When I first read the title of the book—The Timekeeper—and then the blurb on the back cover—”Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralysing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”—several questions raced through my mind:

What if there were no clocks in the world? What if you didn’t know what time of the day it is or going to be? How different would the world have been? Would we have lived our lives any differently?

So when I picked up the book, I was curious to find out if Mitch Albom answers any of those questions in his latest fiction novel.

But I soon realised that that was hardly the intention and the inspirational author just wanted to do what he does best in most of his novels—teach his readers the ‘meaning of life’. This time, Albom chooses an unusually interesting protagonist named Dor—the inventor of the world’s first clock—to give a very different meaning to the expressions ‘value of time’ or ‘make the most of your time’. 

In his classic style, the novel shuffles between two timelines—the past and the present—with three story tracks running parallel to one another. One is the story of Dor, the man who measured time for the first time on the earth, set in a centuries old era, and the other two are the tales of two modern-day individuals (a teenage girl and an old, wealthy businessman) who’re used to measuring time as the most natural process of their lives. 

As the story unfolds, Albom paves the way for a wonderful but trite perspective on time, when Dor and the two modern earthlings meet and Dor teaches them the meaning of time, a lesson he learnt after being banished to a cave for centuries and forced to understand the consequences of the phenomenon he’d set in motion by counting time. After reading the book, you’re forced to question the relevance of man’s obsession with measuring every second of the day, every day of the month. 

And yet, the book fails to leave an impression because of its lack of originality. The obvious reference to the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel is unappealing. And at one point, Dor literally assumes the role of Charles’ Dickens The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, to show his pupils their future to help them better understand their time on earth!

However, Albom’s everyday modern-day characters of the young girl and the businessmen are very easy to relate to, and that works wonders if you want to spread life’s philosophies among your readers. In fact, kudos to the author for being a very relevant writer in these busy times and I wish that more and more people would read and apply some of the lessons he leaves in his books. 

All in all, the novel is thought provoking though some of the lessons learnt on the way, for instance “It is never too late” and spending more time to be with the people you love, are too reminiscent of Morrie’s aphorisms from Albom’s debut novel Tuesdays with Morrie. The Timekeeper is inspiring, as long as you haven’t read any of his others. I recommend this book only if you wish to find out the answer to a certain question posed in the book - “Why did God limit man’s days on the earth?”

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This book had been collecting dust on my bookshelf for years now, but thanks to a week-long trip to Tawang (a peaceful and picturesque city in Arunachal Pradesh), I got the perfect setting for a Jane Austen classic.

Sense and Sensibility is Jane Austen’s first published novel (1811), right before her most famous work - Pride and Prejudice. To me, it seemed like a rough draft of Pride and Prejudice, too slow and similar - right from the alliterations in their titles, to their plots and even some of their characters.

The only thing that helped me turn the pages of the book was the hope that something interesting might happen in the lives of the protagonists (the Dashwood sisters looking for suitable matches in England) but it never gets better than how it starts.

Perhaps I would have liked it better if I was living in 19th century England. But it seemed too outdated for this age.

However, what I did enjoy about the book was the way Austen contrasted the perceptions of the two sisters towards the same person or situation that came into their lives. The elder sister Elinor is driven by sense in all her thoughts and actions, while the younger one Marianne is taken in by sensibility and passion. Makes for a good discussion on which way you would live and recommend others to live by - sense or sensibility?

Oh! And there was one more sister, the youngest - Margaret. But I don’t understand why Austen had her in the book because she has no significant role to play in the story and makes such few appearances in the novel that I think the only reason she included her was to establish an average English household in that era, one with not less than three children. 

If you’ve read Pride and Prejudice, you can certainly give this one a miss. If you haven’t, I still wouldn’t recommend it. 

My rating:   

Caution: You need to be vaguely familiar with some terms of Hinduism to make sense of this one :)

am going to make this review slightly different from the ones I’ve written so far. It may read like a teaser of the book and I sincerely hope that that will make you want to read it, all the more. There is so much knowledge waiting to be explored in India’s ancient scriptures. 

The 7 secrets of Vishnu is an interesting compilation of lessons and meanings hidden among ancient symbols and stories that make Indian mythology. It has been written by Devdutt Pattanaik, a proclaimed writer, speaker and illustrator on mythological issues who has penned down around 15 other books till now.   

I’m listing down seven things I learnt from the book that I found most intriguing. These are different from the “secrets’’ Pattanaik refers to, though I may have overstepped on one of them. Anyway, you’ll have to read the book to figure that out!

1. While Pattanaik says “it has often been commented” upon, it was news to me that the order of Vishnu’s various avatars follows the evolution of man! His first avatar is an aquatic animal, a fish called Matsya. His second avatar is an amphibian, a turtle called Kurma. His third avatar is a terrestrial animal, a wild boar called Varaha. His fourth avatar is half-human, half-lion called Narasimha. And his fifth avatar is a human, a dwarf named Vaman. Did ancient India understand the process of evolution back then?

2. There are bad ‘gods’ and good ‘demons’. More often than not, poor English translations of Hindu mythology have given birth to the presumption that the division of devs (gods) and asurs (demons) is made on ethical and moral terms. Pattanaik’s truth is, they are symbols of two aspects of human personality: our need for stability and our need for growth. Devs are content with what they have, but they are insecure about losing it while asurs are never content with what they have and strive to rule the earth and sky. It is not a good versus evil battle. The conflict is more about wealth creation, emotional security and intellectual growth.  

3. There is no concept of evil in Hinduism. According to Pattanaik, evil means the absence of God. The idea does not exist in the religion because for Hindus, the whole world is a manifestation of the divine. The divine contains the asurs and the devs. Evil also refers to an act that has no cause or explanation, an act that cannot be justified. But in Hinduism, all actions have a cause. Because of the governing notion of karm, everything is a result of past action, either performed in this lifetime or in the ones before. The concept only exists in religions that believe there is only one life. 

4. I have always been curious about the roots of the caste system in India and this book provides some insight. As human society creates settlements, nature is exploited to turn forests into fields and animals into pets. But to ensure there is no excessive material exploitation of the earth, a rule known as varn-dharm is put into place. Varn means your natural tendency or inherent qualities to do something. Varna-dharma means everyone has to function as per your disposition or station in life. These stations are of four kinds – brahman (spiritual activities), kshatriya (administrative activities), vaishya (wealth-generating activities) and shudra (service-providing activities). Now, while varn means disposition, jati means profession. Problems arise when professional station (jati) is given more importance than natural disposition (varn), which is what is happening today.  

5. The clear gender divide in mythology is not an attempt to impose patriarchal values in society. Material reality, the tangible form of reality that can be perceived through senses is represented using the female form while spiritual reality, the intangible form that cannot be perceived through the senses, is represented by the male form. This does not mean men are spiritual and women are materialistic or that men are being placed on a higher pedestal and women are lowly. It’s all about symbols. Man creates life outside his body while woman creates life inside her body. Spiritual reality triggers the observation while material reality embodies observation. Hence, they are best suited to represent the respective realities.

6. Material reality is often described as a bad thing that needs to be avoided at all costs if you wish to achieve nirvana. But Pattanaik presents a very interesting view where he says that material reality and spiritual reality are interdependent. You need to experience material wealth and its pleasures (which is why Pattanaik says you should to marry once :P) to then be able to renounce it and overcome the emotion of losing it and gain total spiritual consciousness. Without material reality, spiritual reality cannot be discovered and without spiritual reality, material reality has no purpose. That just elevated the status of material reality before the eternally celebrated spiritual reality.

7. I always thought the Indian infatuation with light skin is a result of slave mentality enforced by the British rule. But a statement made by Pattanaik in the book is forcing me to rethink. In the second-last chapter of the book he writes, “Krishna is an unusual God. He challenges all conventional notions of divinity and appropriate social conduct. His name translates as ‘black’, challenging the traditional Indian discomfort with the dark complexion.” Did Indians associate inferiority with dark skin even centuries ago when the Bhagvat and Mahabharat were written and the character of Krishn was created, much before the British invaded India? Because even if you see old paintings or sculptures of Gods and Godesses, they are depicted with the fairest of skins except Krishn, sometimes Ram and Kali.

If you already knew these “secrets”, you still need to read the book to unveil the ones Devdutt Pattanaik is talking about :) Now, I also feel like reading Pattanaik’s 7 Secrets of Shiva, but Blogadda just wouldn’t increase my reviewing deadline beyond 7 days :P

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My rating: