Here’s the thing – I am yet to meet a person, girl or boy, young or old, who doesn’t like to reminisce about their school and college days. Even the fresh graduates seem to realize that the days that just passed by are never going to come back and the life they have just lived is going to be the best part of their entire existence. We love to think back over to the times we were so carefree, daring, fun-loving and a tad bit irresponsible.
This book, “Down the Road”, will help you remember those memories even more fondly. A collection of twenty eight short stories by sixteen authors, revolving around the student phase of a person’s life that takes you right back to those golden days. It was really impossible to read the stories and not relate to them. I kept on thinking back and realizing that there was a boy/girl my class at some point of time who was a direct reflection of the character I was reading about. Also, it would be a mistake not to comment on the number of topics touched by the authors in this book. Starting from first crush, to a teacher who brought out the best in a student, to the class bully, to the dreaded teacher, to reunions, to young love, to failures, to politics – this book has it all.
The stories are categorized under 5 sections. 'Attendance is Compulsory', 'Festivals, Elections and Placements', 'Lights Out’, 'Looking Back’ and ‘Essays’. Each section dealing with separate stages of school/college life. The first section being the first stage – deals with the ‘fresher’ experience, sometimes of the students and sometimes of the teachers. We look back at adjusting & settling down in new atmosphere. The next section is the next stage, i.e, the settled ambience of the student life. The first crushes, young love, the friendships and the celebrations. ‘Lights Out’ & ‘Looking back sections deal with the discoveries made, lessons learnt and the unexpected experiences that comes with this life. We get a chance to see how our protagonists matured through time in introspect about that phase. The Essays –‘Fiction on Campus’ & ‘Bollywood on Campus’ are takes on the media’s take on Campus life.
The best thing about the book is that while it has stories by well-known names like Ira Trivedi, Ahmed Faiyaz and Paritosh Uttam, it also puts a few new names under the spotlight. It actually brings out new talents to us readers. In fact, my favourites in this book are: ’Learning & Unlearning’ by Rohini Kejriwal and ‘Bellow Yellow’ by Chinmayi Bali. Both the stories are by new authors and they have managed to capture the ‘negetive print’ of campus life amazingly well. Also, I must say that the last few times I picked up books by Indian authors, whom I am not going to name here, I was disgusted by their fixation with sex and female statistics and practically threw away a couple of books! This book has managed to restore my faith in Modern Indian Authors with their flow of words and in some cases with their depths.
So go on and get this book for yourself. It is a light read and will help you feel young again. [Ahem!! ‘Young ones can always feel ‘Younger’, right?]
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Great review! i will be keeping my eye out for this one :) New follower!
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Thanks Jennifer! :)
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ReplyDeleteThanks Christina
Deletewow this would be a good addition for my school library =3
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Thanks for Stopping by Lisa
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Great review. I love your reviews and your blog.
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