Magic Moments

Kafka On The Shore: Source Haruki Murakami uses seemingly irrelevant series of events and occurrences to weave a gripping plot in ‘Kafka on the Shore’ . These events sometimes are the normal natural day to day happenings and sometimes they border on the metaphysical world of dreams, hypnosis, animal spirits and other pseudo-realities. What starts as a boring detailed interview, report or letter ends up being a mind-bending thrill. Then there comes showers of fish and leeches, encounters with a ghost or a living spirit and other weird happenings. It may sound like themes borrowed from urban legends but it’s perfectly natural in this universe. Two parallel stories are narrated in alternate chapters – one is that of Kafka Tamura and other is that of Nakata. Kafka Tamura is a runaway from home , seeking freedom and independence, and perhaps searching for his long-lost mother and sister or vaguely put wanting to meet them at least once. He steals as many things from home a...

Reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami is a very revealing experience. I encounter my own thoughts, views, and somewhere somehow suppressed opinions, wishes and teenage dreams. The growth and the development in Naoko and Watanabe’s relation is very memorable, has a nostalgic essence to it. Naoko is Kizuki’s girlfriend, who is Watanabe’s best friend. They are just acquaintances, at first, meeting up in double dates, but with Kizuki’s suicide, they are devastated and broken with only each other to care for as an integral part of their adolescence vanished along with Kizuki. They grow close with time, as years pass by, taking long walks in the meadow, through the streets of Tokyo, riding together in the metro, and discussing everything under the sun except Kizuki’s sudden death. On Naoko’s birthday when Watanabe mentions him, she snaps, crying violently. She leaves the town without notice. The story turns sad and melancholic at this point as Watanabe misses Naoko terribly, w...

A normal day starts with the ring of the double alarm set in my mobile, which I first set to ‘snooze’ and wake up with a lot of effort on the second ring. Half an hour later I settle down in my corner of the bed with my usual mug of hot beverage, most of the times it is Horlicks and tea/ green tea, coffee occasionally. I am trying to cut down my caffeine intakes. I love sipping these lazily while reading emails, replying to Whatsapp messages, looking through my Facebook newsfeed, or just browsing through the net about a certain object that must have piqued my curiosity somehow. If not any of these, I just read a few pages of a novel, reclining on the wall near the window. Mornings are the best time of the day. I love this routine. I am currently reading ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Haruki Murakami . About 100 pages through, it is now a bit melancholic, sad. He describes everything as if it is the most natural and usual thing in the world- even death. I mean, yes it is, yet he doesn’t pre...

Book Blurb: A mystery story about love, the cosmos and other fictional universes Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished... This is the first book by H.Murakami that I read. The blurb has most of the story. So here I’ll focus on whatever’s going on in my mind after reading this novel. One thing that I realized by reading this, don’t read it for the sake of knowing what happens to the characters at the end. One reason- it is abrupt. You don’t g...