When Life Turns Turtle
Raj Supe
Platinum Press 2016
Rs 399, pp 468a
“When Life turns turtle” is a simple story about a successful Hindi commercial film-maker Indraneel Baruah, who faced with failure in his romantic endeavours, goes away to the mountains to forget, and ends up on a journey of self-discovery and quest for finding peace and meaning in his life.
Now, all stories, especially fiction, that describe someone else’s life, are essentially stories of journeys that the characters in the stories take. A good story holds the readers’ hand, draws them into the world of the story’s characters, and takes them along on a journey through the characters’ lives, or through a certain phase in their lives.
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The fact is that just as life is a journey, so is the story. In that sense, every story is therefore also a travelogue that takes you to places, and through time. This book by Raj Supe, which falls in the genre of spirituality-based fiction somehow also, falls in the category of travel fiction.
This because the author with his background in advertising and marketing makes the places that the hero visits come alive. When readers read spy thrillers, good authors make them believe that they are sharing the adventure with the spy, travelling the exotic places around the world fighting the bad guys and saving the planet from doomsday.
Similarly, a romantic tear-jerker makes the eyes of readers well up. In the case of this book too, the idyllic environs of Rishikesh described in the book first makes the readers imagine that they are sitting on the banks of the river Ganga drinking not just the holy waters, but the surroundings as well.
After one realises that one is sitting in one’s own home, and turning pages, it makes one want to get up, pack bags, book tickets and immediately leave for Rishikesh. However, it is not just Rishikesh and the river Ganga that capture your imagination.
Being a spiritual book the simple steps to look for peace within you, are made to look just as easy. It is only when you begin the practice of trying to sit still in meditation, reciting naam or doing japa, do you realise how tough it actually easy, at least in the beginning, in the absence of proper guidance from a teacher.
Just as the author has tried to simplify the methods to find inner peace, he has also done a good job explaining the concept of karma. I paraphrase from the book here: “Karma is of three kinds-accumulated karma, fructifying karma and current karma.”
Accumulated karma is quite simply everything you have already done thus far, and not just in this life but in all lives put together, since Hindu philosophy states that the soul is immortal and is reborn again and again in different forms and bodies.
Therefore, accumulated karma is the hard drive that stores all your deeds. Hence, we can say that destiny is self-made. Then, there is current karma, as in the deeds we are doing now, in the present. Finally, there is fructifying karma– there are certain givens in this life. You were born to certain parents, have a certain body, etc., which means it is the present instalment of accumulated karma which has begun to bear fruit.
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It cannot be avoided or changed, only exhausted by being experienced. So, at every moment, we have some part that is determined (accumulated + fructifying karma) and some part that’s free (current karma).
In a nutshell, future = destiny coming from accumulated (determined) + Current (free) karmas.
It is simple explanations of complicated concepts written in an easy style that make this book an engaging read.
While there is no doubt that those spiritually inclined will enjoy it, even those that are not thus inclined but are curious about what they have read or heard, will find it a worthwhile read. Most importantly, it is an engaging story that holds the readers’ attention, and continues to intrigue as to what is in store on the next page.
Similarly, the path that Indraneel will eventually take after spending so much time in the Himalayas, and will he return to his vocation of film-making back in Mumbai or pursue his spiritual quest remains a matter of interest, like a good suspense.
I will of course not reveal the end, but even if I were to, it is not only about the destination, but the whole journey that is important. Just as it is in maths, where even if one has copied the answer, it is the steps that matter. It is not about getting the answer, but how you got it that gets you the marks.
