Hungry Ghosts: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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This is not an easy read, however it is a rewarding one and will stay with its readers. The Creole combined with some of the most beautiful English words is a symphony of language. A vibrant portrait of Trinidad in the 1940s traces various members of a multiracial community grappling with poverty, emotional connection, and “hereditary pain.” Hungry Ghosts opens with four boys doing a blood pact that will make them brothers for the rest of their lives. Do they know what this pact means? How will it impact their individual lives? That is exactly what we find out in this book. Not the world, not what’s outside of us, but what we hold inside traps us. We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.” The other mind entity is what we call the impartial observer. This mind of present-moment awareness stands outside the preprogrammed physiological determinants and is alive to the present. It works through the brain but is not limited to the brain. It may be dormant in many of us, but it is never completely absent. It transcends the automatic functioning of past-conditioned brain circuits. ‘In the end,...I conclude that there is no good evidence… that the brain alone can carry out the work that the mind does.”

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein | Waterstones

I can feel a sense of things never being enough, the more and more money I earn never fills the spot once I obtain what I want it feels like it didn’t happen and I’m constantly searching for more. First, we follow Hans Saroop, his wife Shweta, and their son Krishna. At first glance, Hans and Shweta seem like a happy couple, Shweta a dutiful wife and Hans a hardworking, faithful husband. Their son Krishna on the other hand is full of mischief and tends to get into trouble. The only thing I wish was that he had a dictionary for the words native to Trinidad. For instance, (I know Jamaican patois very well) a Duppy and a Jumbie are the same, just different cultures. However! Being from NYC, that's a word I'm highly familiar with. But there was a lot that I had to look up because they were more proper in tone. Just a guess! As I said, I listened to my ex speak Jamaican Patois for 35 years.

Shyam Selvadurai writes about Love, be it Filial, romantic or otherwise, intertwining the Sri Lankan political landscape from 1983 to 1994 , and trials and tribulations of an immigrant's life. For a person who grew up during the mentioned years , the situations and characters in the story evokes nostalgia. One suddenly gets reminded about the real News , that dominated the headlines of newspapers. I actually started thinking of Richard De Zoysa , when reading about Mili Jayasinghe. I literally started this book after chanting a mantra in hopes I would be able to get out the slump I've fallen into. Ironically it looks like it worked. that you must see hell, stare long into it, so you can know when others are going through it—or had gone through it.

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein | Goodreads

Trinidad is one of our favorite Caribbean island destinations so when I heard about this book, I knew I had to read it. I also love Caribbean literature and I was not at all disappointed with this novel -- Hungry Ghosts is a dark yet phenomenal story and Trinidadian author Kevin Jared Hosein is a phenomenal writer. Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.” What's the best part of the book? The beautiful beautiful relationship that blossoms somewhere halfway in the story and it is like rain soaking a parched land. I wish the whole book were just about that relationship so that we didn't have to get to know all these awful people. It appears to have been started by elites and finished by hungry but lazy Buddhist monks. It reminds me of recent news reports about con artists in New York threatening superstitious older Chinese women with curses if they didn't cough up offerings of cash. But the stories about the perethayas are even more insidious: they're designed to rob their victims of both their ambition and their valuables. At least three generations of Shivan's family seem cursed, unable to enjoy their lives because of their past misdeeds. This is, perhaps, an allusion to Sri Lanka, which could be an island paradise, but is instead known for ethno-religious hatred, brutality, and innovations in suicide bombing.Tirokudda Kanda: Hungry Shades Outside the Walls (Pv 1.5), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 8 August 2010.Retrieved on 24 October 2011 . A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

Hungry Ghosts – HarperCollins Hungry Ghosts – HarperCollins

The Hungry Ghosts is a story about karma, the burden of it, and a family whose particular burden is that they always seem to destroy the things they love. The only way to break the cycle, the stories say, is to freely offer kindness to those who need it. Filled with Sri Lankan folklore and allegorical Buddhist stories, The Hungry Ghosts paints a vivid picture of life in Colombo and the immigrant experience in Canada. There is a lot of strong themes happening in the book and generally that is hard for an author to explore each and do it justice but Hosein was able to do it expertly. We had coming-of-age, love, poverty, classism, religion and racism well explored- each leaving you with food for thought. I also loved how truly authentic the book felt- you were taken to the island of Trinidad and Tobago during the 1940s and you feel that through the writing and research done. The question is never “Why the addiction?” but “Why the pain?” The research literature is unequivocal: most hard-core substance abusers come from abusive homes.” Shyam Selvadurai writes in such a way that you are transported into a fictional place but still feel like the events are not fictional at all. The story is gripping. It was an emotional journey and my feelings were all over the place. It’s a very realistic book that will give you different perspectives into the conflicts that shaped Sri Lanka into the country it is today and how historical events impacted the lives of various people. We may not be responsible for another’s addiction or the life history that preceded it, but many painful situations could be avoided if we recognized that we are responsible for the way we ourselves enter into the interaction. And that, to put it most simply, means dealing with our own stuff.”An impressive and powerful novel by a real storyteller that makes for an immersive reading experience. I am sad that I finished it and will miss the characters, but I am pretty sure this is a book that will be talked about in the coming months. I would not be surprised if this shows up on the Booker longlist. Triggers include violence, sexual assault, animal cruelty, child death, extreme poverty, racism, and bullying. The addict’s reliance on the drug to reawaken her dulled feelings is no adolescent caprice. The dullness is itself a consequence of an emotional malfunction not of her making: the internal shutdown of vulnerability. I being a ksatriya pretender stopped her in the wilderness, became a wayside robber and took her viaticum with clothes along with the dress of her son. I wrapped them around my head and wanted to leave. I saw the little boy drinking water from a jar. In that wilderness, only that much water was there.