His entry begins:
I’m actually reading The Godfather by Mario Puzo. It was an accident. I was exhausted and everything I tried reading bored me. I thought about Stephen King but couldn’t face it, and then I thought about watching a film but didn’t want the visual stimulation, which can stop me from sleeping. I slipped, fell against the bookshelf, knocked a bunch of books to the floor, and The Godfather was the one that landed face up.About Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss, from the publisher:
I’m enjoying it, mostly; the misogyny can be difficult at times (the test I usually use is “could a woman have written this sentence?” – Puzo frequently strains credulity); the violence isn’t; but as with a lot of gangster movies, none of the characters are truly sympathetic; it’s a world of sociopaths and psychopaths. It’s terribly, terribly Indian, the truly disturbing emphasis that’s placed on family, the borderline incestuous relationships between practically all family members, the absence of freedom or boundaries, the intermingling of love and abuse, the Freudian obsession with food, the sanctity of marriage and the grotesque...[read on]
Professor Chandra is an internationally renowned economist, divorced father of three (quite frankly baffling) children, recent victimVisit Rajeev Balasubramanyam's website.of a bicycle hit-and-run—but so much more than the sum of his parts.
In the moments after the accident, Professor Chandra doesn’t see his life flash before his eyes but his life’s work. He’s just narrowly missed the Nobel Prize (again), and even though he knows he should get straight back to his pie charts, his doctor has other ideas.
All this work. All this success. All this stress. It’s killing him. He needs to take a break, start enjoying himself. In short, says his doctor, he should follow his bliss. Professor Chandra doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.
Writers Read: Rajeev Balasubramanyam.
--Marshal Zeringue
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