SEPIA LEAVES
By AMANDEEP SANDHU
“Life can sometimes be hard but we can resist being crushed.”
‘Sepia Leaves’ is my very first review on a book which is an autobiography in a very unusual way and that too with an intense story of the narrator. I took ages to pen it down with the right kind of words as this is one book which will remain in my enchanting society for many decades to come and also within the bottom of my heart.
“In the market, while Baba bought mangoes and vegetables, I bought a packet of Phantom cigarettes to cheer myself up; white candy sticks with a red tip to make them look like lit cigarettes. They came in red packs with Phantom’s face on them. I loved sucking on them. Last year I had seen Amitabh Bachchan holding his cigarette in a movie and I held my Phantom cigarette the same way, between my right thumb and index finger. Buying the cigarettes distracted me, though I wished I could cry and ask Baba all my questions.”
The book has some really magnificent characters. There are really fine assortments of emotions that I had gone through while reading this book, like: sentiments of sheer despair, confusion, at times annoyance, and to top it all, there was an incredible sense of optimism.
‘Hope’ is one element in the book which the protagonist is searching for and with him the reader too is deeply into it.
A brave impression of being living with Schizophrenia >>>
“Sometimes when Mamman was in the bedroom and the door was shut, I would peer in through the bedroom window next to the guava tree. I would see her clearly, though Mamman never noticed me. Her eyes glassy, her hair flowing, her posture erect, and her face rock-like. Impassive, cold and without a trace of emotion or expression. She sat like that for hours; one, two, three… however many. Sometimes I watched her and went off to play. When I came back, she would still be there, in the same position. It was almost meditative. Did she register the day slipping into night, the darkness, and the mosquitoes? If the light was on, it remained on. If the light was off, it remained off. At such times, she looked beautiful, like a statue. A stony beauty that frightened me. Her silence numbed me.”
A courageous effort by Amandeep Sandhu for literally stripping his soul and believe it or not, it is really not that effortless task to share personal and profound emotions to the worldwide audience.
The authoritative blend of ironies makes this very story of a person’s life a great and only one of a kind work. Hats-off to the author for coming out with such an enormous and intense personal memoir; it has indeed turned out to be a renovated ‘healing effect’ to me as a reader.
‘Sepia Leaves’ is profoundly sincere in its own positive way…
If you’re looking for something in actual fact dissimilar to other novels in the current scenario which will make you completely satisfied as a reader… Trust me >>> pick this one.
MY RATING: ☆☆☆☆☆
~overview~
In the 1970s, India is reeling under Emergency and in Rourkela, a Nehruvian dream town in Orrisa, a small boy is struggling to deal with his dysfunctional family. The arrival of a surrogate mother for Appu causes his mother’s madness to take a furious turn. Years later, Appu’s father dies on a summer evening in Bangalore. In the course of that night, Appu pores over letters, diaries and family albums to slowly come to terms with his mother’s schizophrenia and its effect on those living under its shadow. Sepia Leaves seeks reconciliation between love and guilt and explores whether storytelling itself can be an act of resolving the past and hoping about the future.
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