Slow...

by Digonta Bordoloi

Baba is born in a remote corner, sheltered from modern development. His father's job takes the family from town to town, and with each move, Baba comes to terms with his new life. He spends an idyllic childhood doing things at his own pace, bending the rules whenever he can. And then the unthinkable happens. Slow is the story of a boy who preferred to walk, when the world around him was gearing up to run. "Slow is a luxuriously sensual and provocative journey through life and death that examines the beauty and irony in the world around us." FourWord Reviews

Genres: Drama

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Digonta Bordoloi grew up in the North East of India. In his early twenties, career dreams took him first to Delhi, then to Mumbai where he spent over a decade in the advertising industry. Escaping the corporate world, he landed up in Africa. After some time in Uganda, Digonta lived for a while in Swaziland and Zanzibar, Tanzania, where he started writing Slow in 2009; his first novel. Digonta lives with his wife Susie, and they call Australia and India home.

Reviews

[Jaideep Khanduja · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://pebbleinthestillwaters.blogspo...

Book Review: Slow by Digonta Bordoloi: Not a Book Not a Story But A Journey of Life
Slow by Digonta Bordoloi is a book of two ends of life. If one end is life, the other end is death. It is a story of slow and fast and the sync between the two. It tells the rhythms of slow and chaos of fast. It is a story of me and you. It is in fact a story of every human being, every life, every person. It is a story of journey and destination. It is the story of reality of a journey not being a journey and a journey itself becoming a destination. It is a story of friends and family. It is a story of aspirations of life... and beyond. It is a story of hills and plains. It is a story of relations of heart and relations of skin. It is a story of innocence. It is a story of one drop of life that if you are not able to fetch during your lifetime, the life becomes useless and worthless.

Slow by Digonta Bordoloi is a fiction published by Become Shakespeare. This is the second book I have read from Become Shakespeare and have started admiring their quality of writers and writings. Excellent stuff, I must admit. Earlier book that I read was a cupful of Aha by anandaa. Well, back to Slow. Digonta has put lot of philosophy and real life experience in it in a very rich and uniquely flavored manner. The book, though being fiction, seems more real than life, gives lot of inspiration and insights. It forces you to introspect and builds checkpoints to redefine life we are living. It draws a full life size canvas putting reader at the center point. And then it makes you travel on this canvas from one corner to another, from one end to another, where each end becomes a new beginning and each beginning becomes an end. The whole journey and picture on canvas - both are crystal clear - provided you travel and read it correctly.

Digonta Bordoloi's Slow is the story of Baba who is born in a joint family. His father Mukul and mother Ambika shower the same amount of love on him as on his sibling Riku. It is one of the remote north east location in Assam where Baba is born but soon, based on the nature of job of his father Mukul, he keeps moving from places to places, plains to hills, and then back to plains; depending of the posting of his father. At time book becomes slow but just at the verge of reader losing interest in the story, Digonta, magically twists it and brings the train back on track quite swiftly. Story is more like the heartbeat graph on a screen where it goes up and it goes low, but the heart continues to beat and heartbeat never drops.

Overall an excellent book to read - Slow by Digonta Bordoloi can be divided into two distinct portions, one can be termed life, and another death. The death part is as interesting and engrossing as the life part. Baba is quite slow as compared to others in the family. When others are running he is walking, when others are walking, he is standing and lost in nature. When the teacher is teaching in class, Baba is somewhere outside, out of the prison of classroom.

A must read for everyone.

[Avinash Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his debut book Slow, Digonta sets the story in the most picturesque and beautiful places of North-East India. Slow is the story of Baba and his family who moves to various towns of the region, thanks to the Government job of Baba’ s father. As the tittle suggests, the author is in no hurry to rush to the plot. He takes his time with the atmosphere and the characters. He takes his time in establishing the multiple point of views and he takes his time in giving us beautiful tour of Kohima, Tezpur, Guwahati, Dimapur and many such towns.

The style is fresh and setting is beautiful

Full Review: http://wp.me/p18IHE-hc

[Sean Endress · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for reviewing purposes. The opinions below are entirely my own. This review has been taken from my Amazon.com review.

Every now and then I come across a book that makes me want to lower the ratings on most of my other reviews to make these five stars more meaningful. I'd give "Slow" six if I could.
I must make one point clear right away: "Slow" is not about plot, it is about people. It is about what it means to be a person on this Earth, in Indian society, as part of a unit of family or friends or employees. It is at once down-to-earth and fantastic, powerful, yet gentle. "Slow" is not meant to be read through in a few nights, but rather a piece to be examined carefully to be understood.

As the title and premise might indicate, the actual pace of the plot is, well, slow. Normally this would be a huge detractor, but for this book, it works, because there is no hurry to move from point to point. Mr. Bordoloi's English is far from mechanically perfect, but the language is descriptive and, when needed, truly beautiful. He provides an outstandingly comprehensible insight into Indian culture, including traditions, values, and structures that might be very foreign to readers from other countries.

I mustn't say too much in the interest of spoiler prevention, but a dramatic turn is taken in the middle of the book as we follow the main character's path to adulthood, one that elevates the work from good to remarkable, and keeps it there for the entire second half.
The narrative structure is generally easy to follow - it jumps from narrator to narrator, and it sometimes takes a few lines to understand whose point of view you're in, but the overall experience enhances the driving point of the book - to take pause, to examine, to see from all angles to truly understand.

Bottom line: "Slow" is not your average book, but rather an experience, to be slowly savored. It will take time to read, but you must make the time. I highly recommend it.

Some adult language and situations appear later in the book, parents be advised.
With questions or comments, please feel free to leave a note below or to email me at SeanOnAmazon@gmail.com.

[Sandra Stiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out extremely slow. I believe it was done to give us a feel for the main character Baba. He takes life slow. He examines everything around him and really lives in the moment. My only problem with the first half of the book was that it jumped around from character to character and often I didn't know who the narrator was. I felt that the first half of the book would have been a little easier to read if we would have had some indication as to who was doing the talking. About half way through the book a major incident happens. Baba's life is changed in an instant. From that point on in the book time speeds up. However, Baba still sees life through his own pace and uses that lens to help his friends and family.
There was always this underlying message that we need to slow down. We need to redefine our goals as we progress through life. We need to look at life and re-evaluate everything around us. This is something we can only do if we take the time to slow down. Baba helps his friends through memories and gentle nudgings to do just that.

This was definitely a most unique books. It gave me a little peek into life in different parts of India. The reader gets to look at the different cultures, traditions, foods and language of this country. It shows that no matter where you are a kid is a kid and and adult is an adult. They think some of the same thoughts and have some of the same ideas no matter what country they live in. I have to say honestly, if the author had not contacted me, this probably would not have been a book I would have searched out on my own. The blurb was interesting enough but didn't leave me with enough information that would have stood out in the crowd. For that reason I am glad the author did contact me because I can honestly say I could not stop reading the book. I read it from cover to cover.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Digonta Bordoloi’s Slow breaks all the rules to create a really intriguing, absorbing read. An initial narrator opens the story from the womb, but he is slow to arrive, slow to study, slow to change. He’d rather talk and play with his dog than learn to walk to school. And he lives in a wonderfully rural India, filled with scents, sounds, tastes and smells, enjoyed with friends and neighbors and extended families.

Foreign words spice the text in just the right proportion, adding flavor to this literary feast. And the voices of multiple narrators, all told in first person, blend into a convincing world where a village raises the child and relates his tale. But Baba’s world is expanding. His father’s job leads the family to move away again. Trains cross the land. And slowly dreams grow to adulthood.

Beautifully authentic, told with wonderful detail, gorgeous language, and perfect imagery, this story builds to a surprising climax then suddenly changes direction. Time leaps and the world trades slowness for modernity. But Baba’s now-distant viewpoint still remembers what really matters, and his loyalty will keep him close.

The second part of this novel is strangely different. History, old and new, invites the reader in. But the false speed and fake light of modern life seem a dark disguise. Then, slowly, Baba invites a change of pace. And a wholly satisfying ending makes the whole tale settle into place.

I really enjoyed this novel. I never knew where it was going, but I was content to follow along, waiting and wondering, and taking pleasure in the journey, caught in the dreams, scents and sounds of it all.

Disclosure: The author kindly gave me a free ecopy when I invited him to be a guest on my blog.

[Aparajita Shorey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few weeks back I received this book with a dull colorless cover and a pretty unique name- Slow…You imagine a lot about the story when you read the title for the first time..maybe its about the slow pace of the rural life or a rural boy who is not able to keep up with a pace of the modern world and so on. Surprisingly everything I imagined went for a toss as soon as I read the first few pages of the book as the story begins with an unborn child contemplating about his life in the womb.

Slow… is the story of Baba. The second child of Mukul and Ambika and brother to Riku, Baba is born the remote corner of Assam in India. While Baba grows up, his father’s job takes the family from town to town, and with each move, Baba comes to terms with his new life.He spends an idyllic childhood doing things at his own pace, bending the rules whenever he can till his life takes a turn for the unthinkable and everything changes.
As I mentioned. I did find the first part of the story pretty interesting. It told us all about Baba, his family , how he was different than his friends, his family and found joy in doing things at his own leisure and pace. A lot of instances in the book reminded me how easily we ignore certain things happening around us just because we are moving too fast.

The narration is beautifully and pretty authentic when it comes to details. Language is so simple with addition of some native words at the appropriate places. When it comes character development....Read complete review here: http://www.coml13.com/index.php/2014/...

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Escape into the charms of India as lived by teenage boys

This was a most unusual story, told mostly in narrative style through more than half of the book. The story encompasses several teenage boys in India, one of whom, “Baba” lives life at his own pace, which is that he takes little interest in learning to talk, socializing with others, learning in school and he lives life at his own pace. He has an unusual gift of communicating with animals, and especially his dog Lumba. His older brother Riku drags him into groups of other teenagers and at times it is difficult to know who is narrating the scenes. But the prose is beautifully written, sets the scenes and actions out so clearly it is like being there, and after awhile the reader doesn’t care if there is any dialogue to bring forth a more active story. Eventually Baba reaches a turning point in his life, causing him to make decisions he had never made before and to act in ways alien to himself.

The reader gets much insight into the culture of India, at least in these few areas described, and although much of the terminology describing food and preparation of it is in one of the cultural languages of India, it does not diminish the story at all. Although it took me awhile to understand where the author was going, once I did, the tale took on a life of its own and I was pulled into it, enjoying it. With these caveats, I believe many readers will be educated and entertained by this story.

[Diane Rapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A foreign memoir with a twist

This book read almost like a memoir during the first half, skipping between characters in the first person point of view. It beautifully explored growing up in Indian rural culture and the life of Baba, his family and friends. The only problem occurred due to poor transitions when the narrative switched between characters. Since it was written in the first person, it took several paragraphs to figure out who was "talking" and why we had switched.

I enjoyed reading about Indian culture and daily life, Baba's school years, and getting to know his family and friends. The switch happened in the second half of the book, when a major event occurred that I don't want to disclose. The narrative became third person and the time period jumped twenty years into the future. Baba explored the dramatic changes in the country and the lives of his family and friends. It took on a metaphysical tone but did not get weird or preachy. I found the second half of the book intriguing and more enjoyable. It moved faster and seemed to have a point.

If you enjoy learning about foreign cultures, read this book. Few of us will ever get to "spy" on an Indian family and get to know them, so this book gives us that opportunity. It moves slow but the pace builds until it reaches a satisfying end. Recommended to readers who enjoy memoirs with a twist.

[Nandhini Chandrasekaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review @

http://pagesfromserendipity.wordpress...

Slow is the story of Baba, a thoughtful little boy who does everything at his own slow pace. He was born a little late past nine months. While others might say he was slow, he says he didn’t care keeping time. That’s how the book begins.

This book is a speed breaker for all those married to their corporate worlds, living life with the only motive to compete that one person, racing without knowing where the reach point is, searching relationships within flesh and skin, devoting the entire life to own that flat – in short, people who prefer to feed their lust, greed and pride rather their hearts and souls, in the name of climbing up the success ladder.

If you love reading books at your own pace like Baba, read and re-read lines and merge with the scene before you would turn the page, this is the perfect book for you. It is a kind of book that needs to be dived into deeply. It demands the readers to sync with the author’s mind to get the subtle wisdom in it. If you are a hurry-burry reader who loves finishing books overnight, cannot withstand a little out-of-track description and impatient to see the depths between lines, beware, the title is a sure warning!

[Natasha Borah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story starts in northeast India. So I could totally relate to the locations and characters. The story starts with the birth of the protagonist Baba. From the time of his birth Baba is a slow child. He takes his own sweet time eat, in learning to walk, speak and gain pace with the world. The author writes about Baba's life as a young child growing into a gawky teenager as he moves from town to town as his father gets transferred. The book is a delight till exactly the midway. Then author goes haywire with the story.

At precisely halfway of the book, the author kills Baba at the young age of fifteen. Sorry for revealing this but it is kind of important. And then takes his soul nineteen years fast forward, where Baba (in soul form) travels from place to place to see what's going on in his family's lives and his childhood friend's life...Full review at NatashazWords

[Wendy Hines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow is a unique book that almost reads like a memoir. Baba takes his time with everything he does, with his friends and his surroundings. He travels a lot with his family in India and the descriptive of the area are intriguing.

Then something happens to Baba and the book skips forward twenty years. Baba shares his same eloquent descriptive about what has changed since that time and what is transpiring in his present day. Baba is very easy to like and the other characters are easy to like too. The change and the similarities between Baba as a child and an adult are worth the exploration. Although the narrative could use some editing, as it was hard to decipher which character was talking, I was hard pressed to put this book down. It kept me riveted and I highly enjoyed it!

[Anand Menon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the book...Brilliant lines and phrasing of thought...
Liked the style of narration too....
That said did feel that the author could not carry the brilliance through to the end, the latter stages the book did tend to loose the grip on the reader....
Highly recommended read, loved it....
Caveat: Having grown up in Assam , did sure draw me to the story more given that one does tend to identify with the region...

[Mindy (Boyer) Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written story..About people. Life. Love. Instantly draws you in and transports you to India. 'Slow' also kept my attention the entire time and left me thinking until the very end.. It's one of those that will stick with you a lifetime. Highly recommended!