The Trees Told Me So by Purva Grover
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An enjoyable And Stimulating Reading
By Promod Puri
As a newspaperman fiction seldom allures me, but I embraced The Trees….” because Purva Grover is a writer who can stir words to find depth and feelings in them.
“The Trees Told Me So” is such a collection. Her assembly of words comes from trees. They are the silent living observers of the world around them. In their contributing representation, Purva makes the trees talk, and they do. Trees “have so much to tell,” she upholds.
And what Purva has gathered from her trees, she evolved them into fascinating stories of ordinary folks. The readers can quickly get engaged with these tales as if these have happened the next door.
In her debut shot as an author, “The Trees Told Me So” seems to be an uncommon endeavor when fiction reflects elements of reality because these events are witnessed by Purva’s trees.
As a wordsmith, she handily gets into the realism of her stories. She values the nature of words. “…because it is only the honest words that have the power to bring about the change, touch hearts and awaken minds,” writes the author in the book’s preface.
Purva plays with words from the trees’ rings, like a vinyl record, and composes them into stories. These are the tales which touch the ordinary or extraordinary situations and events as life goes by around us. These stories are of universal nature, instinctively appear as a shared property of the readers. And the author herself insists these are “as much yours as they are mine.”
In a family relationship, love, and friendship, “The Trees Told Me So” is a multi-dimensional presentation of affection and suspense, joys, sorrows, anguish and griefs, humbleness, and compassion. She explores and shares the pleasures and passions, sentiments, and warmth in “togetherness.”
Purva perceives through emotions. She extracts purity of feelings from them. The sentiments are felt and expressed in lines like: “Over the years, I had noticed my grandfather was finding it harder to hide his tears; Granny was always ok with crying.”
She indulges in numinous moods as well. There is earnestness in her religiosity. “I looked up at the skies and told Him I bore no grudges against Him.” But “the view from up” was perhaps contaminated on its way down with “smoke and deception.”
All-embracing, “The Trees…..” is an enjoyable and absorbing reading gleamed here and there with stimulating thoughts flowing from Purva Grover, a multi-talented and accomplished young writer in English.
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(Promod Puri is a Canada-based journalist and author of Hinduism Beyond Rituals, Customs, And Traditions.” Websites: promodpuri.com and progressivehindudialogue.com).
Promod Puri.com 