Royal Ghost

I finished the “Royal Ghost.” I have always enjoyed reading books by Samrat Upadhyay. This is also one of my favorite books.. and how can I forget our very own Guru of Love? This is his third book I have read so far and I have to be blatantly honest that the more, the more I become fan of his writing styles. So vivid and so descriptive.

Amongst all the books I have read, if I were to rank, I would pick Herman Hesse, Samrat Upadhyaya and Kiran Desai as powerful writers. If anyone was to examine my choice, upon a quick glance, they would realize that they are all foreign authors. I sometimes ponder if I have been biased on making this judgment. Humbly speaking, I enjoy reading books by foreign authors as oppose to the American ones. This does not mean that I do enjoy reading them---I guess, I am more inclined to the foreign authors.

I do have couple of favorite ones like “To kill a mocking bird, Catcher in the Rye, 1984, A room with a view, Native Son…”—to name a few .However, I have to confess that lately I have been more attracted to the foreign authors. Maybe cause I can relate more to them. For instance in Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, I could relate a lot to myself and my family when I first moved to Japan... the new culture, the new school, the new place... In addition to empathizing with the characters, the readers also get to comphrehend a new global perspective from the authors. In Kite Runner, I learned a lot about the Taliban Regime and the Phustuns tribe which I could relate to when I was watching the movie “Kabul Express..”which might not have been possible had I not read the bool. This movie by the way is an excellent one.

Royal Ghost is an amalgamation of short stories. It talks a lot about the Maobadi situation so I am guessing Samrat has used recent time for the Setting. Chintamani’s woman is one of my favorite stories out of that collection. The coincidence I must add is that Chintamani is the name of my granddad as well. However, to my surprise, the story here in about a 23 year old boy. The story bears the stamp of Samrat’s lucid, illustrative and discriptive prose. Characters are familiar, so are the milieu– Kathmandu and its vicinity. Reading the book is like wandering in the streets of Kathmandu.Another Story that really hit me hard was " The Refugee."

Refugee is a story about Pitamber, a good father figure who volunteers his house as a refuge for a poor woman from the country and her daughter, who had lost most of their family to Maoist violence. They are traumatized. Pitamber has to manage his unruly teenage son and also fend off gossip that perhaps he’s taken a “second wife.” Sadly, this is how our society is like .... filled with gossip.

In other news….. the World cup Cricket. I am not a follower at all, however, this morning’s NPR news caught my attention. What happened to the Coach Bob Woolmer? How did he die and what happened to the Pakistani team? The coach has been strangled says the New York Post. What a tragedy during the World cup.

The sky is patterned in the sky, and the moon’s sickle floating in the blue like a boat. I would like to wonder the world like a child, wide awake and open to my surrounding and free from mistrust.

(By the way, I wrote this blog on Friday afternoon.. was bit lazy to post it right then therefore, here I am uploading it, after 2 days. :) Weekend was fun. I need a new post for that.)