| Title | : | Loss |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 9353575990 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9789353575991 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 115 |
| Publication | : | Published November 24, 2020 |
With surgical detachment and subtle feeling, Shanghvi charts the landscape of bereavement as he takes the reader down the dark, winding path to healing. Clear-eyed and intimate, Loss is the first Volume of non-fiction by one of India's most beloved writer of life experience.
Loss Reviews
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"I wish I could say that loss, and the grieving that accompanies it, makes you a better person. Mostly, I have found, loss exhausts you; often, it leaves you bitter. And yet it gifts the living something powerful: detachment, a cool cleanness, for seeing people as they are, so that you might love them without having to like them."
RATING: 4.75/5
In the introduction, Shanghvi says, "Maybe that's all there is to it: language, how we employ it to know someone or love them more deeply." It's a sentiment that effectively pervades the entire book. He puts his pen to the task of remembrance of three lost lives, vast in their own ways, and attempt a sort of monument to their memory, a testimonial to shared pasts and days well-spent. For him, grief "is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved". Writing this book is also a closure of sorts, to make ordinary the extraordinary nature of death, expected and natural yet no less strange & surprising. It is ordering of a drawer of socks, ordering of lived stories and experiences, mundane but all-engrossing.
His mother, Padmini, was the first person to pass away. A strong, mercurial woman who was bowed down by arthritis and forced to her bed in the last years of her life. His father was battling brain cancer at the time, which he successfully survived and followed her some ten years later from a heart attack. The last, but definitely not the least, was Bruschetta, a lovable pet dachshund who had joined the family almost two years after his mother's death. In a period of little more than ten years, these losses compounded, requiring some outlet. So here's a loving celebration, not purgative catharsis.
It is quite easy to wallow in loss, to drown in sorrow in a memoir that so heavily grounds itself in grief. Shanghvi shows a remarkable degree of restraint. He skillfully things to the breaking point, almost tipping them over the edge before reining them back in. There is a danger of ponderous grandiosity, of shallow sentimentalism that he manages to avoid. I was also impressed by how he brings a vast knowledge of literature, pulling lines from a whole host of writers and artists on loss and death to vividly supplement his own words.
These essays aren't standalone monoliths, they all bleed into each other and overlap. Griefs join and intermingle as one memory supplants another, launching new trains of reminiscence. The third essay is just a series of photographs, unsupported by words yet enough on their own, capturing his father, the man with loneliness writ large on his face. Bruschetta also makes a couple of cameos here and there. His prose, where present, is lush and evocative. It brims with emotions yet doesn't gorge itself on them. I repeatedly felt the need to memorize some sentences and retain certain poignant turns of phrase. There is a deep vulnerability in his words, an unflinching honesty flaying feeling and laying it all bare. It's intimate meditation, an attempt at healing and understanding, to revisit the past whose pain has been dulled, but not erased, by the slow passage of time. I am glad I was able to read this stunning book and I must recommend it heavily and whole-heartedly.
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review) -
Death has a way of eliminating people who dont recognize your sorrow. Later, you become unable to see them, either - invisible of their own making. Grief is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved. In the end, we weep not only for the death of someone but tor the startling question that faces us: what shall we do with the love we have for the deceased? Where will we put it?
Who, now, shall be recipient of the gifts of our hearts?
What can I say? I am a fan. I completed this book in one sitting.
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is an amazing author, who pens his words with immense thought. The intensity of his writing is commendable, with the words weaving you into his story, the story of losing your parents and the grief that follows.
As a single person, I place particular emphasis on the idea of leaving the party with my shoes on; there's going to be no one to drive me home. John Irving cautions against living so long that it results in turning into a caricature of oneself. After watching my father's powerful loneliness billow and expand - a time in which all the things that had had once potent meaning were hollowed out I told myself: leave, it you've enjoyed yourself. Leave, because you are still enjoying yourself. Leave, because you will have to anyway.
Learn to see when the right time is staring you in the face.
Leave.
Our exit from this world is remembered far more than our entry into it.
The literary references and the borderline stream of consciousness in nonfiction literally blew me away because I am determined to read the author's other books as well.
The last stream of consciousness book I read was Anuk Arudpragasam's A Passage North which is a fictional account inspired by true events, and this one mirrors it pretty well in the nonfiction genre.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! -
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‘It’s the phone call you dread – yet fully expect.
‘Papa passed away,’ my sister said through muffled sobs. ‘He died’ she repeated, as if I might not have understood her the first time around.’
‘Loss by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’ opens with the most brutal sentence no one wants to hear. I have gone through this experience. I lost my mother in an accident (2009). I received the call, and was left with numb heart, and her innocent promise that, I will never leave your side.
At first, this little book behaved as a ‘Kataar’, slashing through me, inch by inch and pain echoed in flashes. It became a warm sky eventually, where could I actually breathe.
In his book, Siddharth Shanghvi meditated over myriad of moments, vulnerable and intimate. Writing is crisp and elegant. The way author used metaphors is beyond any praises, “Considering death is like plunging your hand into pond: encountering shapes you cannot name…”
I have been amazed how author recollected the pieces of his broken soul and woven them into words with such precision. It takes certain amount of courage to write about your pain and longing.
“When we lose an intimate, two deaths occur. The first is the formal, physical death of the person. The other death is of the person we were around them.”
Basically, ‘Loss by Siddharth Shanghvi’ is consist of three essays, documentation of three deaths, along with few photographs.
“To write was to help someone else erase some part of their pain. This was the first motive for all my writing. It remains so.”
In first section, Siddharth Shanghvi reminisces about his father, Mr. Dhanvant, a fiery independent being, and to watching him to struggle with cancer and later, loneliness.
Author remembered the small ordinary moments with him, as how his father keeps aside all the good reviews of his books, he never forget to give company to his son to the dentist’s chair, and dropping him at school was his morning routine.
“In the end, the only thing we can do for anyone, beyond loving them, is simply to acknowledge them as they are, for who they are, even if it is to let them go from our lives.”
Here, author decoded many facets of life as, ritual of going temple, The Antyeshti sanskar, and urgent need of mourning space.
In second section, Siddharth Shanghvi talks about his dog, Bruschetta. ‘Maybe dogs know this trick, a sleight of paw as it were, they can hack into our loneliness, pry it open like a lock, decode its inner machinery, lay it bare, make us believe we were never teetering into the wrong side of alone.’ he writes.
The day Bruchetta comes into his life and the day he leaves, unforgettable imageries, lingers to your mind.
Siddharth analyzed the eternity of pain and marked some findings, “when will it all be done? But I cannot put myself down, I cannot euthanize the experience that deadens me.”
The essence of this essay is, “Grief is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved.”
Besides words, Author included some exquisite photographs to this collection. In a photo, Ariel shot shows his father at the head of a long lonely dining table. Another frame portrays the melancholy of empty house. There was one shot of stairs which leads to nowhere, and a memory of his four-legged angel peeking through the grill.
“Loss” embraced my soul from the beginning but the third section of the book about his mother, Padmini, just left an indelible impact on me.
It begins with pondering over a question of life, “Could someone else die for you, or could this idea be expanded to mean that you die when someone does?”
I am in awe of his words, and powerful imagery, author picked to describe his mother “In the blinking darkness of the ambulance I accounted all that was still intact, unchanged, prime among them my mother, unbreakable, indivisible, a sage of losses, a graduate from the university of untold suffering.”
Here, author tells about her mother’s disease, difficult hospital trips, moving bed, long nights full of suffering, Despite of having such mess around, she has strong personality, “Who laughed her heart out, and briefly it seemed her many miseries grew silent and her laughter was louder than her sorrow- louder than all life. “
She sings a lullaby for her son, writes handwritten letters to her husband and weaves a poetry book for her own soul, Here, I am sharing a piece of her poem ‘Bhatkan’.
जीयें तो कुछ ऐसे कि तन्हा न रहें हम,
जिनसे हैं, जिनके हैं, उन्हीं से जा मिलें हम।
And his mother’s advice “She told me to enjoy my fame but to never quite believe it. Write more. Read Read Read.
Word by word, this book dissects your very being and finds a hidden voice, longing for shore. Although, it is a short book, which hardly takes two days to finish, but this breathing tale will remain with you till eternity. Keep your loved ones close and this book even closer. Highly Recommended! -
This slim volume contains a multitude of profound wisdom and compassion. I bought it over a year ago, but kept from reading it till now, as my own beloved 99-year-old mom just entered hospice care and isn't expected to last the year's end. This proved to be just what I needed to read at this time - helping me with my own impending grief and sense of loss.
[Full disclosure: although the author kindly accepted friendship requests from me both here and on Facebook, it is more because I 'fanboyed' him, than that we actually know each other - so I feel this is a fair and impartial review, regardless of that.] -
‘Grief is not a record of what has been lost, but of who has been lost’
White is the color of grief and of purity. Maybe because grief is purest of the emotion?
Anyway, the quoted lines are from the back-cover of this amazingly written memoir by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. “Loss” is about reliving what it means to lose someone and grieve on them. It is about the strings of emotions one goes through as the sense of loss settles in (or never does). It cycles up from the very-grounding datum that bereavement brings one to, with a thud. The author writes at one instance that - “When we lose an intimate, two deaths occur. The first is the formal, physical death of the person. The other death is of the person we were around them” - and I completely agree.
This book is an inward journal of Mr Shanghvi’s own losses of his mother, his father and his beloved pet and there are so many moments that would make you want to reach out and comfort him or someone who needs it. Even if it is oneself.
This was my third book of the author whose craft is unparalleled when it comes to writing and anyone who intends to read more on him should definitely read his another master piece - The Rabbit & the Squirrel. It finishes in 30 minutes but doesn’t leave you for long.
More power to those who survive, their Loss. -
The deepest, darkest, most vulnerable emotions that rise up to the brim of one’s conscience is what makes up the essays in the book – Loss. After a while, this word acts like a trigger and reminds you of the empty spots in your life, the missing pieces of your puzzle. In this book, the author has displayed his journey of over a decade – of losing the ones closest to you, of denying it, of remembrance and reminiscence, and of acceptance and finally, healing.
When I started reading, it proved difficult for me to keep going. My eyes would fill up with tears – maybe it was the writing style or the overall energy of the book. But soon the tears were replaced with an understanding and acceptance. That is when the book talks about healing and how death of a close one plays a part in who we ultimately become – its inevitable but doesn’t necessarily have to be final.
There is a lot of parallelism between the three losses, but at the same time they’re very distinct and separated. One loss reminds of the other, like an interwined story, which is what life essentially is.
I really liked the tiny snippets and inputs from other author’s works that are present in the book. They really uplifted the text and made it wholesome. There are also certain pictures that enlarge the elaborate picture the book created for me; some where real life pictures of events described in the book.
It is a great work of non-fiction and uplifting in many ways. I really enjoyed reading the book, though it ended up being a bitter-sweet time for me. I highly recommend this book. -
"From my mother I learned a writer had to immerse her mind in a world so different from her own that she might, briefly, forget I; or forgive it (her sorrow), especially when she saw the other worlds come with other cruelties.
To write was to help someone else erase some part of their pain. It was as simple as that.
This was the first motive for all my writing. It remains so."
Fortunately, I haven't experienced the loss of someone close to something as irreversible as death. I don't know how to relate to the grief that comes from being left behind after the death of someone important. Yet, the author made me a part of his grief and his healing.
I really don't think I can 'review' this like I'd review a book but, I'll try. Divided into 3 essays, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi reflects on the three important loses that overwhelmed him back to back; that of his mother, father and his dog, Bruschetta.
His essays are a celebration of the lives of those who aren't here anymore. There's respect, love and honesty. He not only manages to put his grief into as many words as he can, he also makes the reader a part of his household. I could see Padmini listen as Siddharth narrated the parties to her, I could hear Dhanvant's painful screams post chemotherapy sessions that were reduced to silent weeping when music was played to him and I could see Bruschetta waiting by the gate for, as the author phrases beautifully, those who come back. The author seems to have healed with every word he wrote in this book and honestly, even if he didn't heal, every person who read this book definitely did.
A reader needs to give something to a book for the book to grip her and pull her through the pages. To try and understand what he was telling me, I just took a minute and imagined how I would feel if I lost my pet of 3 months, my kitten Simba. I imagined what I'd feel, I shuddered with the amount of pain that I had only imagined...and I gave it to this book to grip it. Had I decided to think of losing my father, I wouldn't have been able to read the book at all. Some thoughts are unfathomably painful even in imagination.
Shanghvi's book is an understanding of death and grief. He felt his losses, he survived through them and he wrote what he understood...for others to help understand their loss just a little better; for others to not feel alone in their grief.
I say this about a lot of books I love, that I would like to re-read them some day. But for this, I think it will be a need. As much as I'd like for me to never go through grief of such an extent, I know I will someday because that's life. But I will treasure and protect this copy to help me heal again at that time, to answer my questions when I want to scream at someone and ask them why I'm being put through this. I hope and believe that Siddharth will be there to answer that through Loss. -
This book was sent to me by the publishers as an advance reading copy. Thank you HarperCollins India and Vivek.
In February 2017, I witnessed the sudden passing away of my maternal grandmother and the toll that it had on my mother over time. And it had an impact on me as well. I started missing the little conversations I would have with my grandmother when I left for work in the morning, particularly – ‘when are you going to be back? Have you taken lunch?’ There is also a sense of insecurity in that age, perhaps, which makes the older people ask a lot more questions than they would have even a decade earlier. The sudden void in not having her to ask those little nothings has not been filled.
Loss by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi is the collection of essays of three losses in the author’s life told in four parts. The loss of his parents and the loss of his pet and the impact that it has had on him overall. Thinking of parents in their old age is a difficult thought for all of us and eventually one needs to get to the stage where they look at celebrating the life of their loved ones and the journey they’ve had. But it is easier said than done. Shanghvi is able to beautifully articulate, with a lot of apt cultural references from literature and otherwise, this sense of loss that each of the departures caused in his life.
I particularly liked the essay ‘Padmini’ and the collection of pictures in ‘The House Next Door’. Padmini traverses the journey back in the author’s mother’s life including the loss of a sibling and there is something about the whole recollection of the life of the mother that makes it a very endearing
read.Men/boys have always had a complex relationships with their father from what I have seen. The book not only touches upon this relationship aspect, but also some anecdotes where the author learned from the father’s life. I could not relate much, unfortunately, to the part on the loss of a pet, but the chapters on his father and mothers definitely did make me think a lot.
Again, this being a very personal set of essays made it a very difficult exercise to write a review that would do justice to the heartfelt writing in the book.
One last statement: The ‘be there’ part that the author mentions as a protocol when someone dies is a very powerful thought! -
How do you take the threadbare, frail threads of grief and transform them into love? Ask Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. The music of ‘Loss’ is not despair. The tragedy of ‘Loss’ is not death. ‘Loss’ is not despair or death. It’s a moving eulogy to life and the people who shape us through it.
I have been a fan of Shanghvi ever since I read ‘The Last Song of Dusk.’ But it’s here that I feel the writer is at his most vulnerable, slicing away pieces of his soul for us. As we read his words, we may feel virtuous that he doesn’t speak of us. It can’t be us. We aren’t lonely, despairing, suffering, or casting adrift in our aloneness. But we are. We know that no one has spoken of our pain as much as he has in this book. -
When a person loses another, that entire journey is tailor made for them. They can try and find comfort in all sorts of things but to get out of that darkness, no one can tell them the way.
Death has a finality that no one can compete with, perhaps, that's why it takes us so long to understand the gravity of it. Siddharth Shanghvi wrote this book to understand that finality. He shares with us what it means to know loss so personally and how it is a never ending endeavour to learn about ourselves.
It almost felt like a diary where one writes quotes that help us relate and how we connect those quotes with what we're dealing with. I liked the author's insights a lot and he genuinely felt like a very well read person but the depth that I could gather from his photographs were missing from his writing.
I really wanted to connect with his words and I did at certain intervals but it failed to keep my attention throughout. Overall, I would recommend it.
CW: death of parents and pet, grief
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@literarychai_ -
This book is a story of Sidharth who run a business and lived in a Jaisalmer and work from hotel got a news of his father death and he flew down to Mumbai for the last rites of his father and he remembers all the death he faced, he give the intellectual outlook to situations by giving exams from the books and writers life then in order to cope with loss he take help from various persons. Death of his brother , death of mother, death if his father and death of a pet dog. He was desperate and depressed what and whom to share his problems with and that only break his heart into pieces and that broke his reverie of thought of loss of loved one and that's why it is one of the depressed written novel by the author, digression stories are my favourite kind of read.
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How can you praise a book about loss? Loss of life? I am falling short of words on how to praise this deeply moving book by Siddharth who has talked about his three closest relationships. He has bared his soul in every page. The words are poetry in motion. I wanted to read this book because for me losing my loved ones is the biggest fear I have got. This book helped me gather that strength. At least, I think so. Because as much as grief is personal, it's universal. I absolutely loved this book.
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" Grief is not a record of who has been lost but of who has been loved."
#Decodingbookswithme Loss by Siddharath Dhanvant Sanghvi
I was around 8 years old when I felt a sense of loss from close quarter, it happened without a warning. My paternal grandfather passed away and I could see the how shattered my father was by the news. I was too young to fully comprehend the emotions or feel the depth of sorrow, but it felt strange going back for holidays without his tall figure telling me stories, showing me orange orchards and walking through coffee plantations, occasionally plucking flowers for me.
I was 15 when my grandmother left us, that loss was eclipsed by my board exam stress and the fact that we knew what was coming. I was prepared and maybe didn't have enough time to process the situation.
This year, I was 28 when something that I won't even wish for my worst enemy happened to my best friend. She left us without a warning, without saying anything, without even a goodbye. The sense of loss I felt when I heard the news, the steps of denial, anger and the heartbreak that followed was too personal. It was the hardest thing and most painful thing I ever went through. The loss that felt most personal. The loss that I will never understand. The loss I can never accept.
When I read the book, I knew I would be able to find solace in the words. It's a balm that soothes your grief, when they say that suffering gets lessened when you open your heart, maybe they say the truth. I never knew how short life is before this year or how painful it would be knowing that you won't be able to see or hear your loved one's. This book has shown to me how one can react to grief in different ways. And how even after experiencing, one is often left unsure, hollow and empty within when it happens. Whether it's your family, friend or a pet, it's never easy.
The prose is beautiful, raw and honest. The writing strikes a cord and without being overly sentimental or melodramatic, the message is loud and clear. It's a personal journey and this book helped me understand to deal with my own emotions. -
“I guess if we all listed our losses we’d seem like a catalogue of ruin. And I guess if we knew what is going to happen to us later, we wouldn’t even bother to start out”
Loss is a recollection of emotions a human being has penned down. This is extremely personal, achingly long but excruciatingly beautiful.
I wish there were better adjectives to define pain, because we have summed up all hurt, loss and sadness into one single word called pain. But all these are extremely and vastly different for every living being, even for an animal.
This book takes you through author’s personal losses and how he has weaved his life along these experiences. Extremely heart touching to read.
10/10 recommended -
What does it mean to lose someone?....is it just the absence of their physical presence or is it something more? Is the "being" of a person restricted to their physical tangibility? Does a person cease to exist once their mortal remains do so? What about the things they used? What about their clothes....some of them probably still unwashed? What about their spectacles.... probably still smudged? What about their wallet....some of the notes still containing creases created by their hands? What about that chair they used to use....still a bit out of place probably left in a hurry by them? What about the bed they used to sleep in...the sheets still lying in the manner they left them? Thinking along this tangent can lead one down a rabbit hole of such existential questions.
One phrase commonly thrown around during this phase is "moving on". But what does moving on from someone's absence actually feel like? Does anybody actually move on? Is it even possible to "move on" from the sudden absence of someone who was a significant part of your existence? Whenever one talks about the person they've lost even months after the loss.... it isn't uncommon to come across tone deaf phrases like "I know its sad but.....its been a while! You've gotta move on!".
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi writes about losing his parents and his pet dog in his memoir LOSS. But....what especially moved me was the way he wrote about loss. Instead of talking about "moving on" or how "life changing" loss is....he talks about loss from a more existential lens. How the process of processing the loss of a loved one is actually a lifelong process that one subconsciously works their way through without them being aware of it. I am honestly not sure how to continue this post....some of this reading experience just felt too personal to ever render on paper in a convincing manner.... I dont know if that made any sense but that's how explaining the subjectivity of experiencing loss in an objective manner feels like.
One example being the section in which Siddharth talks about losing his dog Bruschetta and how that loss is perceived by the people around him. We have seen multiple examples of "just get another pet" in popular media. For example....the whole subplot about Aditi (played by Genelia D'Souza) losing her pet cat in JAANE TU YA JAANE NA being treated in a humorous manner and how that subplot eventually ends on a "just get another pet" note when her best friend Jai (played by Imran Khan) gifts her another cat....and after that....the film complete forgets about the cat's existence... infact I'm not even sure if Aditi's pet is mentioned again after that scene in even a single frame since. But unlike Aditi.... Bruschetta's loss proves to be brutal for Siddharth. He spends his days drunk and for a considerable amount of time shuns social contact....and when he attempts to resume "normal life"....whatever on Earth that means....the loss of Bruschetta refuses to leave his headspace.
There is a lot I could talk about but honestly....this is a book that felt so personal that I was emotionally drained by the time I reached its last page. I wish I had the strength to continue talking about why this book meant so much to me....but that would mean scratching a few wounds that still haven't healed. -
Warm. Soul-stirring.
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Fine writing, exemplary language. My little book where I note down catchy lines ran out of pages during the course of my read.
And ofcourse beautiful content that the author so poignantly pens his grief at the loss of his loved ones (father, mother and his dog Bruschetta)
My rating : 4.5/5 -
In love with Bruschetta!
Thank you for introducing world with beautiful parts of life with LOSS. -
“Perhaps I had not known this simple fact before: we do not go to temples to worship idols or practice faith but to weep together so that sorrows might be known.”
“There is one thing I can say for certain: the older a person gets, the lonelier he becomes. It’s true for everyone. But maybe that isn’t wrong. What I mean is, in a sense our lives are nothing more than a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness. That being the case, there’s no reason to complain. And besides, who would we complain to anyway?”
“I wish I could say that loss, and the grieving that accompanies it, makes you a better person. Mostly, I have found, loss exhausts you often, it leaves you bitter. And yet it gifts the living something powerful: detachment, a cool cleanness, for seeing people as they are, so that you might love them without having to like them.”
“We are as influenced by the presence of others, and of our various selves, as we may one day come to be defined by their absence.”
“The simple and noble act of listening and of telling, is in itself restorative, never mind the story. Stories fix us. Stories make us see. Stories teach us when to leave. Stories remind us that we are not alone in our anguish - everyone is a little broken, and perhaps better for it.”
“I felt lifted and unbreakable thinking that time could turn my past into a book of gratitude, one I had not yet fully read, it’s surprises astonishing, it’s denouement always and only love.”
Well-written and sincere. Loved it! -
Beautifully compiled, talking about the Loss of both of his parents and his dog Bruschetta. It's mostly recollecting past incidences and seeing them through a different lens, making your loss more approachable and reachable by inferring experiences from other artists/writers.
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Not all books are meant to be read in single night, not all books appeal us, to read just one more chapter. Some books are meant to be read slowly; consuming meaning of every word, allowing our emotions to penetrate deeply in our heart, taking sighs at end of each paragraphs and put aside after few pages, because you want, rather need more of this therapy.
Loss, is one such book. Anthology of essays from author’s personal experience left a wider impact on reader. The book is about details, depth and profundity of loss in writer’s life; how things were before he lost his parents and pet, and how things became after he lost them. By presenting some brilliant lines, metaphors and detailing about past incidents, author left me to ponder about all the things, certain realisations and predictions; which I was too afraid to admit; by reading this book, I came face to face with them. And I have never felt any lighter.
Do things actually change when we lose a loved one? Or its just our perspective towards things which takes a leap? How would you define- Someone has lived a better life?
Deep, Dark, Emotional, Real, Sensitive, Stirring and Enigmatic; this book will leave you numb & vehement at the same time. Including some of his father’s and pet’s images in the book, author bought a totally different and higher level of connection with his words.
Book has the most gracious, prettiest cover; with coloured edges and being hardbound, its glossy thick papers; this all adds more to the reasons of, why this book is a GEM; and must be kept safe, always…… -
I think this is probably the first time I read a book of essays? by an Indian writer. And to say I wasn't surprised at how much I enjoyed it, would be a lie.
I had never read Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi before, but I am happy this book was my introduction to him because I don't think any book of fiction by him would have made me appreciate his writings as much. This book was so personal, so cathartic (even for me to read.)
I loved it. All of it. In so many ways, I probably needed this book too.
Also, can we just talk about how beautiful the copy of this book really is? So minimal, so beautiful, so perfect. I am so happy to own it. -
Death is the biggest truth and perhaps the only thing we gradually accept without ifs and buts. Everything changes one’s personality in little ways, but death has a profound impact. The ones who accept the death of their loved ones go through immense intensity of grief that remains etched for a long time. Loss is one of the sheer masterpieces by Shanghvi’s that enlightens us with darkness of the grievances and a thorough passage to deal with the heavy trite fact. It feeds you with remarkable antidotes of truth and thoughts. Loss is retrospective.
Loss is a record of not just sadness or grief but a personal antidote of remembrance, memories that the author shared with his parents and pet. This book, Loss, carries love and nostalgia. It swims through memories, pain and an infectious visionary of Shanghvi’s words and perspectives. Somewhere in your heart, you would feel as if your memories of losses have rekindled together and beats against your heart making you weak. There are direct and indirect losses I suffered and the expression of pain can’t be penned. Till date when I think about these losses they become more personal and unimaginably healing at some point of time. I heard the news of my grandmother’s after I came back from my physics exam. I felt a persuading heart ache and imagery of grandmother’s last sights haunted me. People always want to remember a person with all good deeds and good memories but with my grandmother I never had a bad memory. The only reason I love nights is because I have memories of a persistent session of conversations of stories- fictional or real. She would tell me about my mother, her family and this only grew tremendous respect for grandmother. I started to look up to her like a figure of inspiration. Grandmother was always a friend, mentor and confidante to be precise. Most of my virtues are attached with the intimate discussions we never failed to hold. She was a potpourri of energy.
The other losses were the demise of teacher and professor. These were sudden with no time to react and conceive the truth so bitter it still lingers upon profound and precise. Though with little interactions, my brain wouldn’t really acknowledge.
Loss is a learning where each word and line encounters new meaning of grief and Shanghvi’s prolific language sees no end to the same. It’s therapeutic to understand oneself- their growth of maturity to seep in the uncertainty of death and sprout them into a new start of life.
Loss as Shanghvi unveils is like Titanic floats towards destruction but then the captain witnesses a faint light that rather keeps it afloat, alive with an assurance of normalcy in the tides. Loss is a request to save the moments lively at the present rather than lamenting for not living present at the right time perhaps, past and death are ahead of time and impossible to control. -
“Grief is not a record of what has been lost but of who has been loved”
Loss by Siddharth Dhanvant Sanghvi is his personal memoir of loss, its resultant grief and the way in which he deals with it in different circumstances. But truth be told, it could be anyone’s memoir. If you’ve ever lost someone you love, or watched someone you love lose another close to them, you will relate to each of death’s hyperboles Sanghvi shapes up. Ironically, while he introduces you to his losses with a cool clarity, you will instead end up feeling the depth of them; sinking into a bottomless pit. This one’s not for the faint-hearted.
“But perhaps the masters did not heed that life’s essential mode was one of rapturous boredom”
I couldn’t help but stick on little post-its on every other page (even though I rarely quote the book in my reviews) sometimes due to the sheer impact of Sanghvi’s own words, but many times in ode to the myriad quotes he’s borrowed from authors and poets read over the years. Don’t let that put you off - it’s an art to insert your favourite sayings in between your own words with the intention to help the reader feel some more. It introduced a new experience/instance but handheld me through it thanks to the comfort of having felt this before by way of having read this before. He did justice to their words.
“I no longer know how I feel but I do know that I do”
The book is divided into 4 parts. Each dedicated to the author’s heaviest losses - his father, pet dog Bruschetta, and mother. With really what’s a treat of a fourth part - black and white photographs of his home and family - adding to the overall somber melancholia in the most seamless way. Sanghvi talks about the helplessness of disease, the forgiveness and forgetting that comes with death - making it a leveller, how a part of you dies when someone you know does, how dogs are our link to Paradise and so much more.
Since I’ve finished this book, I’ve been hurtling between realisations of mortality with respect to those closest to me. I have never been more conscious of my dog’s age (the chapter on Bruschetta is honestly the one that emotionally crippled me) or my parents’. While I don’t even want to imagine what losing them may feel like (I lost my grandfather last year and also my mother-in-law and that was horrifying enough) - I hope that as Sanghvi points out, there will be a lighthouse on the shore. And if not, well you just continue to live, read and write. -
Loss - Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (@thepostcarder)
One can look for answers in fiction in an affectively rich and dialogic manner, but it is in nonfiction that one bares one's layers one by one, presenting oneself at its most vulnerable. This vulnerability is nourishment for a writer. SDS meditates on a series of losses that he and his family had to brave over a decade.
His mother, Padmini, a poet, lost her second child, a son. The sadhu with matted hair bun on the top of his head said that her mother needed to spend more time with her daughter and her granddaughter, which is why she took Utpal's form and came to this world again. SDS ridicules it as something supertitious as it is bereft of any logic/evidence. But, as he rightly points out, it is the fiction that helps us sail through this life. We also survived on this fiction - this hope - when out of all the four dead-on-spot people in a car rendered unrecognizable in an accident, our father couldn't be identified. Naïve us, thought, maybe, he wasn't in the car. Next day his body arrived.
It's a slow and painful death that Padmini dies. I wonder if I could see Papa go through that. But I ask myself: Wouldn't I be happy seeing him alive? Thriving, passing each day as it comes. It is the way that this book is written that SDS's loss feels personal, his meditation appears private - something that I can say I am going through, and his investigation universal, as he mentions: Loss is unifying.
The only way we - artists - can grieve is to give it some form. It is this detachment that has produced this book. I am sure that the clarity in writing and the chiseled way this pocketful of addressal to loss is written is a way that has helped SDS heal. It helped me.
To read this book is to read an array of writers and years of wisdom that SDS cites in it. And above all, may this book remind us that we are all loved. Our degrees of losses are a measure that the one who has been lost was the one most loved. And only a writer can help us find a language to articulate the weight of grief, to assess its magnitude, and to harness energy from it to thrive.
Live in fragments no more. -
Life poses questions so does death. Grief provides some respite after death. According to Murakami, life is a series of events that keep us away from loneliness. The people that truly matter are the ones that remember you even after your death. The author states that - ‘Death has a way of eliminating people who do not recognise your sorrow’. We truly lose a part of ourselves when someone dies. Every loss he encountered was different because he loved each of the individuals differently and sometimes together as a family.
These deeply personal essays describe the passing of a pet and parents. They are a ‘reflection over life’s opposite thing’. The author had numerous questions to their act of passing like - i) Why did his father pass away peacefully?” ii) “Why did his mother have to suffer?” His father overcame cancer but suffered from a lifetime impairment and spent days and nights starting into nothingness.
“The mechanical rattle of a kingfisher, a flash of winged blue piercing through rice fields. Sometimes when their sounds overlap, and intersect, an orchestra of shrieks and melodic repeats and a gap forms into which the sorrows run through.” - Siddharth writes whilst describing different kinds of grief.
With powerful imagery he observes and describes the nature’s play at length. The evocative prose was sometimes difficult to comprehend just like grief. It makes you want to hug your people around you and keep them close. The passages of prominent authors on loss and loneliness were food for thought. It was heartening to read about a pet dog acknowledging his presence. The book also gives much needed information about the depreciating air quality proving harmful for pets.
Philosophical and poignant ‘Loss’ poses important questions about grief. Trying to resurrect broken parts of himself through language of words, he tries to seek closure.
This is not a review but a scattering of words that acknowledges death as the ‘insurmountable truth’. -
At one point in Loss SDS notes, "I guess if we all listed our losses we'd seem like a catalogue of ruin." Borrowing a phrase to describe this monograph on loss and death, this is a catalogue of ruin. It's rooted in specificity- the death of loved ones, and doesn't attempt to be prescriptive or provide answers. Indeed, the greatest strength of the book is its capacity to just wallow in the chaos of grief without it leading anywhere necessarily.
I was a little wary of this book at the outset, because I worry people romanticize death and loss to make sense of it. SDS comes very close, and in many parts obfuscates reason for feeling. At one point, when talking about his mother's anguished pains, he describes it merely as a prelude to laughter, and I understand this might be a coping mechanism, but there's a thinly veiled pretension about this- an inability to see life and loss as it is. Maybe this is my radical skepticism, but there's little in this very introspective, very melancholic response to the death of loved ones- a father, a dog, and a mother.
This is not to say that the book itself is pretentious- it has moments of deep grief. Under the veneer of wealth and gossamer there is a fraying relationship to joy. But SDS's distant prose (his similes for example are too formal to evoke any feeling), and his even more peripatetic life makes it seem like affection was more of an idea than a reality. He seeks the words of others to make sense of his own- a hallmark of a good reader, but not necessarily a good writer. Its briefness, at 120 pages, is thus a strength. It tethers us just long enough to his musings without causing too much fatigue.
Harper Collins provided a copy in exchange for an honest review.
Full review at:
https://rustedbling.wordpress.com/202... -
📌But who decides who gets what sort of end?
Is it all an illusion?
📌"When we lose an intimate, two deaths occur. The First is the formal physical death of the person. The other death is of the person we used to be around them!"
💟 Loss by Siddharth Shanghvi is a beautiful book describing grief, loss , death and it's impact on our lives.It is a short read of 130 pages . It describes the death of his mother , father and his dog -Bruschetta.
💟 There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. The book also contains various candid heartwarming pictures , which testify to time's relentless melt. The grey , black and white pictures makes you see beautiful colours of life.
💟The book throws light on how life on repeat mode can sometimes turn out to be deathlier than death itself. It tells about feelings of author, who's of 'a viable, die-able age' , who learns to be a custodian of memory, of defeat, of regret, of questions that will meet no answer.
💟 The book refers to various writings and famous literature on grief and death. This book really made my heart warm and my eyes moist.
💟 2020 is one of the toughest year that everyone's dealing with. You can feel the subtle empathy, a tinge of pain, lots of courage and hope and at the core of book you'll discover something very important- truth!
🌻 This book surely moves and soothes your soul, gives you a warm embrace as if a companion who understands your grief. I loved this book and would surely recommend you to read!
