The Unforgettable Desire

I won’t claim to know the symptom that dissociation is to many mental health conditions. I won’t be speaking about any mental health conditions; I have a very limited Google-baba knowledge about them. I have never felt comfortable calling myself depressed because I haven’t been medically diagnosed. I take depression seriously because it is as scary a word as cancer for a misinformed or selectively aware person or a person with limited awareness. When I began telling people that I cannot recognize my reflection in the mirror, most of them heard it as a metaphor. I was talking in real life figurative terms, they weren’t literal. I was terrified every time I looked into a mirror or took a selfie or got clicked in general. The image that I saw outside wasn’t the image I had in my head. It was not even the image that people showed me or at least the one their choice of words did. I was unable to relate any comment on my body or face or hair for that matter. I began seeing the...

Book Title: The One Who Had Two Lives Author: Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan Publisher: Harper Collins India Year of Publication: 2018 Price: INR 299 Pages: 228 The One who had Two Lives by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan was published in 2018. It is the second book in the series The Girls of the Mahabharata. As mentioned in the author’s note, the book is a stand-alone volume even though it has a brief appearance of Satyavati who was the protagonist in The One who Swam with Fishes . The One who had Two Lives describes the lives of Princess Amba of Kashi who is reborn as Sikhandini and identifies as Prince Shikhandi of Panchal. The book is divided into three parts. The first part narrates the story of Amba’s Swayamvar. The third part narrates the story of Sikhandini’s sexual reconstruction to Shikhandi. These parts unravel the story of the birth and life of the protagonists in a non-linear fashion. The second part, ‘In-Between’ is presented in the form of dialogue between Amba...

Reading has become an online phenomenon in last couple of years. Although every reader has a personal preference, a balance between printed and digital books has been achieved. With platforms like Bookchor providing online buying and selling of second hand books, many books and readers have been united when hope seemed lost. With Instagram cracking the code for most appealing feature for humans - a platform for (visually appealing) pictures - book bloggers are getting visibility as #Bookstagrammers (more on that in another post later). Books on Toast has taken up the trend to another level with its quirky reviews and interviews. What I am saying is, apart from the last weekend when Avengers: Endgame and The Long Night were trending, reading books has been getting a lot of attention. I have a reputation of someone who reads a lot in my circle given I talk about reading a lot. I have recently realised that I am selective about the books I pick up, usually literary fictions. I ...