Read 1 for 2013: The Room : Emma Donoghue

The Room by Emma Donoghue is the first book I read in 2013. A story of a girl kidnapped and forced to live in a Room. The girl aged 19 when she was kidnapped and now after 7 years has a son, Jack, aged 5 at the time the story starts. Jack has never seen the outside of the Room. The Room is his world. The TV in the Room is his only window to the Outside world, however because it is TV, he believes all that is shown on TV is unreal and everything else (meaning in the Room) is real. The story is narrated as a first person account of Jack. How he views his Room. How he connects with each and every object in the Room. The regime his Maa formulated for him, so that she can do her best for the kid as he grows up captive but hardly realizing that he is in captivity. The innocence of the child under the circumstances is stirring and troubling. The spirit of Maa who never gives up, as now she has her son to care for, shines like a beacon in the darkness of captivity.

Jack and his Maa are able to fashion their escape from the Room, not before some out-of-the-world heroics by Jack. Imagining the things Jack pulls off for somebody who has ventured out of his shell for the first time is both magical and satisfying. Though the real challenge for Maa and Jack lies in trying to adjust to a world which Maa was forced to leave behind 7 years ago and Jack has never known existed. What follows are a series of re-acquaintances with family and friends. For Jack, even the sun and the wind are too much to bear.  Slowly but surely with the same will they displayed in the Room, they start gelling with the outside world. Not to mention that there are a couple of scares along the way.

The most touching narration of the novel is arguably at the very end, where Jack asks his Maa to visit the Room one last time. While inside it, he touches each and every object and says a heartfelt 'Bye-Bye' to them. The conflict which Jack feels at time about returning to the Room because he is so used to being in it finally ends and he is ready to live his life in the Outside. There is a passage where Maa goes on to say that everybody is captive in his/her Room. There are so many innocents who are behind bars, which gives the narration a totally different spin and does make the reader wonder.

For me personally, the innocence of the 5 year old Jack was killing to say the least. There were times, where I had to keep the book aside at regular intervals just to reflect as to what exactly could be going in that tiny 5 yr old brain of his, when everything he ever knows about is confined in that Room. Though the author does a very good job to end it on a very hopeful note and I am thankful for that. It would have been utterly devastating for me to think of anymore sadness for Maa and Jack.

I must confess that I did take a little more than a week just to get over this read. It is a simple read,  what with a 5yr old narrating it. But then you know how a child can say so much more with a handful of words!!!

 Next read : The Book Thief : Mark Zusak

Me..the Orange Drink...the TV

This New Year's celebration was pretty simple and straightforward - Absolut vodka coupled with run of the mill Chinese food and some good company together with a self-created Youtube playlist. Some unexplained fire-work display from the top of the parking garage right next to my building which looked like the pic below only added to the glitter.

The fact that I slept off a couple of hours before midnight makes the entire charade look either stupid or outright convenient. Whatever be the case, when I woke up on the first day of 2013, I did feel that the new year was afoot and that made the night before worthwhile.

Time and again I am reminded of the new year celebrations which I had back in the days when things were a lot simpler, life was a little less complicated and worries were not mine to own. It was the age when the cold drink was thought to be the elixir of life. The very act of drinking that sweetened carbonated drink (this knowledge came much later in life) was some sort fertile territory achieved at the end of intense psychological warfare. It was nothing less than a hostage negotiation where there were many things promised in return of that orange flavored drink. All said and done on the night of 31st Dec it had to be Me, the Orange Drink and the TV.

As the TV would begin churning the 'unforgettable moments' of the year gone by, be it songs, movies etc, glass after glass of that Orange Drink was devoured one sip at a time. Not to forget that each time the bottle containing the Orange Drink was religiously returned back to the refrigerator lest it lose its 'coolness'. In the building where 3 friends lived one on top of other, each one would shout out to the others enquiring as to how much of the elixir each one still had. For the friends had decided to have the last sip together albiet in their own living rooms but watching the same program on TV (not that there was an option, cable TV had not invaded us yet). Even after such care, each year there was this one friend who managed to let some be for the day after and draw ire from the others the next day. All said and done, it was always worth the trouble, for he was then having the elixir when no one else was having it and that made him feel like God!

Years have rolled on since, and will continue to roll on but Me, the Orange drink and the TV will remain forever hidden as a memory - to be remembered, to be fondly cherished!

P.S: For the uninitiated, the Orange Drink was the Gold Spot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Spot). I am sure it will set in motion some memories for you too :)