Papillon - Henri Charriere

The book is an account of a fourteen-year period in Papillon's life (October 26, 1931 to October 18, 1945) from when he was wrongly convicted of murder in France and sentenced to a life of hard labor at the Devil's Island penal colony, from where he escaped from prison to ultimately settle in Venezuela, where he lived and prospered, free from French justice.

Papillon endured a brief stay at a prison in Caen. As soon as Papillon boarded the vessel bound for South America, he learned about the brutal life that prisoners must endure at the prison colony. Murders were not uncommon among convicts, and men were cut with makeshift knives for their charger (a hollow, metal cylinder containing money that is lodged in the rectum; it has also been called a plan). Papillon befriended a former banker convicted of counterfeiting named Louis Dega. He agreed to protect Dega from those seeking to murder him for his charger.

Arriving at the penal colony, Papillon immediately claimed to be ill and was sent to the infirmary. There he collaborated with two individuals named Clousiot and André Maturette to escape from the prison by a sailboat, which they acquired with the assistance of the penal settlement's leper colony at Pigeon Island. They let the current of the Maroni River take them to the Atlantic Ocean, after which they began to sail to the north-west.

In Trinidad the trio were joined by three other escapees and were helped on their journey by a British family, the Dutch bishop of Curaçao and several others. Nearing the Colombian coastline, the escapees were sighted; they could not escape for lack of wind, were captured and were then imprisoned.

In the Colombian prison, Papillon joined with another prisoner to escape. After going some distance from the prison, the two went their separate ways. Papillon entered the Guajira peninsula, a region dominated by Native Americans. He was assimilated into a coastal village whose specialty was pearl diving, married two teenage sisters and impregnated them. After spending several months in relative paradise, Papillon became motivated to seek vengeance against those that wronged him.

Soon after leaving the village, Papillon was imprisoned at Santa Marta, then transferred to Barranquilla. There, he was reunited with Clousiot and Maturette. Papillon made numerous escape attempts from this prison, all failing. He was eventually extradited back to French Guiana.

As punishment, Papillon was sentenced to two years of solitary confinement on Île Saint-Joseph (an island in the Îles du Salut group, 11 kilometers from the French Guiana coast). Clousiot and Maturette were given equal sentences. Upon release, Papillon was transferred to Royal Island (also an island in the Îles du Salut group). An escape attempt was foiled by an informant (who Papillon stabbed to death for the act) and Papillon was again sent to solitary confinement, this time for nineteen months. The original sentence of eight years was reduced after Papillon risked his life to save the life of a girl caught in shark-infested waters.

After French Guiana officials decided to support the pro-Nazi Vichy Regime, the penalty for any escape attempt became capital punishment. Realizing this, Papillon decided to feign insanity and be sent to the insane asylum on Royal Island. His reasoning was that insane prisoners could not be sentenced to death for any reason and the asylum was under less heavy guard. He collaborated with another prisoner, but this escape attempt failed. When they were attempting to sail away, their boat was destroyed against the rocks, the other prisoner drowned and Papillon was nearly dashed against the rocks as well.

Papillon returned to the regular prisoner population on Royal Island after being "cured" of his mental illness. He requested that he be transferred to Devil's Island, the smallest and most "inescapable" island in the Iles de Salut group. Studying the waters around the island, Papillon discovered a rocky inlet surrounded by a high cliff where he noticed that every seventh wave would be large enough to carry something on the water far enough out into the sea to drift towards the mainland. He experimented by throwing sacks of coconuts into the inlet.

Papillon found another prisoner, a pirate named Sylvain who had previously sailed along southeast Asia, to go along with this escape attempt. The pirate was famous for raiding ships in the Far East. He would then kill everyone aboard. They threw themselves into the inlet with sacks of coconuts to float on. The seventh wave carried them out into the ocean. After days of drifting on the ocean under the relentless sun, surviving only on coconut pulp, they arrived at the mainland. However, the other prisoner left his coconut sack prematurely and was devoured by quicksand.

Papillon then navigated the mainland to find a Chinese man named Cuic Cuic, the brother of Chang. Cuic Cuic protected himself by making a hut on an "island" of solid ground surrounded by quicksand. His pig was adept at finding a navigable route over the quick sand. The men and the pig made their way to Georgetown, Guyana, by boat. Though he could have lived there as a free man, Papillon decided to continue northwesterly in the company of five other escapees. Reaching Venezuela, the men were captured and imprisoned at the mobile detention camps in the vicinity of El Dorado, a small mining town near the Gran Sabana region. Surviving horrible conditions there, and even finding diamonds, Papillon was eventually released, obtaining Venezuelan citizenship and celebrity status a few years later.

Its a mere recounting of the facts that Papillon has done here. Its more like reading a 10th class history book. There's not even a single adjective to describe his mental state in the whole book. But when it comes to explaining the prison hardships, book stands as the master piece.At the end of the book, its all your emotions that'll make you fall in to tears. Often you get to wonder how a person be so heartless not to mention how he feels when undergoing such hardships.

Doesn't matter how soft or hard it is to read the book, ultimately you'll get the feeling that after all the endurance, Papillon was destined to win. It gives you goose bums to think nothing is impossible!

Of Course I Love You…! Till I find someone else

A book by Durjoy Dutta and Maanvi Ahuja

It is a story set in Delhi, during the years 2006-2008 that revolves around colleges, nightclubs, relationships and friendships. It’s about a young college going guy – Debashish Roy.


Debashish Roy, is as his name suggests, is ordinary. What’s not though is his enviable interminably long list of girls he had managed to date and taken to bed amongst other things. Things are going fine until one day, Avantika, a girl so beautiful that you would have a tendency to stab yourself back to reality, walks into his life and wrests away everything he has.  As his relationship with her gets steamier and deeper, everything else in his life gets on a fast track to one direction. Down.

It takes a dark and a hilarious view on modern day relationships in colleges. Narrated in Debashish Roys’ unsure, confused and testosterone induced voice, it takes a jibe at college time romances.

As Deb’s philandering days come to an end with Avantika who herself two times him, he sees everything from being hunted and followed around the city, getting kicked out his college placements, Deb is tested in every way possible….only to get dumped for a reason which is unfathomable even outside the realms of reality.

As Avantika and his luck desert him, he lands up with a job in his father’s firm, a government office amongst some people who aren’t his father’s best friends. He makes friends with Amit, the genius of the office, who is yet to have his first conversation with a girl, as he waits for his life to sort out. And for Avantika to come back…..

He helps Amit to propose his dream girl Aastha. Avantika returns to Deb upon Sri Guru's insistence. Deb finally finds love and friendship and gets a real life.

Though in the middle, the book gets too boring, its worth spending a day or two reading this book. To a certain extent its a 'A' certifiable book. But completely a 'no- no' to people aged beyond 40.

Good bye California - Alistair MacLean

The plot for the book is set in the United States. An Islamic terrorist kidnaps nuclear scientists and steals radioactive material from a California nuclear power plant. The plot focusses on the plan of the kidnappers to build their own atomic bombs which if exploded along California's earthquake fault lines could kill millions of people and destroy California's major cities.

The inspiration for the plot appears to be acknowledged by Maclean himself in his preface to the 1977 edition of the book where he describes his first experience of an earthquake while in California on 9 February 1972.

This is a fiction which introduced to the world what Islam holy war means. Haven't we so often seen fictions becomes reality?