Rukhsat The Departure by Sujit Banerjie

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RUKHSAT THE DEPARTURE

For all of us bloggers, this book is a shining example of what writing from the heart and writing with discipline can do. It has taken Sujit from a blogger to an accomplished author. With the #AtoZChallenge just concluded last month, this book will inspire many readers and writers.

Well, this book is not just about writing a bunch of stories and publishing them. Many books just tell stories and nothing more. Rukhsat stands apart due to its stories, the twists in the tales, the subject of the stories and how the author has connected them.

The writing style is lucid, easy to read and the thoughts expressed well. The language is good and straightforward so it is a pleasure to read. Since these are short stories I was easily able to read them in between or whenever I had a break. Sometimes I took a break to read them too. 🙂

The stories have a lot of substance and give food for thought. These will stay with you long after you have finished the book. I will be honest, when I had picked this book I was ambivalent. I started reading the book thinking that it would be a book of average, everyday regular incidents. I have been pleasantly surprised that the author has effectively used a short story to share a lifetime in a few of the stories, many lives in fact.

Some of the stories shook me up, they just sort of crept up and ended with a bang!

Farzana – The Needles was one that dived so deep into the psyche of a little girl and revealed the monsters she found. This needs to be read, how dark and maniacal our minds can be.

Lotika – The Apartment was another story that exemplifies the human selfishness and how we ignore things we do not wish to see.

Manu – The Trial and Siraj – Manu Egg rolls were two stories that left an impact as the author explored so many sides of a story.

Finally, I think Zayan – The smell of Green Apples is a reminiscence of The Kite Runner, yes. It has so much depth and emotion. I had a lump in my throat by the end of it.

But my favorite story is Yasmin Bibi – The Second Marriage, the punch in the tale was just so subtle and right. Read the book if you want to know more!

Rukhsat is a well-balanced collection of stories, creative, diverse and emotional. Overall the book is a pleasure to read and the one odd typo ignored since the stories are so good. My pencil lay forgotten as I turned the pages. 🙂

These are stories based on the alphabet, exploring the human mind, the innermost feelings and what depths will a person go to for what they wish. Few stories are straightforward or simple, the layers and endings in most add an edge to them. I also loved the way many stories were interconnected, like two sides of a coin or the view from both the characters.

I read them at leisure and went back and forth to connect the interlinked ones. It was like reading a book with a puzzle laid out and the fun was in finding the links. Go ahead pick this book and you will enjoy them and get motivated to pen your own book. Sujit, hope your next book is in the works!

  • Update – I forgot  to share about the sketches before each story – very nice and add to the stories even made me guess about how the picture is connected to the story.

© I received a copy of this book from THE BOOK CLUB / Author and this is my unbiased review.

 

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Blurb 
Where a story stops, another one begins. The thing with them is, they never walk alone. They always walk with a group of friends. Each reaches its own climax. Then with a final gasp of mortality and despair, fade away. No, they never die, they multiply. To the extent that the original gets lost and new ones are born. Over and over again. Yes, they get lost. No, they never die. They live on, permanently etched in the book of time. And from there, we borrow them and bring them alive. Again. And again. Here are twenty six of them, some standing alone and some chatting up with their long lost friends. When they depart, they leave a lingering fragrance of nostalgia and curiosity. What happened then?
Twenty-six alphabets, twenty-six names, and twenty-six short stories. Each exploring one unique emotion, taking you into the dark recess of the mind. Some frothy and most of them dark. Most standing alone and some facing a mirror, where the same story comes alive in two different ways, through two different protagonist . Meet myriad characters – from the single-minded prostitute to the man on the railways station bereft of any memory; a woman desperate for a biological child to a dead man’s trial. Meet a jealous lover with a twisted brain and a gay man’s memory of a one-night encounter. Meet twenty-six such characters arrested and sentenced for life inside the pages of a book. Each one leaving an indelible mark on your soul.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
 
Born to Bengali parents in Lucknow, I grew up in Patna where I finished my post-graduation in Psychology and ended up becoming a tour operator instead of a Psychologist! Which was
good since a Bengali born in UP and reared in Bihar does not make a great Psychologist! Am I now glad to be in tourism? It has taken me all over the world including places you would have never heard of. Eh? How about Tlacotalpan? It’s in Mexico.
Destiny had other plans as well so I became a reluctant healer. A crazy Shaman in Mexico set the ball rolling and it has rolled all the way to Delhi. Today I both heal as well as read Tarot cards. My wife thinks I am mad. My friends think I am weird. I guess I am both.
My first story was published in a magazine when I was seventeen. The Editor made such a hash of it that I stopped sending out my stories but I continued writing. Then I broke my heart and started writing poems; first in Hindi and then in English. All personal collection. They still remain personal. I do shudder when I read some of them! Then the short stories came back and written over two years – now is a collection.
You can contact him @ Facebook 

Comments

  1. Pingback: These Circuses That Sweep Through the Landscape @Tejaswini_Apte -Rahm #ShortFiction

  2. Anuradha Madan

    This is one amazing review…so well written…your words take the reader through the emotional roller coaster this book is. Thank you for such a heartfelt honest review.

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  3. Lata Sunil

    Beautiful review.. It makes me wish I had accepted to review it. I love reading short stories and will look out for this one.

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