में इस बार की पुस्तक है भैरवी। 122 पृष्ठों में अपनी कहानी कहने वाली इस पुस्तिका को नावेल के बजाय नावलेट कहना उचित होगा।  📚 भैरवी कहानी है चन्दन की - जिसका (लेखिका की नज़र में) अभूतपूर्व सौंदर्य ही उसका एकमात्र गुण है। कैसे यह सुंदरता उसे सफलता के चरम सोपान से लेकर पीड़ा के गर्त तक ले जाती है, कहानी इसी बारे में है। शाहजहांपुर में पली-बढ़ी चन्दन का अल्मोड़ा से धारचूला और फिर महानगरी तक का सफर बड़े मनोरंजक ढंग से बयान किआ गया है, पर उसके बाद, शाही ठाठबाठ से सन्यासिनी बनने की कहानी ये सोचने पर मजबूर करती है की क्यों कई बार समाज की कुरूपता का खामियाज़ा एक स्त्री को भुगतना पड़त...

(8 of 2021) 📚 ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ by Jhumpa Lahiri 📚 Some books are like a car crash, where you sit in the car, revv up the engine, speeding through the tortuous story climaxing in a resounding crash. This is not one of those. It reminds me of nostalgic train journeys, punctuated with passengers boarding and de-boarding, hawkers selling their wares, beggars, clown-faced circus troupes, garrulous aunties and card-playing uncles keeping you entertained, till your station arrives and you get down, bearing those trifling experiences with you for a long time. The door needs not to be knocked down every time for an entry into the heart. 📚 Interpreter of Maladies (1999) is a collection of nine short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and many other accolades. It is difficult to generalize but the life of Indian Diaspora abroad, especially the States, marriage and relations seem to the common thread running through most of the stories. Like all...

(6 & 7 of 2021) ☀️ It is a heart-stealing picture perfect sun-weds-blue-sky kind of a spring day. I remember spending such February noons sky-gazing during my pre-board leaves and falling in and out of a blissful slumber hugging my Physics or Punjabi text book. It has been years since those times but till date, blue skies in the spring never fail to make me happy. ⛱️ Hence, I decided to get off my lazy bum (well only metaphorically folks) and write this one for you. So, in the last two weeks, I went through 2 very different books.  🌄 I will start with ‘कस्तूरी मृग’ by शिवानी. This one is a collection of Short Stories like the last one of my Shivani reads. I wanted to read stories of Indian Purvanchal and Kumaon, and this one just got me that. ‘कस्तूरी मृग’, ‘माणिक’ and ‘जोकर’ were stories of more modern nature and are interesting to read. But coming to the forté of the author, ‘तर्पण’, ‘रथ्या’ and ‘शर्त’ are some stories from the hills which will make y...

(5 of 2021) 📚 'अपराधी कौन' शिवानी द्वारा ft. मेरा योगामैट 😁 📚 कहानी कहना एक कला है, और हर लेखक इसे अपने तरीके से कहता है. कुछ लेखक बड़े जटिल, घुमावदार और डार्क ढंग से और कुछ बड़े सरल, सीधे और स्पष्ट ढंग से. शिवानी मेरी मनपसन्द लेखिका हैं और लेखकों के इस दूसरे वर्ग से आती हैं. 🌄 पहाड़ी अंचल से नाता रखने वाली शिवानी की कहानियों में पहाड़ी देहातों ही सी ताज़गी, सादगी और गहराई देखने मिलती है. जब अपनी कहानी 'अलख माई' में निम्न पंक्तियों का उल्लेख करती हैं, तो पाठक को भी अपने साथ उस पहाड़ी बेर वृक्ष के नीचे खींच लाती हैं - "बेर पाको बारोमासा     आहा काफ़ल पाको चैता     मेरी छैला" 🏞️ राधाकृष्ण प्रकाशन दुआरा छपी "अपराधी कौन" लघु कहानियों का संग्रह है जिसमें से अधिकतर कहानियां कारागृह से हैं. 'जा रे एकाकी', 'छि: मम्मी, तुम गंदी हो', 'साधो, ई मुर्दन के गाँव' और 'अलख माई' कहानियां विभिन्न पृष्ठभूमि के बंदी और बंदिनियों (मुख्यतः) की कहानियां हैं. जेल चाहे सलाखों की हो या मन की, कैसी किसी व्यक्ति की इच्छाशक्ति के स...

(4 of 2021) ft. my Morning wali Chai Shireen  📚  ‘The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul’ by Deborah Rodriguez - This is my last book from the trilogy of Central Asian themed books that I ordered last year. The book is based in Afghanistan and is a self-proclaimed Khaled Hosseini inspired Feminist war drama. 🏔️ It is a story of 5 female characters - Sunny, Yazmina, Isabel, Candace and Halajan who are of different age groups and hail from different ethnic, cultural and financial backgrounds. All of them carry their own skeletons in the cupboard, but how they affect and enrich the lives of each other in a war torn and Taliban ruled Kabul is the pivotal plot.  👩🏻‍🦰👩🏻‍🦳👩🏻‍🦱👵🏼👩🏽 Coming to the review, do not expect the narration to have depth and detail of a deft writer. Sometimes the actions seem too abrupt and ill-thought in the book. Many connections appear forced or, for the lack of a better word, inorganic. The language lacks the subtlety and refinement...