Clear light of Day by Anita Desai

Don't think I have read any books by this author before. I have read her daughter Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of loss which I quite liked. Borrowed an ebook from my library. The story takes place in Old Delhi. It is the story of siblings who have drifted apart and about family reunion. Set at the aftermath of Partition and how it affects the siblings. 

Mom and Dad are largely not present. Aunt Mira is the adult who looks after the siblings. Some can’t wait to runaway from home and make their own family. While others stay back to look after and nurture those who need their care. Was it wrong to leave the family home and create a world for their own? But what of those who had to stay back. Do they hold grudges to those who flew the nest? Do those who flew away, are they grateful for those who stayed back? 

Birdsong by Sebastain Faulks

 18.33 of 54 BBC Big Read.

Part love story, part war story. Not a fan of both the genres. So this was essentially a difficult read for me. Pages and pages of digging tunnels. Tunnels caving in. Getting multilated by grenades and enemy fire. One hero not afraid of death, as he has nothing to live for. Everyone around him dying one after another in war.

First half was an epic love story? A young man falling in love with a married woman, something in lines of Anna Kerenina. The woman reciprocating the feelings. Where is the story going to lead. We all know that the outcome of this would be in the early decades of last century, this was a doomed relationship. But things turn quickly. And then there is another twist and our hero becomes a war hero. Then a million people died in War. But our hero gets a happy ending, not what we would expect in the beginning but a different happy ending.