“In book club edition 48, each attendee described themselves as a colour. Samir (Mr Orange) read Aghori: An Untold Story by Mayur Kalbag…”
POCKET DIARY BOOK CLUB
MINUTES OF THE MEETING
In book club edition 48, we played an interesting game where each attendee described
themselves as a colour. Going forward in this edition MOM I will associate each person to
their chosen colour.
1. Samir (Mr Orange) read Aghori: An Untold Story by Mayur Kalbag.
The author is a motivational speaker who follows a guru/Swami and practises martial
arts.
The fear that is prevalent in the Kotisuya and its rumours that surround it
The main character of the book meets a young boy, Rahasya, who talks about his
village house share a bullock cart ride.
The book and Mr Orange have a sense of humour his voice carries a smile and the
room often breaks into laughter.
Chapter 2 is a narration of the first encounter with Aghori and the Oom pinch mark
they imprinted on the protagonist.
2. Akanksha (Ms Purple) read Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki
Genre : suspense
It is a gripping Japanese murder mystery.
It’s the story of a woman who has killed three people.
The book highlights the biasness of media coverage, how it shapes the society’s
perspective and how the media may not always be right.
Ms purple then discussed the modern take on feminism.
The dialogues are thought provoking, as they describe the power play between the
journalist with modern feminist ideas and the accused murderer, who is very
confident but has conservative ideals about the roles and duties of females.
‘A good amount’ in the book is described through food analogies.
3. Rohan (Mr Yellow) read Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
The author has the heart of a scientist and pen of a poet.
The book describes the far north.
Mr Yellow talked about the solar mirage and shared a picture of the mirage with the
book club.
The book is extremely technical with degrees and jargons .
I applaud the reader for having such passion for science.
4. Pankaj (Mr Pink) read Rusty by Ruskin Bond
The book has great visualisation.
The character of Rusty was based on Bond himself as a teenager. Rusty lived such a
tragic and cheerful life.
The Chapter names are very interesting.
Mr Pink had not completed reading the book, but it sounded entrancing.
5. Aswathi (Ms Maroon) read Indian blue
She got the book from a New Delhi exhibition that focused on the colour blue.
Blue represents both power and calm.
Ms Maroon is a great orator. The entire room fell silent to listen to her read.
The book was passed around in the club for everyone to take a peek at the beautiful
exhibition and Mesmerising shades of blue.
6. Gautam (Mr Purple) read Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table by Dr
Kit Chapman
After element 82 Lead the elements do not have stable isotopes.
Mr Purple passionately talked about alpha decay chains.
He explained the discovery of nuclear fission and the Manhattan project.
The Transfermium Wars were the disputes between American scientists and Soviet
scientists as to which had first isolated these elements.
Reads about spontaneous fusion, Russia way of proving new elements.
.
7. Kundan (Mr Blue) read the iconic Rashmi Rathi Poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar
It was the part of Mahabharat where Sri Krishna goes to convince Duryodhan to
avoid the war.
Mr Blue mesmerised the whole book club with his impeccable delivery of the poem.
We then talked about the importance of Padhya kavita,how they are easy to
remember and learn.
Poems carry stories that are passed from generation to generation.
8. Yogesh (Mr Brown) read The Money Trap by Alok Sama
Author was the alongside SoftBank’s iconic founder Masayoshi Son.
The book talks about the guy at the top of the corporate ladder, how he sees the
world.
Mr Brown described the author’s heartfelt relationship with his son and the trust he
places in his son’s judgement.
It feels like a sneak peek into The world of the top 1%.
The book club broke into a discussion about Alibaba and Yahoo.
9. Anushree read Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
She read a small excerpt.
The line : ‘I didn’t belong, and so I wandered’ carried such a powerful feeling of both
loneliness and the restlessness of being stuck I one place .
It’s a very well written book on tragedy.
The story is about Franny Stone as she follows the last Arctic terns in their final
migration to Antarctica.
10. Nirja (Ms Velvet) read 1984 by George Orwell
The book absorbed her in its amazing world building.
It is set in a place here violence is entertainment and grotesque things have become
the norm.
The book club then fell into a discussion of how we, as a society, are not
accommodating to different views and perspectives.
1984 is a timeless classic that is relevant even in today’s politics.
A cool fact is that, the book has been labelled too Leftist in the Right countries and
too Right in the Left countries.
The book paints a dystopian society where the past is changeable by the people in
power today.