Review : The CEO In Making By Pakhi Dixit

This book is a biography of a boy named Vipul who started a website called Pustakmandi.com which I am also connected with as an author. It's written by a girl, Pakhi Dixit, who's about to graduate as an engineer from Manipal University Jaipur.
The book starts with the family background of Vipul, the struggle of his father in bringing up his kids and the grey areas of Vipul as a student. It leads you the circumstances he has to take admission in an engineering college where he finds himself - his weaknesses and strengths. Subsequently, he puts all his talent in the field of web designing and programming and succeeds in heading the most sought after club ; the IBM Club. In between his love-life is also unfolded by the writer keeping adequate space with justified intervals.
I can sum up this as - This is a book of the struggle of a family as a whole and a boy in isolation to carve out a niche for himself applying his best without letting him down by circumstances come what may. This is a book of failures, fatigues, fantasies, frustrations and friendships resulting into success with flying colors.

Strength of the book: It's pace. It starts with a bang and proceeds in a perfect sequence in linear fashion maintaining the music of storytelling throughout ends with with the same finishing bang.

Weakness of the book: I wouldn't say this as a weakness of the book in particular, but the story is not unique as these kind of stories of 'rags to riches' are scattered all around us.

Yet, it's bold story to read and to inspire the younger generation to fight and fight to fulfill their dreams.

Quotes I liked:
1."The most important fact about time is; it never remains the same."

                       
2."You need to move along with time. You cannot become stagnant to a situation."

                       
3."This is so funny that a few mark-sheets, certain grades or your college brand would decide your success in life."                  
And many more...

My take: This is a commendable attempt by Pakhi Dixit and what i can say is that she has a lot of potential as writer. The language she bears is mesmerizing and the flair is hypnotic. Would like to read her books in the form of novels and short stories. All the best!

Rating: 3.5/5

Rajeev Pundir

Review of "Savera" - a simple, forceful and motivational poetry by Jaydeep Surendra Khot

Introduction:
Generally I feel a tad uncomfortable while going through poetry, be it in Hindi, English or Urdu. Though difficult words have always been a reason behind this, simplicity of the verses has always attracted and fascinated me towards the ghazals. That's why I'm a die hard fan of ghazals sung by Jagjit Sing.
When I got an offer to edit this poetry book from Jaydeep, I was not sure whether the purpose will get justice at my hands or not but I was wrong. The simplicity of his words made me quite comfortable and my work damn easy. And the simplicity of the words is so powerful that I found this book very interesting.

Verses I liked:
तूफ़ान:

"प्रतिष्ठा की चाहत ने मुझे बेईमान कर दिया
घमंड के अन्धकार ने मुझे असलियत के प्रकाश को देखने से रोक लिया. "

एक पेड़ कहता है -
"विशाल ज़रूर दीखता
पर कोई नहीं जानता कितना ज़मीन में मैं टिका हुआ.

दलदल:
"दलदल में मैं फंसता चला गया
हकीक़त से दूर होता गया.

था मरने का डर मुझे
पर आज तक ज़िन्दगी ने मुझे क्या दिया.

Merits:
Its rawness. The thoughts of the writer have been inscribed in an utterly natural and simple way. The poems give very strong messages to the people in an innocent manner which is rarely found in poets.

Demerits:
Of course this is a book and like any other book it has some flaws also. The biggest flaw of this book can be attributed towards it down to earth narration. It is devoid of adjectives, similes and other metaphors which are part and parcel of poetry and make it splendid. The writer has to work hard to amalgamate all these in his successive attempts to make his verses shine.

My take:
Jaydeep Surendra Khot's maiden effort to pen down his socially motivational thoughts is praiseworthy. Best of all for his journey as a poet.

Rating:
3/5

Rajeev Pundir

An Interview with the Curious : Priyajit Ghosh, contributory author Love; A Sweet Poison 2

1. Introduce yourself to the audience.

Hello I am Priyajit Ghosh, of 23 and live in Durgapur, West Bengal. I am an Electronics engineer and Love ; A Sweet Poison 2 is my first venture as a published author.

2. Define yourself in one word.

Curious.

3. At what stage of your life you started writing?

I started writing since my childhood, when I was around 6 -7 yrs.

4.What motivates you to write?

It’s really difficult to say what exactly motivates me to write, there are so many.  Considering the fact that our world is an infinite array of different different possibilities that can blow your mind, from beauty to intense pain. But If I were to point out one big factor among those many, I would probably say that innovation. Science being my passion, I have always tried to look at incidents in a different way and think out of the box, and trying to give forth to something innovative. And I hope my stories continue to reflect this fact of newness.

5.What interests you most; fiction, nonfiction, travelogue, biography, horror, adult or young adult?

Fiction all the way.

6.To you, which is a better medium to express; prose, poetry, art, film, play or any other and why?

For me it’s a film that best expresses everything. As we know, a process of learning becomes complete only when we visualize it through our eyes and ears. A film projects the story in a way such that it becomes complete. In writing a book, words are limited. The author may try to portray a character some way and it might get differently to the readers. This is what is called a ‘semantic gap’, and it might create a real gap between exactly what the author feels and the magic he wants to portray and what the reader visualizes. A video or film reduces that, it clearly portrays what is right from both eyes and ears.

7. What would you like to be reborn as?

A human again will do fine ;-)

8. Which is more important to you; money or fame?

Like every common man, I yearn both, separating the greed for either of them..

9. How do you react when rejected by the publishers?

There is nothing to react, it’s a part and parcel of an author’s life.

10. Your valuable suggestions to the prospective writers?

Three things if you want to be different from the pack— Imagination, newness and self-belief.

*****

An interaction with 'Creative Bro' aka Shriya Gupta - the Bohemian of Love; A Sweet Poison 2

1. Introduce yourself to the audience.

Hey! I am Shriya Gupta a.k.a Bro. My story ‘Sacrifices’ published in Love - A Sweet Poison 2 is my second anthology.

An engineer by fate but a writer by choice. I am studying Automobile Engineering from VNRVJIET, Hyderabad. Art is my love and storytelling is my passion. I aspire to become a writer and a director. I have started a creative organization called The Nation's Rock Beat to bring about an artistic creative revolution.

2. Define yourself in one word.

Creative.

3. At what stage of your life you started writing?

I never knew that I had a knack for writing till my 9th grade.

It came into my life as a fortunate accident and the scars from it are to stay forever.

4. What motivates you to write?

You earn money, you top your exams or you become extremely famous and then you create a piece of an art, the amount of happiness you experience is surreal in the last case.

So, for me each day without any creative work is a day wasted.

5. What interests you most; fiction, nonfiction, travelogue, biography, horror, adult or young adult?

Every piece is unique in its own way. You get to learn something new from the above mentioned genre. So, I can go with any genre as long as the piece has a strong and grasping writing style.

6.To you, which is a better medium to express; prose, poetry, art, film, play or any other and why?

For a storyteller, the story is the hero and the medium is just the spot boy. So, every storyteller just hopes that their stories reach out to the maximum audience no matter what medium it is.

7. What would you like to be reborn as?

I am tomboy by nature so would like to be reborn as a boy.

8. Which is more important to you; money or fame?

An adequate mixture of both will work fine for me as long as I am creatively satisfied and being able to bring a change for art in this world.

9. How do you react when rejected by the publishers?

Any kind of rejection means it's time to reanalyze. To sit back and think where have I been going wrong and how should I get back on track.

10. Your valuable suggestions to the prospective writers?

I was and am still scolded by all my English teachers that I don't write as soon as an idea hits me.

I am still trying to work on it. So, to all the new writers, just write without any hesitation. Write your heart out at that very moment. Read that and write again. Keep writing and writing forever.

*****

Interaction with ostentatious and optimist Sagar Garg contributory author Love; A Sweet Poison 2

1. Introduce yourself to the audience.

Hey, I am Sagar Garg. I have been born and bought up in New Delhi, India. My days have nothing more than managing our long established business where I work for ten-twelve hours a day, if that counts. At nights I used to scribble and read. For me, a day without reading is a day less lived. Writing in my life has been adopted from minor infraction of over-thinking which I best shot to turn down in words and make people believe in it. To know more you can visit my Facebook page here’s the link:  https://www.facebook.com/iamsagargarg

2. Define yourself in one word.

Optimistic. I believe in accepting the things the way they are and changing them rather than taking terror and complaining.

3. At what stage of your life you started writing?

To be honest I am yet to start with my professional writing for what I do now is just a side-effect of my over-thinking and insomniac disability combined which I discovered when I turned thirteen.

4. What motivates you to write?

It’s you! I’ve been inspired by the world around me, by people or lives to be precise like how differently amazing things happen in life. I believe every life has a story that too, a different one, so why left it untold.

5. What interests you most; fiction, nonfiction, travelogue, biography, horror, adult or young adult?

Biographies interest me the most, though literature always came interesting to me. I also read fictions, especially young adult a lot but biographies because flavor of reading the reality can’t be compared with something else.

6. To you, which is a better medium to express; prose, poetry, art, film, play or any other and why?

That’s a tricky one, for me its prose and poetry for the obvious reason that I love writing. Not that others can’t do justice, they are pretty much equally artistic but I go with it because it gives me better chance to come out as what I really am.

7. What would you like to be reborn as?

As I mentioned earlier, I am a positive personality, I love whatever I have been gifted with so, there’s nothing I know to be reborn as other than what I am today.

8. Which is more important to you; money or fame?

Happiness would have been my answer had there not been two options already. From above I will choose the latter.

9. How do you react when rejected by the publishers?  

Probably disappointed from my own self perhaps there will be a sigh of relief if they reject my bad work before reaching it to readers.   

10. Your valuable suggestions to the prospective writers?

I hope none of you are forcing yourself to write.

*****

Interview with ostentatious optimistic Sagar Garg, contributory author Love; A Sweet Poison 2

Introduce yourself to the audience.

Hey, I am Sagar Garg. I have been born and bought up in Delhi. My days have nothing more than managing our pre-owned business where I work for ten-twelve hours a day, if that counts. At nights I used to scribble and read. For me, a day without reading is a day less lived. Writing in my life has been adopted from minor infraction of over-thinking which I best shot to turn down in words and make people believe in it. To know more you can visit my fb page here’s the link:  https://www.facebook.com/iamsagargarg

               Define yourself in one word.

Optimistic. I believe in accepting the things and changing them rather than taking terror and complaining.

At what stage of your life you started writing?

To be honest I am yet to start with my professional writing for what I do now is just a side-effect of my over-thinking and insomnious disability combined which I discovered when I turned thirteen.

What motivates you to write?

It’s You! I’ve been inspired by the world around me, by people or lives to be precise like how differently amazing things happen in life. I believe every life has a story that too, a different one, so why left it untold.

What interests you most; fiction, nonfiction, travelogue, biography, horror, adult or young adult?

       Biographies interests me the most, though literature always came interesting to me. I also read fictions, especially young adult a lot but biographies because flavor of reading the reality can’t compare with something else.

                                                                        

            To you, which is a better medium to express; prose, poetry, art, film, play or any other and                   why?

           That’s a tricky one, for me its prose and poetry for the obvious reason that I love writing. Not              that other medium are bad but I go with prose and poetry because it gives me better chance to              come out as what I really am.

What would you like to be reborn as?

As I mentioned earlier, I am a positive personality, I love whatever I have been gifted with and there’s nothing I know to be reborn as other than what I am today.

Which is more important to you; money or fame?

Happiness would have been my answer had there not been two options already. From above I will choose the latter.

 How do you react when rejected by the publishers?

Probably disappointed from my own self perhaps there will be a sigh of relief if they reject my bad work before reaching it to readers.  

Your valuable suggestions to the prospective writers?

I hope none of you are forcing yourself to write.

Review of Adam, Eve And The Apple : Story by Priyajit Ghosh in Love; A Sweet Poison 2

Story:

The day I read this story, I was moved by its theme and my heart selected it for the anthology immediately. This is the story of an Apple tree planted by Adam and Eve. On the very day of their marriage anniversary  when it bears its first apple, a devil plays a dirty game and tries to spoil everything by conspiring to kill them. The tree feels, observes and tries to save them. Whether the tree succeeds in saving the lives of Adam and Eve, read this compelling heart touching story by Priyajit Ghosh.

Merits:
The way the feelings of a tree for Adam, Eve and their son George has been described is commendable. You get mesmerized when you read that tree also loves them as its parents and brother and its pain for them due to the premonition it has about the ill designs of the devil and how helpless it feels in saving their lives. Wonderful! Keep it up with more such different and offbeat stories. The literary world needs a writer like you.

Demerits:
I don't remember if there're any. Yes, a few readers will find a tad difficult to understand the gist of the story in first go. Nothing more.

Quotes I liked:

"That's perhaps the ultimate aim of life - to give back more lives in return."

"Maybe that's what happens when your every bit of soul is happy - you see the world through your soul."

Ratings :
Story: 5/5
Language: 4/5
Literature: 4/5
Overall : 4.5/5

Best of luck and all the best for future.

Rajeev Pundir