Book Review of "Lady in Red by Shankar Kashyap"

Genre: Romance
Type: Poetry

Throughout the world, in all cultures, the colour RED is associated with joy, life, romance, love, fire, lust, desire, passion, seduction, energy, danger, strength, valour and sacrifice. The book LADY IN RED, which is a collection of 45 love poems, is filled with all these emotions that a human enjoys in his lifetime. The book is an amalgamation of different styles of poetry like villanelle, ode, ballads, acrostics, triolet, sonnets etc originated in different parts of worlds. There are several poems in the form of ghazals and rubaiyat which are Persian form of poetry; surprisingly I didn’t know that one can write ghazals in the English language too.

The poet, Shankar Kashyap, has exquisitely described the beauty of a muse and artist’s feelings towards her:
Two love birds watching us, jealous
As we cuddled and kissed under the oak tree.
 
 His vivid imagination and thoughtful play with words and nature give sweet and serene texture to the poems:
The moon tries to hide behind the dark clouds, cannot compete
With unparalleled beauty of the dusky eyed maiden of the dale.

The poems are written from the vantage point from where a person can describe the beauty and his feelings for the muse. Most of the poems are breezy and vivacious bustled with tenderness but in poems like “My Girl” and “My Soulmate” one can find traces of heartache, agony and grief:
I used to drink the wine off her lips,
 take me to heaven.
I drink wine from a jar now; I have lost
 my soulmate.
 I used to drink wine to lift my spirits up to see her
The wine dulls the mind and the pain;
 I have lost my soulmate

No doubt the poems are beautifully written but few verses are repeated in couple of poems; however, it does not take away the beauty of this book.
Overall Rating:3.5*/5* 

Book Review: "Golden Wings" by Srijoy Mitra

Format: Paperback/Kindle Edition
Genre: Fiction/Dystopia/Young Adult
Pages: 261

A semi-dystopian novel that revolves around a boy named “Anicetus” who dares to cross the walls of city he is living in and explore the things which perhaps none of his peers has experienced. The children in the city are taught few selected subjects which perhaps gives them no time to think about anything else and turn them subconsciously into slaves who never get the chance to see the real world; which is evident from the fact when Anicetus refers to tree as “pillar with branches and leaves” while talking to a girl who lives beyond the wall. The characters, the music, and the soccer are described with great verisimilitude.

However, the book leaves readers with several questions like why a particular position for taking a test, why the institute is named CII (Central Intelligence Institute), why there are walls surrounding the city. I expect the author, Mr. Srijoy Mitra, will be releasing exciting sequel with answers to the questions raised in this novel.

My overall rating of the book is 3.5*/5*