Let’s just say that I shall never stop reading Murakami, just how I shall never stop climbing over the fences of this world to steal a peek into a world that was or could have been. No wonder I found a friend in the protagonist of The City and its Uncertain Walls. In love once … More Life on a rhapsody of memory and magic
“At the end of my first day, I noticed a new note on the cuff of his jacket. “The new housekeeper,” it said. The words were written in tiny, delicate characters, and above them was a sketch of a woman’s face. It looked like the work of a small child – short hair, round cheeks, … More Excerpt – Interrupting Thinking for Memory
DRIVE MY CAR | Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, Reika Kirishima, Park Yu-rim It has been sometime since I saw Drive My Car and I have been trying to get over it as much as I have longed to sink into its white snows and blank eyes. I wish to … More Of relinquishing and accepting, in Hiroshima and everywhere
A perfect tequila shot. An apt teaser. A pitch perfect click. That’s just how the new short story from the Murakami land feels like. Capturing our attention, upping the stakes, leaving us thinking, never closing the possibilities. The short story is about a chance encounter of a traveller (who is also a writer) with a … More Short Story Review: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey by Haruki Murakami (2020)
Autumn Light by Pico IyerMy Rating: 4 of 5 Stars It is good to meet life sometimes; not by seeing it in the eye but by interlocking fingers and walking by its side. In this book, Pico Iyer finds himself undertaking such a walk, under the light-heavy shadows of autumn. Twenty-five years after he first … More Book Review: Autumn Light by Pico Iyer (2019)
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars If I close my eyes tight, what shall I see? If I shut out all the noises I can sense, what shall I hear? If I shun the world completely, what shall I feel? A dark nothingness? Or a blinding muddle of overlapping images? … More Book Review: Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami (2018)
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Confession , as a word, has a strong connotation – prelude to its utterance is a hesitation, and that hesitation alone, is sufficient to engulf the confession-maker with an odour that reeks of both delay and guilt. But Mishima’s protagonist can take … More Book Review: Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima (1958)
It was a rainy evening about seven years ago when I entered a book store. It was the perfect refuge – warm lights, thin crowd, a tea bar and loads of books. I marched to the tea bar, ordered a ginger- mint tea, placed my bag on a chair in the seating area and hopped … More What I Talk About When I Talk About Murakami
It is Diwali. Or Diwali eve. Or Diwali weekend. And I am, all at once, in a pensive, nostalgic mood. Some happy occasions trigger memories that assume an ominous cloak of beauty and transform everything around them into a messenger of times bygone. Last year, my mamma was with me, here, celebrating. This year, she … More The All-Season Antidote
幸せな誕生日、ミスター。ムラカミ! Today, you turned 67 in your world and 5 in mine! And for the idiosyncrasies you have gifted me during this course, thanks a ton! I am going to post a longer message tomorrow since I am the cat in the alley is waiting for his food and the jazz vinyl keeping him occupied … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARUKI MURAKAMI!
SEEMITA DAS 