Constructive Channels of Ascension

Aritra Sarkar's Stress to Zest is a collection of transformative parables dealing with stressors like relationships, career, and societal pressures. The book emphasizes on self-discovery, passion, and resilience as pathways to personal growth and fulfillment

- SANJEEV CHOPRA

When my friend Lipika Bhushan insisted that I review a book on Parables of Growth, I expressed an initial hesitation. She prodded me to look beyond the world of political economy and historical fiction—genres I am most comfortable with. Taking a dig at the books I read, write, and review, she said, with a chuckle: books can also be written without end notes and long bibliographies!

And so, the new year weekend was spent with Aritra Sarkar's Stress to Zest: Stories and Lessons for Personal Transformation. The dedication page held my attention: Aritra Sarkar describes his parents—Mama and Baba—as My origin, My ocean, My bridge, My achievement.

Now let's delve into the parables contained in this book. While at one level, stress is a generic term, each of the seven common stress factors—financial, relationship, job, health, competition, social, and parental—are also unique. But each of them also has an inbuilt opportunity to surmount them.

So, let's begin with these 'millennial' stories. Biryani Band is about Sonny Kapoor and Ankita, who loved each other passionately while doing their MBA, but were drifting apart when living together—for they did not—or could not—help each other's passions—his for dance, and hers for music. They were becoming extremely negative towards each other because of mismatched expectations, but once they started investing in each other's life, it was a miracle all over again. Sonny's father comes to him in a vision and says, "I left your world because you'd banished me from your heart. I left your world because I died in your dreams. Nonetheless, I am still present in the universe. I am here, everywhere and nowhere." There is a happy ending with Ankita's Biryani Band winning the Filmfare Musical award, and the couple is blessed with their first son, who stops crying on hearing... Ek ladki ko dekha...