Walks Through Life: Stories By Santhosh K. Komarraju | Book Review

We have often mentioned that the perks of being a professional book reviewer include getting exposed to new talents. And, we genuinely believe it. Recently, we got a chance to read a fantastic short story collection named Walks Through Life: Stories by author Santhosh Komarraju.

We came to know about the book when the author has proposed us to read and review the same before a few months. As our book review queue is long, a book requires its own time to be picked for reading. Of course, if we don’t find the book worth sharing a review about, we ignore it, to save time and resources for both, us and our readers. Actually, there is still time for this book to be picked from the queue, but, in order to give exposure to new talents, we’ve decided to read it anyway.

From Team ThinkerViews I got a chance to read it. Here are my unbiased and uninfluenced views and reviews for “Walks Through Life: Stories”.

Let us take a look at the cover page of this book.

Book Cover:

The cover page of this book will remind you of the famous “Pacman” game. Those who are associated with computer since it’s early days, will surely remember this famous game :). The book cover will give them “Deja Vu” feelings for sure.

Well, from one perspective you can say “Life Is A Game”. And, the book talks about “Walks Through Life”, this illustration goes in sync with the theme of the book.

It is quite an interesting concept the designer came up with. The cover page is moderately good.

This book is a collection of 9 short stories.

• The Hidden Kingship
• Divine Ax
• Blessing Of A Curse
• A Letter From The Well
• Beyond The Bar Of Humanity
• Rise Of Motherhood
• Two Misjudgements
• King Of All
• A Gold Message

Each of these stories is unique in its own way. Most importantly each of them tries to convey life-lessons and wisdom messages. The author seems to be a well-read and a genuine fellow who believes in morals and ethics. While a large number of authors choose to debut with a book exploring various aspects from the commercial perspective; Santhosh has decided to go with a meaningful book. Frankly speaking, it may not get the commercial success it is entitled to. But, nonetheless, for those who love reading meaningful books, reading this book will always be a pleasant experience.

While a few stories are very short, some of them are like a novella in their own perspective. The first story, for example, is quite lengthy (comparatively). Each story has its own characters and they fall in different categories. All in whole, you will meat many characters while reading this book, including (but not limited to) Santeyi, Malya, Samartha (king of Ralvajna), Bhairo, Pundis, Peri, Skanda, Viman, Raman, and others.

The author is good at wordplay. Look at the below-given lines from the book and see how effectively they represent an entire scene, with emotions, in front of you.

Santeyi’s wife contributed to most of it. The soup was still bubbling, and so was she, only stopping after several streams of hostile verbiage, summarizing her husband’s corrupt personality through her one-sided debate.

The book also elaborates on the fact that the nature of a person seldom changes. No matter, how you try to conceal your real self using outer layers of goodness, if you are not good from within, someday it will be seen.

Since cheaters don’t know their limits, their appetites grow with every act of deceit. It did not take Santeyi’s wife long to realize that she still saw the same merciless husband despite her efforts to change him.

The way the dual personality of a character is explored in the book, it will remind you of the famous case of “Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde”.

During this critical juncture, his familiar friend inside him, the cheater, woke up, and said, “Are you sure you do not want me to help you, my friend?”

Some lines in the book has a very deep meaning.

Sometimes, the question answers itself when the subject are unable to, from a different corner altogether.

Courage conquers everything. It even gives strength to your physical body and pushes it wherever it needs to go.

… purity can easily wane the vile, if confronted with bravery.

… one life can hold many surprises, not all of them bad.

… you have to be deserving first, to even claim a grain of rice to be yours.

The author brings in some interesting words like “guestimate” in the book.

The author is good at giving examples and linking the current situation (in a specific scene of the book) to something significant and easy to establish a connection with.

The treatment he received made Santeyi anxious and hopeful, analogous to the way that a gold miner excavating a quarry celebrate when the first traces of gold are found clinging to the eroded interior walls.

Here are a couple of more lines written interestingly.

Eyes that were dormant from a long meditative state were opened by his entrance.

People come here to relieve their misery, not to be bundled. You are no exception.

The way your attitude affects the experiences is explored pretty effectively in this book.

All the past dreadful experiences floated around him in this familiar locale. But, instead of treating them as haunting omens, he looked at them as lessons to be learned.

As you can understand, the same situations were unbearable for the protagonist, and now it doesn’t matter much. He actually takes it positively.

While reading stories of the self-made king and his two sons, you will realize the importance of believing in yourself, courage and doing hard work. And, at the same time, you will also realize that there comes a situation in life where you need to take a tough decision. Choosing the right path is not always an easy job. If you don’t have strong will power, despite knowing the right things, you won’t be able to act upon them.

If you want to learn something, nothing can stop you. You can learn from everything. The real essence of Bharatiya culture is seen in the following line:

I see my guru in the nature that I experience all around.

Some things are weaved in our nature and we cannot run away from them. At the same time, it is very important to control and tame them as well. When we try finding faults in others, we need to know that we are prone to do the same mistakes.

If I, a sensible human being, succumbed to a palatable pleasure, how can an uncultured animal be an exception?

The quotes mentioned above must have given you an overall idea about the book content and the quality of linguistic attributes you can expect from it. You may think that some stories must have been ended differently. But, that is the author’s domain, and if you re-read those tales, you will realize that the author has raised a valid point. Actually, there are many attributes of each story I wanted to talk about, but, it will contain spoilers, so better to avoid them.

As expected the book gets heavy at places. It is not for everyone. If you love sensible reading, it is for you.

Summary:

A book that requires your attention. It is not just for timepass reading. You may find its paperback version a little pricy. The Kindle Ebook is available at a moderate cost. It is a meaningful book that needs to be read with an open mind and a positive attitude.

Around 7.5 out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle Ebook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle Ebook

Over To You:

If you already have read the book do share your remarks and thoughts via comments below. Does this review help you in making your decision to buy or read the book? Do not forget to share this article with your friends over various social networks via Twitter, Facebook and others. And yes, you may like to subscribe to our RSS feeds and follow us on various Social networks to get latest updates for the site to land right in your mail box.