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To Kill a Snow Dragonfly
Even as the snow falls existentially, the portends aren't good for Lobsang's family: A mole has appeared on his little sister Bhunchung s left cheek, foretelling that her husband will die an untimely death. Can the mole be removed? After all, Grandfather is a tantric lama with magical powers.
As Bhunchung and Lobsang worry about the distant future, their village in Tibet is swept up in the Chinese Revolution, with Mao s troops overrunning it and enforcing hard labour. Will they manage to escape from Tibet? And just where has Grandfather disappeared after the Chinese arrived?
Seen though the eyes of Lobsang, To Kill a Snow Dragonfly is an evocative journey through revolutions and disruptions, desires and memories, friendships and exile, as the narrative moves from a tranquil Tibetan village to a boarding school in south India and eventually to Bombay.
As Bhunchung and Lobsang worry about the distant future, their village in Tibet is swept up in the Chinese Revolution, with Mao s troops overrunning it and enforcing hard labour. Will they manage to escape from Tibet? And just where has Grandfather disappeared after the Chinese arrived?
Seen though the eyes of Lobsang, To Kill a Snow Dragonfly is an evocative journey through revolutions and disruptions, desires and memories, friendships and exile, as the narrative moves from a tranquil Tibetan village to a boarding school in south India and eventually to Bombay.
226 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 5, 2013
And I fall in love! Head-over-heels. I discover this is a labour of love. An enviable love-story, of the finest kind. The kind we carry in our hearts forever for the playmates of our childhood so that their joys and sorrows, their personal histories and cultural footprints are ours too. This is the story of a displaced “Malai Lama” Lobsang struggling in the alien, mostly snowless world of a boarding school in Yercaud while his family lies fragmented.
And yet, this book is what I had pegged it at in the very beginning. Ambitious. The scope is vast enough to be epical. In conceptualization and those deft masterstrokes of immensely powerful story-telling, Paul succeeds in drawing his reader into that shadowy wonderland that is fictionalised fact.
I love that sweet lilt in this narrative which dazzles and soothes.
“The (forest) canopy lets in some light that flashes like many small knives. The gnarled trees look on at us, hiding their wisdom in their trunks. Snakes slither off on rotting leaves, away from our little footsteps.”
This book stirs a sense of faint envy at its brilliance. It humbles me and shames me. Shames, that in my visits to Bylakuppe, the Tibetan settlement in Karnataka, I didn’t go beyond my greed for Thangka paintings and Tibetan silver jewellery. For in the cheerful people and their offers of momos, their serenity and acceptance, lie fragmented the untold stories of devastation and grit that we needed Sharad P. Paul to come and sensitise us to....
And yet, this book is what I had pegged it at in the very beginning. Ambitious. The scope is vast enough to be epical. In conceptualization and those deft masterstrokes of immensely powerful story-telling, Paul succeeds in drawing his reader into that shadowy wonderland that is fictionalised fact.
I love that sweet lilt in this narrative which dazzles and soothes.
“The (forest) canopy lets in some light that flashes like many small knives. The gnarled trees look on at us, hiding their wisdom in their trunks. Snakes slither off on rotting leaves, away from our little footsteps.”
This book stirs a sense of faint envy at its brilliance. It humbles me and shames me. Shames, that in my visits to Bylakuppe, the Tibetan settlement in Karnataka, I didn’t go beyond my greed for Thangka paintings and Tibetan silver jewellery. For in the cheerful people and their offers of momos, their serenity and acceptance, lie fragmented the untold stories of devastation and grit that we needed Sharad P. Paul to come and sensitise us to....
March 1, 2018
Tibetan fable.
Chinese occupation of Tibet and the protaginist's flight to India with his young sister.
Their grandfather was Tantric Lama - spoke to snow and had many wise words and beliefs such as " A moment of patience in fit of anger, spares many seasons of sorrow".
Beautiful
Chinese occupation of Tibet and the protaginist's flight to India with his young sister.
Their grandfather was Tantric Lama - spoke to snow and had many wise words and beliefs such as " A moment of patience in fit of anger, spares many seasons of sorrow".
Beautiful
September 18, 2019
A wonderful and poignant work of Sharad Paul.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews