The Nameless Book: Everyone Has A Story By Deepthi Ayyagari | Book Review

Deepthi Ayyagari is an author who writes in multiple genres. After reading her book “Love On The Everest”, we got a chance to read another couple of books from her. And, we like all of them :). It also exposed one more talent of the author to us – versatility. During my limited experience of reading various regional, national and international authors, I have found that there are very few authors who explore different genres in their respective bodies of work. Today, we are going to talk about The Nameless Book: Everyone Has A Story By Deepthi.

If you are curious to know more about Deepthi and her works, here are some quick links to follow:

• Brinda By Deepthi Ayyagari | Book Review
• Love on the Everest by Deepthi Ayyagari | Book Review
  
• An Interview With Deepthi Ayyagari

Let us take a look at the book cover.

Book Cover:

We shouldn’t judge a book only by its cover. That is absolutely true. At the same time, we cannot argue against the importance of the cover page for a book (or for that matter, any media). It is like the face of the book. Like our face, the cover page is also responsible for the first impression. An interesting cover page can lead to many purchase and/or reading decisions for sure.

The cover page of the book follows a minimalistic approach. It seems that the author has self-designed the cover page. It is not easy to find copyright-free images and finding a good designer when you are self-publishing your book with limited resources.

In addition to the tagline “Everyone has a story” – the cover page also shouts out 3 elements that you can expect from the book – Live, Laugh, and Love. They are written in red color and are the biggest elements on the cover page.

The cover page of the book is not very attractive, but at the same time, it is not dull too.

Usually, we distinguish our book reviews in 2 distinguished segments. In one segment we take a bird’s eye view of the story explored in the book and in the other segment we share our unbiased views and reviews about the book. The Nameless Book: Everyone Has A Story is a short story collection. It explores the below-mentioned 10 stories:

• Bholerao’s Future Factory
• The Best Gift for Thanksgiving
• Matchmaking for A “Feminist”
• The Battered Umbrella
• Perfect Life
• Companionship
• The Music of a Heart Beat
• To Each, One’s Own
• The Nameless Book
• Winning

As you can see, it is the eighth story whose title is used as the book title. Now, each of these stories has its own zoner or genre. If we will talk about each of them in detail, it will contian spoiler and that will ruin your reading experience. If we will talk about only a few of the stories explicitly, some of the interesting attributes form the other stories will be missed.

So, let us talk about the book and its various elements by referring to some of the segments of them all.

Writing a short story is always challenging. You need to say everything you want to, by using the least number of words. At first, it looks less challenging, but, when you start writing, you need to set up the tempo of the story on the very first page. If you cannot establish a link with the readers from the first page itself, he/she may not find it interesting and may decide to skip reading it.

If you have a really good story to tell, and if you are able to connect with the reader at the earlier stage, short story collection gives you a chance to explore various genres in a book. It also lets the reader complete the book in multiple sittings without feeling unlinked with the book. The people who get time in chunks often find a short-story collection, a good choice for themselves.

I have found that the author has done her bits quite well in choosing genres for the stories and all the stories are equally interesting and hooking.

I also like the way the characters of this book belong to different caste, creed, society and financial statuses. Some of them are living in the wealthiest countries and some of them are living in small-town homes. Some of them are flying high in the Information Technology industry and some of them are in the world of tradition and spirituality too. So, no matter, what kind of reading interest you, you will find something of your likes in it.

Of course, some content of the book is for mature readers only. The book has its share of spelling mistakes also (they are very small in number, though). Here is an example:
On the first of the story “The Battered Umbrella”; you will find “butt of” instead of “butt off”.

Like her previous books, here also I’ve found some interesting lines.

The tagline of the brand, ‘Bholerao’s Future Factory’ – Manufacture Your Destiny, stood dazzling on the bright morning of that summer when she walked in.

I also like the way the location of Bhalerao’s Factory is explained. It will amuse you to read that a place for a traffic cop has to be established there, as the traffic to the Factory keeps thickening in rush hours :)!

The author keeps amusing by adding some technical lingo in her explanation:

Astrologers only read what’s already in someone’s stock, isn’t it? Generally, yes. That’s how it should be. But in Bolerao’s case, it’s a bold ‘No’. And that, in Times New Roman, font-size 72. You don’t need to change the color of the font to red as well, though.

And these technicality is not limited to a specific employment sector only. You can find sarcasm and other aspects belong to other areas as well:

All in all, the questions that one had to answer pretty much encompassed everything, excepting perhaps, about one’s DNA.

Also, the mention of Bhalerao not charging hefty amount from his visitor and then parallel drown to the other similar professions, specifically about the passive way to earn main income, are interesting.

… Much like the modus-operandi in some clinics these days. the doctor is mostly affordable; it is only the medicines that are not.

The tragic situations faced by the majority of girls who are of marriageable age in India, especially when her previous engagement was called off, is found a place in the book. The author, of course, adds sarcasm to make them more interesting.

He asked me about twenty questions on why my wedding with the starry-eyed boy got called-off, repeating the same question in a dozen different ways like they do in psychiatry tests.

In a similar context, the book also has some warning lines for the parents (and brides) who are falling for Green-card holder (or foreign) grooms without enquiring much.

… Unfortunately, very few brides and their parents ever understand some of the flipsides to certain of those “foreign matches”. …

It is actually a bigger problem than it is anticipated.

And, if you think the book has only negative sides of such a blissful relationship explored in the book, you tend to prove wrong. The book explores some positive stuff too. Not all parents and candidates are same:

… They did not care for castes, horoscopes, or income levels and property, even. They just wanted me to take good care of their daughter. …

Marriage can be blissful too :).

The pain is evident in the lines though. The author doesn’t stop there. There is one more line in the book that will remind you of a typical mindset of a people:

… I am not brainy enough because I am not an IITian?

The following line represents the realities of the fast-paced life where one doesn’t find time for him/herself. Often, the days and months are passed for many without realizing that they are alive.

I have become more of a machine, but even a machine needs to stop once in a while.

While the current generation is getting more dependent on machines and house-helps and then needs to find time and pay money for visiting a gym to keep away as many problems as possible; the previous generation knew the multiple benefits of doing housework. Also, we realize the importance of something when it is not available anymore. The below given block explores it quite beautifully.

Nothing fanciful there, just whitewashed walls with a few stains on them, themselves seemingly stained and faded by the passage of time. None of the usual cobwebs that invade old rooms. My mother took care of keeping everything as tidy as it used to be during the days my grandma was alive. She was one hell of a cleanliness freak, granny.

Life is quite strange and apart from death nothing is confirm. As said in Lord Krishna in Geeta(सुखदुःखे समे कृत्वा लाभालाभौ जयाजयौ ।) one need to keep him/herself ready for any situation. As time keeps revolving, the situations and circumstances are going to be different anytime. You need to expect the unexpected. If you are ready for that, life will be more comfortable to you. The following lines are no lesser than gems in that context:

I am a person who can do with the littlest of things and the tiniest of comforts in life.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
… Still for all, we had much to live with, because all we lost were the things we had in excess.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
We can alter our vision and our expectations make a perfect existence possible in whatever circumstances. Because the only possible kind of perfection is how we have defined it in our minds.

Here are some hard-hitting lines from the book which in-turn holds important message within.

I love you, but my love one person cannot kill my love for another.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
… some pretty looking houses did not have pretty stories their occupants could share.

How can I miss mentioning the beauty of motherhood explored though such a nice emotional statement in the book:

I have to say that the best music in the world is the music of a tiny heart’s beat from inside of you.

If I need to choose a single line from the book, I will definitely settle-down for the following:

Even if I had the very devil for mother, I would never leave her alone, and my mother had always been an angel.

There is no love greater than the love of your parents who brought you to this world. The young folks need to understand it at the right time.

By now, you must have got an idea about the quality of writing you can expect in the book.

Summary:

I enjoyed reading this short story collection which is meant to be read with an open mind by mature readers. It allows you to explore stories from different genres and you can read it in segments also.

Around 7.5 to 8 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook

Over To You:

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