The Grapes Are Sour | Arnab Chandra

The age-old fable, "The Fox and the Grapes" is not unknown to us. When the fox cannot reach the grapes he so deeply desires at first, he deems them unworthy. It is this fable by Aesop which led to the origin of the popular phrase, "The grapes are sour." Love, success, a happy life, companionship are all human desires that ignite in us a fox-like hunger and makes us go out of our way in the pursuit of them, only to realize that not everything can be in our control. What do we do then? We start to question the gravity of our desires and convince ourselves to do without achieving them. In addition to drawing parallels between a moral lesson from a world-renowned fable and the harsh realities of real life, this book talks about grief and how we, as mortal fallible human beings, handle it. "The Grapes are Sour' talks about a boy who had so many grapes of desires to crave for but ended up forfeiting them because, probably, it was never meant to be. Perhaps, he deserves better. Or does he? Will he be able to gulp down his ego, face his demons, walk through this journey of handling his chaos and come out whole?