It was not planned! In fact, I am trying to read books in Kannada. I studied in Kannada medium schools and switched to English medium only in High-school.
Our first meeting with Shankar was in Bangkok. And we reconnected on our return to namma Bengaluru. We lost touch with him during Covid as we had moved out from Kumara Park for a few years!
It was a pleasant and a total surprise when we saw him standing at the gate of our apartment as we stepped out one evening last December! We would have missed each other, if it was even a minute later. He said, he just took a chance and was wondering if we were still living here as he saw a new building! Luckily we met!
It felt good that he thought of us and made the effort to meet us. Shankar, seeing we were in a hurry, just took out a book from his bag, signed it and gave it to us, saying it was his first attempt in writing fiction! We parted with a plan to meet again soon!
Tara began reading the book and said she liked it. I began reading the novel a few days later and liked it enough to introduce the book to others through this blog!
The Federal : "The Bengaluru-based writer-editor talks about his debut work of fiction that draws on 18th–19th century Deccan history, and is shaped by his eclectic background in physics, philosophy, music and the arts
https://thefederal.com/category/features/m-k-shankar-the-convert-faith-belonging-fiction-novel-bengaluru-ideas-philosophy-216607
Meeting Ishan was equally unexpected. Tara had planned to attend a concert at his parents home one evening. His mother Priya and Tara are part of Sunaad! I chose to join Tara as we had planned attend one more concert the same evening! It made sense to go with her as Bengaluru has now decided surpass the infamous Bangkok traffic. Perhaps namma Bengaluru mistakenly thought we missed it.
Tara had mentioned that young Ishan while in his teens had written a book and her friends in Sunaad had praised it a lot. As soon as we were seated, I noticed we were surrounded by books! Book shelves were right up to the ceiling! Tara asked if she could take a look at Ishan's book. And as soon as she was given the book, she asked whether she could buy it! Yes they said and we were given a new copy of the book. Ishan gracefully signed it for us.
https://ishanshanavas.substack.com/p/why-i-wrote-a-book-now-a-best-seller
There is a reason why I chose to introduce the books together! Ishan takes us back to our childhood dreams and experiences. It is in 'no way' near his experiences and commitment! We do share his worries on how these so called wild things will survive! How do we make it happen?
Shankar makes us think! Whether our species, the bipeds with brains (!), mistakenly called Human, will stop killing each other and eventually destroy ourselves ?
1 comment:
Impressive Nidhi. I have trouble reading Kannada books. More power to you.
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