Book review: 'The songbird on my shoulder'

The songbird on my shoulder
Author: Saaz Aggarwal
Publisher: Black & White Fountain
Pages: 240
Price: Rs300

The Songbird On My Shoulder is a collection of previously published work by Poona-based writer Saaz Aggarwal. The loose theme tying the various pieces is the author’s expression of her personal experiences, musings and thoughts. Towards the end, there are a couple of short fictional writings, but other than that, the work is deeply autobiographical.

There is no dearth of variety in the subjects the author has covered. Saaz Aggarwal writes with a deep honesty about topics as varied as foreign travel, patriotism, being a stepmother, and the madness of Mumbai. All along, her style remains casual and full of humour.

Since the themes are mostly personal, she is at her best when she writes about things close to her heart. The chapter on her father suffering through Parkinson’s is deeply emotional without being melodramatic and will make most readers want to pick up the phone and say hello to a parent perhaps long neglected. Similarly, her love for her three children, including two inherited from a second marriage, makes for great lessons in parenting and family life.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about some of the more general pieces. In ‘On the road with Ravi’ and ‘Evolving Language’, the prose gets carried away and the initial thought seems to get lost. These, along with conspicuously little mention of the husband (to whom the collection is dedicated), are discordant notes in an otherwise well-written collection of articles.

Saaz Aggarwal shares with us the joyous, painful, fun and uncomfortable aspects of her life. We are able to piece together that she grew up on a tea plantation, leading a life of privilege.

Then, for some reason, she was forced to move, and lived an ordinary life, working in Mumbai before her second marriage to a loving and moneyed businessman in Poona. The how and the why of this she has left out. Whether deliberate or incidental, the fact that you want to know more is a testament to her endearing style of writing. So go ahead and read it. You will have fun.