Another fluky day

For the balconies,

Witnessing

The smile on his face

The love in her eyes.

But telling another story

Were the doors below

Emotions were there too

Hate and anger

Replaced the love.

Together the dreams were born

Together they blossomed

Together they struggled to sustain

Together they perished into oblivion.

They believed in change

They believed in love

Of course, a millennium has passed

But here it was

Romeo and Juliet once again.

“For life’s not a paragraph and death I think is no parentheses.”

– E. E. CUMMINGS

The Girl on the Train is a psychological thriller novel written by British author Paula Hawkins, published in 2015. The book was a huge success among readers. In 2016, a movie was made with the same title based on the book.

Rachel is a 32-year old woman with a very messed up life. She is a lonely, alcoholic woman who has lost her everything; her husband, her job. She daily commutes on 8:04 am train. The journey takes her along the house where she lived, with her ex-husband, Tom. On the same street, she observes the house no. 23 where a couple lived, Megan and Scott. She imagined them to have a perfect life and it felt comforting to her. One morning she saw Megan kissing another man. She went to the street at night, completely drunk and she had a total blackout. Megan had disappeared the following day and Rachel believes something must have happened on the night she had the blackout.

The story is narrated in the first person told from point of view of three woman – Rachel, Megan and Anna. Rachel is a drunkard, Megan is a cheat and Anna is insecure about her husband’s relationship with his ex-wife, Rachel. Although the twist at the end is predictable, the build-up to the climax is well written and it forces the readers to be glued to the book. The three women in the story are not happy with their lives with Rachel living in self-pity and being obsessed with her ex-husband, Megan is suffering from boredom and restlessness with her married life. Anna is afraid of the constant interference of Rachel in their life and is worried about the safety of her daughter. This book is a classic case of unreliable narration. The story has good suspense, well carved-out characters and is a worthy read.

Happy Reading 🙂

“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”

“Big Brother is Watching You.”

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Do these quote scare you? If your answer is in negative, then be ready to change your mind because these words epitomise the world’s deadliest totalitarian government. The first quote is the slogan of the party, the second one is the measure by which they control people and the third one is their idea of the style of governance.

Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, was an English author having profound knowledge in politics and is most famous for his satirical novel Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

Oceania is a future state where everything is controlled by a ruling totalitarian political party under the leadership of Big Brother. The party have three important ministries through which they function. The Ministry of Truth changes historical facts to portray the Big Brother and the party in a better light.
The Ministry of Love deals with punishing the people who are criminal according to the party. The Ministry of Peace deals with wars with other countries. Winston is a thought-criminal ( the biggest crime in Oceania is thinking ) and keeps his anti-government ideas in a secret diary.

1984 is a dystopian political, horror novel. The novel states the fears of an authoritarian government where every single person of the society believes in a single ideology and the language is deteriorated according to the benefits of the party. There is a three-chapter manifesto of a secret brotherhood in the book whose ideas are still relevant in the current political scenario. Orwell has brilliantly shown us the danger of dictatorship. 1984 is a must-read for all even if one doesn’t like this genre.

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it.”

– Hercule Poirot, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie is a celebrated name across the world for her works in the mystery genre that usually involved detectives. She is the best-selling novelist of all time according to Guinness Bookook of World Records. The book that brought her into the limelight was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published in 1926.

The story starts with Dr James Sheppard, the narrator of the story, discussing the suicide of Mrs Ferrars who had a secret affair with Roger Ackroyd, the wealthiest man in King’s Abbot. Ackroyd is found dead the following evening in his locked study. The prime suspect is his stepson who had disappeared mysteriously from King’s Abbot. Roger’s butler and his sister are also under the scanner of Hercule Poirot, the famous detective. Poirot has to solve the case with aids from Dr Sheppard and his sister.

The story is told in the first person, varying from her usual third-person narration of the story. If you are a fan of slow and leisurely reading, you are about to get surprised. Even the laziest of readers can’t help themselves to put the book down before completing the novel. This mystery goes down to the last page. The soul of the book lies in the unforeseen twist that comes at the end. The end will force you to re-read the book to discover the clues which you will certainly overlook in the first reading. This book will make you fall in love with Hercule Poirot, one of Agatha’s main characters recurring in many novels.

If you are a fan of mystery and want to read something that will knock your socks off, then The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the obvious choice.

I am a sinner
For I gave my heart,
Gave it o someone
Who broke it apart.

I am a sinner
For I regret,
Regret even having
In my mind, her silhouette.

I am a sinner
For I hurt,
Happiness is a mirage
And my life, a desert.

I am a sinner
For I hope,
Hope to cross the bridge
That hangs on the already broken rope.

Writing is not easy. Especially when it comes to putting down your feelings on paper. The very first question that comes across is what you are going to write. Will it be the old tried and tested way of keeping a diary? And once you keep a diary, will you write your quotidian routine or will you pen down your life in metaphors and hyperboles? Or will you follow in the footsteps of the Byrons and the Wordsworths?

I have never been successful in maintaining a diary. Therefore, I tried to take the other route. Again, I faced a dilemma about writing poems or short stories. So, I did both. I won’t say that these endeavours of mine have borne great results, but I tried and it felt satisfying. I wrote some poems and a couple of short stories. I have always been a critic of my work and have never been fully satisfied with any of them. However, that has not stopped me from writing. My poems and stories are like a son or daughter to me; no matter the flaws and fallacies in them, they’ll always be close to my heart. When I find faults in my work, I try to improve them. I don’t get despondent over it.

What I’m trying to say is if you want to write, then write. Maybe you won’t get the perfection, but you’ll have the satisfaction of doing it. Don’t think about your grammar or your sentence structures. Learn from your mistakes and improve the second time and the time further and further and further. Eventually, you will see the perfection that you first wanted to see. The proudest moment in a parent’s life is when their child succeeds and becomes the best. You’ll definitely feel the pride.

I’m not going to edit this write-up. I’ll learn from the mistakes and will be back with a better one. Until then, keep writing.

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu