Skip to main content

Book Review: A Home for Gori by Habib Rehman

Book Review: A Home for Gori by Habib Rehman (Spoilers)


Quote: Of course there was no accounting for the trouble that Gori might get into. She was a pup still, inquisitive, alert, her ears cocked to any new adventure or mischief she could get up to. She was also discovering a world in which other strange creature lived, and she was keen to make an acquaintance.




Because I keep playing with my Editor-in-chief's lovely Labrador, she lent me her a book from her 'Doggy Book Collection' to read.
Habib Rehman's memoir of his beloved Spitz Gori and his life through Army and establishing ITC as India's leading hospitality business around the country. From the beginning, actually from the blurb, we know the ending of the tale.
We know Gori is going to heaven after a fatal illness, and it's Habib's way of paying her tribute and building a house that would overlook her resting place.
From the loyal stray bhutya dog in Army named Bullet, to another bhutya Kutty to an arrogant lab Rocco, Rehman loved dogs and rented houses aspiring to have them. But his wife Sukhi had some unfortunate instances with Rocco and Laila, and she grew resentful towards big dogs.
In what we call a compromise and truce by Habib, she brought home a tiny white Gori, who gets misspelled as Gauri by a vet. From the moment of her arrival, Rehman is against her because she is a small dog breed. But everything changes one thunderstorm night.
Over the years I have buried enough pets and strays with my mother to know the pain Rehman felt. What I loved was the prompt thoughtfulness of the future by Sukhi about having pets and their short sweet life.
Simple, honest and warm. The language of the book is of a man who has always wanted to belong and gave his best shot at every relationship, be it his wife or step-grandaughter. Definitely, a privileged point of view and many humans might envy the luxurious life of Gori like the vagabond youths who scared her with a car while she was out on walks. To me a human's love for their dog is almost selfless yet selfish.
The selfishness is, of course, our incapability to let go. And yes you will weep at the end. Hence Maui the lovely cat is determined to eat the book!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: When The River Sleeps by Easterine Kire.

Book Review: When The River Sleeps by Easterine Kire. Quote: Perhaps the answer lay not in striving but in being. In simply accepting that the loneliness would never be eliminated fully, but that one could deal with it by learning to treat it like a companion and no longer an adversary. Ville a hunter wakes up from a dream, ventures out to search for the heart-stone; that holds the power of the river that's asleep. And this stone is guarded by wailing-angry-widow-spirits. Many attempts have been made at magical realism in Indian English writing, and I didn't like them. My personal opinion is that magical realism needs a deep connection with nature, maybe never explicitly explored in the text, but the traces of that connection always shows in the words written. And I have always argued that North East India is the most fertile ground to plant the seeds of magical realism in. Easterine Kire, pens our deep connection with nature for the national readership to gawk...
Post a Comment
Read more

Word Addict...

                Witch that resides in my heart becomes rest less every-time I loiter down the only bookshop (actually there are many,only two of them have readable books) in my Town. The witch again goes wild, when her stumbling feet walks down College Street in Kolkata. My every visit to Kolkata compels the witch to go there and I feel immense joy running down my blood vessels         I chanced upon Penguin  blogspot  about the modern methods of buying books how times have changed and how the writer feels about it... I was having personal thoughts to write about my evolution as a book addict , and the blog post  helped me to write my own..                  Being a girl I know shopping is the best therapy to distress soul, but for me book buying is the biggest therapy which irritates my family. I still remember my first visit to College S...
1 comment
Read more

Book Review: #Orangetoons by Shreya Sen

Book Review: #Orangetoons by Shreya Sen Quote:You are anyways going to carry the baggage right? So how about caring nice things in it? Just the perfect little pocket size comics you need before you end your day and curl up under your dohar. Hilariously illustrated, gives you what was once known as pearls of wisdom and what we would call as: two penny thoughts every millennial carries in her purse. Superbly relatable if you wear glasses and have untamed hair and have a thing for boxers. I deliberately did not photograph the inside of this tiny book. But it is a good example on how to do your independent or self-publishing gig right, the size, the colour and the binding are to the point and nothing extravagant or flashy. A lesson for young creators of comics can learn from, keep it short and simple. Just get your own copy from @shreyasensagoli. I especially loved the art with the caption: Allow objects to change if you wish to preserve them!
Post a Comment
Read more