Book: Walks Through Life

Author: Santhosh K Komaraju

This book arrived at my doorstep when I was quite occupied and hence the delay.

The book ‘Walks Through Life’ by Santhosh K Komaraju is a collection of nine short stories which as the name suggests are the life lessons to enlighten readers.

Inspired from mythology stories, Santhosh has written these stories to share his thoughts on different circumstances that one may learn from.

Stories like ‘Hidden Kingship’ is about finding the self and being true to oneself. The story takes Santeyi, a scrupulous trader in search of turning his luck to a sage who orders the man with some impossible tasks. In the process Santeyi discovers the dormant righteous and magnanimous man ‘the king’ within himself.

The ‘Beyond The Bar Of Humanity’ story talks about kindness and benevolence as a tool to counter disruptive behavior. It floats the idea of inclusiveness instead of differentiation. All the stories have some message in it.

Since the book has different stories, it is convenient for a reader to pick and choose to read stories in any order. The book can also be read over a longer period of time as each story is unrelated to the other. 

The stories in book are quite nice, one thing however that did not sit well for me was that the author has put too many long sentences and said simple things in a roundabout way. Honestly I took so much time to review the book a little because of this reason. In my opinion, book with stories meant for readers to learn from should be written in a very simple language. This book is not easy on readers time.

A sentence such as this: “Every evening, a mundane rite had to be performed by Pundis all alone at the juncture of the drawing sun, bringing him to his private backyard during that time” from the story ‘Blessing Of a curse’ takes up time to comprehend… at least it did mine. I like to read short snappy sentences where the meaning is immediately clear and I can get on with my reading. Such sentences distract the reader and can not keep the attention span engaged. There are more such examples but let me not point all out.

But that is just me… May be its my shortcoming. As a kid whenever I learnt a new difficult word, i would try to include it in my poetry or essay. It is then one of my teachers pointed out that if I wanted people to read what I write, the language should be simple, conversational, short… easy on mind.

While the need of the hour is that life lessons be given to people subtly in form of stories with relatable characters. The book is a brave attempt to impart secrets of a fulfilling and happy life through honorable and selfless deeds. 

Readers interested in spiritual growth and self-improvement would most probably enjoy the book more than readers who are looking for quick entertainment.

Do read and let me know whether the book worked for you?

Also at Goodreads