Paulo Coelho's 'Like the Flowing River'

          On 26th February of this year, I received an excellent book from my school teacher respected Partha Sir. Partha Sir has always been a deep source of inspiration for me since my school days. He always guides and inspires me for creative writings. 'Like the flowing River' is the book which I had received from him. If you're a reader and get a book as a gift, it's always a unforgettable pleasure for you, I had also felt excited on receiving this book.

Paulo Coelho is one of the most renowned names in the contemporary world of literature. A Brazilian writer, whose books have been translated over 100 languages and have sold million copies throughout the world. He is well known among the readers for his excellent fictions and prose , specially as the author of 'Alchemist'. 'Like the flowing River' is an anthology of short writings authored by him. This book has covered the author's personal life and experiences as well as various contemporary issues such as political, socio-economic, spiritual and literature. A total of 102 writings has been included in this book.

Today, I'm going to discuss about three essays from this book. These three essays have deeply touched my heart and consciousnes. First, 'Prepared for the Battle but with a few doubts', where the author discusses about the minor challenges of our lifen that usually come in our day to day life of every person. Sometimes,these challenges may create many serious or major problems. It depends on us how we accept them. As a human being or as an individual, we should never give up a single chance to overcome those challenges. Life is full of struggles, sometimes these are minors and sometimes very pressurizing. But we should never loosen our strength. There might be many doubts in the way of battle, but we have to overcome the doubts and step forward. There is one way to achieve victory over the doubts and that is the way of gaining knowledge through various ways. 

Mr. Coelho writes a very intresting story named 'Raj tells me a story' in this collection. In this story, he describes the strength of one's deep faith towards the 'Almighty'. Through the power of faith, one can easily cross the dicey and dangerous terrains of life. But one thing is most important that he must have strong faith.

The third write-up is 'How to climb Mountain', which is one of the most inspirational writings that I have ever come across. Achieving the goal of life is just like climbing the mountain. There are many paths, extreme challenges many doubts. We need to have power, self confidence and deep consciousness- to achieve both of these goal. Mr. Coelho writes, "Tell your story, be an example to others. Tell everyone that it's possible, and then others will find the courage to climb their own mountains."

Not only these three, but there are many witty, interesting and inspirational writings titled 'Devil's pool', 'My Funeral', 'Living your own legend', 'The tears of the Desert', 'God's Sign', 'Thank you, President Bush' are included in 'Like the flowing River'. Thank you very much Sir for giving this wonderful book!