A book on AIDS?
Normally, mom would’ve passed by without a second glance. “Aiyyo, too depressing,” would’ve been her excuse before moving on.
However, a chance encounter with a flame-red jacket stopped her in her tracks at the local library last week.
AIDS sutra rang a bell. A distant bell that evoked Sonia Faleiro’s post last year on her essay being one of the 16 stories in the book.
An avowed fan of Sonia’s reportage, mom devours her writing - courtesy her blog - as greedily as a hungry cat laps up milk. Some of her profiles, such as the series on bar girls, domestic servants and farmer suicides have moved mom to tears, despair at human suffering intermingling with admiration at the author's mastery of prose.
As expected, Sonia’s exposé on police brutality toward sex workers in her essay, "Maarne ka, Bhagane ka," does not disappoint. Like all other chapters in the book, her feature is also raw, honest, sad, terrifying, insightful and compelling.
What else can one expect from contributors such as Rushdie, Desai, Dalrymple, Seth, Dé, etc.? Sonia deserves her spot among the stars.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Judging a book by its cover
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5 comments:
terri's mom:
have you read traveler's tales - india? i cannot tire of recommending this book (i have probably already recommended it here!). it has pieces that evoke the entire gamut of emotions from the reader. i've shed tears of joy, tears of sorrow, tears of sympathy, and felt like hugging the motherland and/or the protagonists of the tale!
once upon a time, i used to read sonia's blog too. i haven't done so in the recent past. i guess i need to revisit it one of these days ...
- s.b.
sands:
based on a recent post on your blog, i thought you might be interested in this post.
and what is the relevance of posting it here? well, i got to the swb (another blog that i haven't read in ages) via sonia faleiro's blog. :-)
- s.b.
s.b., the book and the chapter I read on Amazon sounds intriguing. Let me see if the local library will get it for me. (For the membership rate they charge, they'd better.)
have visited her in the past. Had forgotten all about her.
Thanks for reminding.
Sachita, she doesn't blog as often as I'd like her to, but she's one of the first bloggers I discovered, and a definite keeper.
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