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Eleven minutes!



This post would take your precious eleven minutes to read, stay rooted please!

Yes, this is one of Coelho's leading novels which has redefined set definitions of sexuality. I can't do justice to neither Coelho nor his revolutionary approach to life and this definitely is not a book review. This post is about what the book did to me as a reader.

I had this dull life as I was growing up amidst the traditional air of a Brahmin family. I was never encouraged to challenge or to be rude to people who were mean to me. My mother had this belief, "the world may forget humanity but you must never cease being humane".  I kept those words with me as I grew. I had to be humane to be a human, I kept on telling myself. I never challenged myself enough until I left home for higher studies. I was thrown into a new world of deceit, shallowness where what was good never stayed good and what seemed bad seemed true later. I developed a new idea with time, that life wasn't utterly to be compartmentalised into two shades: BLACK, WHITE. There was a shade of grey and that was what life demanded of us, to acknowledge it.

Yet, I was stuck to the periphery when it came to establishing emotional connect with people. Anyone who walked into my life found a great friend in me for I was ready to see their grey shade. If I loved them once as a friend, I could never hate them. That was one thing from the rule book of my life. But people couldn't actually see that I had a grey shade as well. It was never about me but them. There were times when I felt lonely, there were enough occasions of discomfort but I was contented. I had this small little world where everything was enough for me to be happy. I didn't want anything more from life. I was happy or so I would like to believe I was until things happened.

 I believe people walk into our life for a reason. They see the light in us which the rest of the world fails to see. Just like Maria, from the novel, my light got discovered one fine day when I was least expecting it to happen. My soul got stirred for I had been discovered. I was reluctant to let that person see my vulnerability but as time sew memories I got to feel that we two rose from the same dust. I knew I trusted him and for the very first time I was ready to move mountains to be with him. I felt I knew him from ages and when all of this was happening, I was being drawn from the periphery to the centre and that's where I never knew to be. I started panicking, I lost my composure. Things were beginning to change and just like Maria from the novel, mine was a different adventure.

In the novel, Maria falls in love when she least expects to find someone worth falling for. I guess that is how things happen. That is how love should happen. When you find someone who can stirr your soul and help you find uncharted lands within your soul that's what love is. Love necessarily isn't about finding someone nice, it's about being found out when you are least prepared. It should shook you to your core enough to question everything that you thought you knew about yourself.

One thing from the novel which would stay with me is the idea of reaching into each other's soul without necessarily being tangled into bodily pleasures. Maria gifts the person she falls in love with, a pen which is dear to her for that is what helps her to store her secrets, her misadventures, her regrets and pain in her diary, she in return gets gifted with a carriage from a toy train set which reminds her lover of his lonely childhood. This idea of gifting, helps to establish a emotional connect between their souls. They gift each other a part of their memory which when released makes it easier for them.


I have had many things to lose in my life and right now I am sailing in a sea of loses but this novel has taught me to keep believing in dreams. It has taught me a new way to look at life. My personal tragedies would definitely gift me life changing memories. I may have nothing to hold on to but I have everything to help me believe in the idea of love. Maria knows that things need to end to keep on being beautiful. That definitely holds meaning!


Thank you for sparing your eleven minutes!! 

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