The Call of the Wild

Chapters...

1.Into the Primitive
2.The Law of club and fang
3.The Dominant Primordial Beast
4.Who has won to mastership
5.The Toil of Trace and Trail
6.For the Love of a Man
7.The Sounding of the Call

    What do those chapters tell you?

    A book first published in 1903, the fact that it has stayed relevant today raises it above the 'story of a dog surviving in harsh conditions' view that appears on the surface. In an amazingly multi-layered, yet small book(you'll find yourself doffing your hats to the author for telling so much in so few words), Jack London takes you through a dog's, Buck's, journey through a harsh life. By making no attempts to explicitly juxtapose the events in Buck's life to man's own, he gives you the freedom to paint it in your head. It's a book that offers so much space for the reader to fill in his colors, his own thoughts. It's not Jack London writing a story, but you reading it. It's personal.

    From a princely comfortable life in 'the big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara valley' to being the legendary 'Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack' is a journey that is ruthless, bloody and yet what every man aspires to do in life. The 'call' is what every man wants to hear, clear and loud. It is what every man wants to embrace.

'Harsh. Brutal. Strong.' {says the back-cover}

Read the book. {says I}

PS: After you read the book, have a look at the chapter list to find one of the best summaries ever written for a book. :)

To My Dear Watch

  
     Strange to observe that I didn't get time to write about you. Perhaps because you were not there to tell me the time.

    You might think that a guy who lost his mother at age 2, his dearest uncle when he needed him most, his dearest grandmom when he was too young to comprehend things would not be bothered much about the loss of such a thing as you, a watch, but I am grieving and how!!! I think of the past and so much of it is a journey we both made together.And all through it, you were my unflinching partner, never demanding, always yielding, accompanying me wherever we went.

    I remember those exams we studied together, those tests we wrote, those long moments we waited for her, those long moments which appeared so short when spent with her, those trips through the wild where the only sound was the bike's hum, those naps we took under unknown trees by the side of lonely roads, those waters we played in, those seas we bundled with joy in, those lonely nights we got through listening to song after song, those depressed moments we got through I don't know how, those sad months when it seemed grief was endless...I wouldn't have made it without you. And without you, life wouldn't have been what it was.

    I am so sorry I did not care for you that day you left me. I have since felt a hundred times that I should have fastened you a bit more close, a bit more tighter. you wouldn't have fallen away then. I can now only hope that you are happy wherever you are, and whoever found you is taking really good care of you. (I really wish that someone found you and you are with him... I know the pain of feeling lonely, and my eyes fill up when I imagine you lying in some unknown place, unused, disowned...)

    I miss you my dear friend. You will always remembered.

    I cry my last tears for you now...