The Devil and Ms Prym ..Paulo Coelho

I have often thought of the kalighat temple in Kolkata. It is one of the biggest religious sites in India and also one of the biggest red light areas in Kolkata... the tabooed and the sacro sanct co - exist without the raise of an eyebrow.
Why I mentioned this in the context of the book is because it deals with the rather obvious topic of how the good and bad can co - exist, all at the same time...and there is nothing good or bad about it.
Its about how life changes for the inhabitants of Viscos(a small town), when a stranger comes to the city, and incites the villagers to commit a murder and promises to give 12 gold bars to all the residents as a reward to the "devil" in them, to establish that fact that it's always the devil who wins, in the battle of the angels and the demons, all this simply because he was undeservedly left as the only survivor when his daughter was killed by a group of terrorists. Ms. Prym - a young lady who works at a shoddy bar,emerges as the main protagonist as she is the chosen one to voice the stranger's ulterior motives to the rest of the community. She does just that...because she herself needs an answer to who actually wins in the aforesaid battle.
As the story progresses , we get to learn more about the history of Viscos , how it came to be, its religious values, the psyche of the people and a very gripping elucidation of the silent angels at work and the devils who won't give up on the task at hand.
An extremely noteworthy line in the book which stayed with me is, " life can either be too long or too short depending on how you live it."
There are no doubts about the fact that the book is definitely worth a read to find out what the ending is... however what really set my mind thinking, was how often do we acknowledge, that its okay for the devil to rule over sometimes, because in a battle, one or the other is bound to win at one time.
How often do we forget that there is still an angel in us, but probably the devil in us has won so many times that we just don't give the angel a chance.. how often do we let the devil take over simply because we are too used to it.
How often are we spineless enough not to stand up for what we believe in, simply because we want the devils around us to consider our own devils as part of the same gang.
How often are we truly courageous to face life's challenges head on , and choose to do something about it.
come to think of it.. the devil never wins against our wishes.. we choose to let it win...
For the reader of this blog, you'd realise that , this book must have have been really worth its salt to make me think so much about us and our existence which gets from bad to worse everyday ... simply because we choose to let it be!!
Its easy not to be courageous .. but you KNOW that you usually go to sleep feeling like a loser ,because you lacked the courage to defy whats wrong.. more often than not!!