Book Review: Black, grey and white by Santosh Avvanavar and Santosh I. Biradar

About the book:

This book gifts its readers five fantastic short stories that has a common aim – to spread awareness about AIDS. It is an opportunity for people to unite in the fight against AIDS and show their solidarity for HIV positive people. The book is an eye opener for anyone who wish to see the wave of positive change in society. Everyone including the brave hearts Savita, Chintu, Mithali has the right to live with their head held high without fear of social ostracization. Life does not have to be like this. The time is ripe to act now with one’s sense and sensibility. Break the myths. Come, be the change!

About the Author:

Santosh Avvannavar: Santosh started his career as a consultant and Soft Skills Trainer. After his college education from NITK, Surathkal, he worked as a researcher at University of Eindhoven, University of Twente, and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was also the Placement President while working at IISC, Bangalore. He has over twenty-five publications of mostly research documents in national and international journals. He has also authored sixteen conference papers and regularly writes articles for a national and worldwide daily paper. He also works as an advisor for different organizations. He also dabbles in fiction writing and is the author of Adhuri Prem Kahaniya; Dear Wife, Your Husband is not a Superhero, Second Heart and Get a Job WITHOUT an Interview; Be A B.A.; Surrogate Author; Title is Untitled. He likes to devote his personal time in writing for a website, namely the Amrita Foundation for HRD (amritafoundation.wordpress.com). He has conducted seminars and training sessions for more than 40,000 people in India and abroad over the last seven years.

Santosh I. Biradar: Santosh is presently pursuing Bachelor's in Social Work from J.G.College of Social Work, Bijapur affiliated to Rani Chennamma University. He is also the founder secretary of Chaitanya Organisation, Bijapur. He is also associated with Deshpande Foundation as a lead ambassador. He won 'Best Reporter' award in Youth for Development Program's and 'Best Education award' from Deshpande Foundation for providing free computer training to the orphan children. He also volunteered various activities such as Google Inktalks, NSS (A special camp for Leprosy people), life skills for orphan children. He participated and evolved many school development programs for drop out children as well.

My Review:

This book reviews in a similar fashion as the author's other books have been. 

The intention of the book is too powerful and too noble. But the words used and the manner of bringing the message fails to do justification to it. 

For one, the intention and the motivation of spreading social awareness about how the social ostracisation of humans of trivial issues and bases  is illogical, is too powerful, and requires a lot of conviction in writing. It is risky in itself to tread such taboo territories. And to go against the stigma and established status quo hence necessitates a lot of conviction from the author penning the plot such that his conviction is transferred to the reader. As an objective even great writers have failed to cater to all diverse groups. So it does not come as a surprise that a contemporary piece falls short. 

One good point about the book is how so many hitherto unspoken issues and social constructs previously not encroached upon have been brought to notice of the reader in a different light.

Juvenile narration, insipid  language and grammatical flaws do little to enhance the reading experience.

Book Review: Surrogate Author

About the book:

Who is Authdas? I wondered how difficult it is for a woman to be a surrogate mother irrespective of the objective. Writing few books have taught – true Devdas are authors. If authors’ adopt similar concept of surrogacy than book can evolve. We have many examples to quote, Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and others that symbolise the surrogacy of continue doing movie irrespective of critics, and box office result. Authdas is Author das!  Authdas (booklorn -book sick) as Devdas (lovelorn -love sick), whose love is to write a novel, ‘Paro.’ Authdas needs some inspiration to write Paro and if that inspiration was Chandramukhi, how the story would be?

My review:

A writer can certainly be Devdas. And a book, his creation, his art, can certainly be Paro. It is a delightful concept. A great imagination in this plot has been a source of hope. But alas marred by grammatical and other language related drawbacks,  reader fails to relish it. It is a potentially humorous plot, and improvisations by the right person equipped with correct knowledge can do so much good for the book.

The intention with which it has been written is evidently noble, what with the introduction telling us to respect authors, because no author 'gets up one morning and says, 'Let me write a bad novel.'

The analogies and comparisons and similes drawn between the relationship of an author with his book and that of the story of Devdas-Paro-Chandramukhi, were interesting only as long as one could endure the lack of any substantial plot. which is perhaps, in the absence of grammatical accuracy was only aggravated.

One part I liked was where the writer mourns when self-publishing houses screw my life with no editing, proofreading and price it high..." this monologue made me empathize with authors though.

Book Review: Adhuri Prem Kahaniya by Santosh Avvannavar

About the book:

Adhuri Prem Kahaniya has been developed while keeping into perspective the lives of 12 individuals. The book sheds light to some aspects of the lives of these individuals in these 25 short stories. This book might turn out to be a great read or ice breaker for people who are stressed out. Most of the stories have a certain romantic and erotic viewpoint and is written mostly for people who are extremely busy with their lives and do not have time for some romance. These people will thoroughly enjoy the book and all of the different aspects that are brought to light by the tumultuous and often funny experiences of these people.

About the author:

Santosh Avvannavar: Santosh started his career as a consultant and Soft
Skills Trainer. He did his college education from NITK, Surathkal. He
functioned as a researcher at University of Eindhoven, University of
Twente and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was also the
Placement President, while he was working at IISc, Bangalore. He has
over 25 publications of mostly research documents that have found
their place in National & International Journals. Also, he has done 16
conference papers and regularly functions as a writer of different
articles for a national and worldwide daily paper. He is an advisor
for different organizations. Throughout his personal time he composes
his thoughts in a website, namely www.amritafoundation.wordpress.com
and ventures into fiction writing. He delivered seminars and training to more
than 30,000 people in India and abroad over the span of 6 years.

Book Trailer:

                               

 My Review:

The title of the book, the blurb and the quote line, “The weakness of a man is the strength of a woman.”, all of these concoct to lead the prospective reader to a belief that these tales are going to be the heart-rending, poignant tales of suffering for love, pangs of separation, the agony of future, the vagaries of society that hinder the blossoming of love. The content of the book, however, actually is just 12 tales of different people in the form of chapters, which are further sub-divided into sections. This compartmentalization was juvenile enough to make it jacose. Once you have read the entire book, an exercise which can be in fact a challenging task given the grammatical lapses and inaccuraciesand punctuation omissions, apart from the lack of editing and proof-reading conspicuous by their absence, you realise that the author has attempted to bring some points home, the primary of them being the hostility that love still suffers at the hands of society.

 Other aspects include the numerous manifestations of love, the puerile love, the unfulfilled love, a brief fling, et al. The reader is left craving for a single “true love” story, because all these stories, irrespective of how true the love they portray fail to convince the reader of this fact. Again, this might be because a regular reader cannot help donning as a grammar Nazi, but for a casual reader, it might just work fine.

Each chapter is a random strip of a man's life, ambulating from one relationship to another. Perhaps, a narration or two from a girl's perspective could have done wonders to alleviate it. One mystery that the book will help you solve is the facebook relationship status, “It's complicated!”. Disheartening as it sounds, this book even does not make up for its lack of presentation skills in the content. The content has potential, though. The content cries for an editor to recuperate it from the grammatical ravages and lend it a potential place among the easy-to-read bestsellers which the market is witnessing a deluge of.

Judgement(Read: warning) : If you want a casual read, but can refrain from dissecting the book under lexical jargon and linguistic technicalities, only then go for it.

Lines to look out for:

In school, we are taught there is only one 'God' and one religion ‘humanity’. But reality is something else. Did not our parents study from similar school of learning?