A short life of Shri Ramakrishna by Swami Tejasanand

"A short life of Shri Ramakrishna" by Swami Tejasanand. Actually this book is the life of Shri Ramakrishna in short, not his short life.

Author has covered life of Gadadhar and then his transformation to Shri Ramakrishna in 132 pages.

Born in brahmin family, he started taking steps to break rules of casteism in 1845, at the age of 9. Ramakrishna, as you all know, was a yogi and tantrik of highest order. He was a supreme bhakt of Kali and Ram.

The book gives details of his attaining samadhi on number of occasions, how he used to talk to mother Kali, people he  encountered, people he learned from, his male disciples (this includes Narendra Nath alias Swami Vivekanand), his female disciples etc.. Actually the book gets boring later on.

It is obvious from the writing that the author is in awe of Shri Ramakrishna. It is also apperent that the author is more a disciple than a writer. Writing does not follow timeline. Author goes back and forth on a couple of occasions.

Although this book has very little literary value, one may read it to understand the life of great yogi, his philosophy and his teachings.

Wikipedia may give a crash course on life of Ramakrishna in fewer words. Avoid this book.

Paangal (पानगळ) by Prof. Milind Joshi

"Paangal", a Marathi 'Katha Sangraha' by Prof. Milind Joshi during vacation. This is a collection of 14 short stories.

All the stories are interesting. Some of them like 'Samadhi' are too good. This book has a bouquet of stories. 'Krishnarpanamastu' is a tragedy, 'Sathi' is a comedy, 'Paangal, is a tale of sorrow, 'Eka sahityikachi diary' is a parody, 'Jimi ani me' is aashawadi, 'Dattak putra' depicts complex family relations.

Death seems to be the central theme of the book as 9 out of 14 stories have death in it.

Details of human emotions, human nature and interpersonal relations are captured very well. However it seems that ,in order to make the stories short-n-sweet, sometimes writer has been miser in allocating enough words to create the background that explains the behaviour of a particular character or an incedent.

The editing and proof reading of the book leaves lot to be desired. In addition to the grammatical errors, there are some descripancies and contradictions that could have been easily avoided by a watchful eye.

Overall it's, really, a good book. A nice Marathi read after a long time.