‘Life in a Jiffy’ is a profound and entertaining collection of poems and short stories written by Sam aka Sameera Kesiraju, an author, blogger and poet. She was a dear friend and former student. She was the one who inspired me to write poems, as mentioned in an earlier post.

A great human being and a die-hard optimist, Sameera wrote about life, the beauty in nature, the human spirit, love and relationships. Her writings first appeared on her blog life-in-a-jiffy.blogspot.com. Her poems and short stories provide ample proof of the profound wisdom, vivid imagination and the keen sense of observation that the author possessed.

Sameera experimented with various forms of poetry like Haiku, couplet and free verse. Her poems inspire us to live life a little more each day and urge us to take time to appreciate the small things in life as life can pass us by in a jiffy.

Her poems like “Anticipation”, “Explore the sail”, “Beautiful Broidery”, “Camera Crazy”, “Tell me something about you” etc. are all wonderful and capture various shades of human emotions. Her love for the city of Mysore is evident in some of her poems like “Kiss the Ground” and “An evening conversation” which were inspired by the beautiful environs of the Kukkarahalli and Karanji lakes.

The short stories reveal the author’s eye for detail and transport you into a different world. The clever twist in stories like ‘The Writer’s Date’, ‘Coca Cola’, ‘Many Wines’ etc. take you by complete surprise. Her great characterization, lively descriptions of human emotions coupled with a dose of humor make every story delightful. Overall, ‘Life in a Jiffy’ is a great read. The book is available on Flipkart, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

About the Author:

Sameera was born on January 12, 1987 and spent a large part of her life on the IRMA campus in Anand, Gujarat where her father is a Professor. After finishing her engineering, she joined SDMIMD, Mysore to pursue a PGDM. It was during this time that she started her blog life-in-a-jiffy.blogspot.com on which she published her writings. Her blog won many awards like the ‘Stylish Blogger’, ‘Versatile Blogger’ and ‘Notable Newbie’ among others.

After completing her PGDM in 2011, Sameera joined Software Paradigms Infotech, Mysore as a Business Analyst. During this time, she added many wonderful poems and short stories to her blog. She got married in 2012 to Sanjay, a businessman from Bangalore.

A year later, in a tragic twist of fate, Sameera and her husband died in a road accident on November 1, 2013 while on their way to Wayanad. After her passing away, her elder sister Manasa, compiled her writings and ‘Life in a Jiffy’ was published by Partridge India. Though Sameera, is no longer with us, she lives on in her writings and in each one of us, whose lives she touched.

Some parts of this book review appeared in the ‘Star of Mysore’, a local daily, on January 12, 2015.