A Calender Too Crowded – The Last Review As Usual

Now that everyone else in the blog world has finished reading this book, I should not even be talking about it…but I had to…

I read about the book on various blogs I follow and realised that the writer is a pretty popular blogger who goes by the name Deviant Wave.

When Hitchy posted his review  , I was mighty impressed and then Deviant Wave told me that the book hasnt reached the libraries and perhaps I could get it off flipkart.

So, RD was called and he was sweet enough (There people, for once I praised him okie?) to get it for me.

Before I go any further, let me confess that Sagarika Chakraborty, who goes by the name Deviant Wave and is known popularly as Sags, is someone whose blog I havent read earlier..and after reading the book, I am wondering why!!!

Two things

1) I usually dont like short stories. I am the novel wala ladki..give me 500 pages of a single story and I am happy finishing it…but give me short stories, I get a bit scared….

2) I usually read only one book at a time…I  have a cousin who can read multiple books..you know half of this and then 1/3rd of that and then 1/5th of the other…for a confused character like me, I dont think that really works..

But I must admit in case of Calender Too Crowded,

1) I loved the book…

2) I couldnt read it completely…I took short breaks before I actually finished the  book because somehow, I have been deeply affected by every story in it…

Let me tell you that I loved the concept of the book. Each month of the calender, celebrating each ‘day dedicated to woman’ and yet each story had so much to tell, that it left me emotionally drained.

The book held me by its sheer narrative, but I  used to be affected so much by each story that I decided to just read it ‘one story at a time’ instead of non-stop reading…I think that worked well, because then I really went in depth reading it, trying to understand the characters, their thoughts, and so I decided to just read one story at a time…

Each story is a gem and the way its been written…I loved it…the language is not too flowery or over the top, there was hardly a word which I read and wondered what it meant and there is a flow in the story which makes you want to know what happened next…

Each story leaves you with a feeling which I dont know how to describe..I wonder how Sags (I hope I can call her that now!) could manage to write with so much of emotion..

I am not going to discuss each story or anything, but I think the one that lingered the most in my mind was the story of the old couple…I somehow, felt really content after reading it (the others really left me too disturbed)

I would recommend this book..honestly would because its a book every human should read..its a book which doesnt really preach on feminism or anything, but leaves you with enough thought to THINK about issues…

On top of that, as soon as I finished the book, I read in the blogs about Satyamave Jayate and I was like, may be Aamir Khan should invite Sags for a episode to interview her in depth.

Thanks all blog friends for reviewing this and thanks Sags for being kind enough to talk to me on Hitchy’s blog and asking me to buy it. This is one purchase the kanjoos RM is absolutely happy she made 🙂 The book now goes to my Amma for reading 🙂