Showing posts with label BOOK REVIEWS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BOOK REVIEWS. Show all posts

Saturday 27 June 2020

PROLOGUE- IT ALL HAPPENED IN A SCHOOL





      IT ALL HAPPENED IN A SCHOOL

                                                         a novel by Gaurav Sharma







PROLOGUE

GOD & GURU CONVENT
Monday, September 11, 2017

The chirpy five-year-old angel to her father is unusually quiet today. After months, she has refused to have lunch with her father after returning from school. He tries his best to cajole her but nothing works.  He gives up and infers that she is not well. But, strangely, as her parents turn away, she slips into the bathroom.
Minutes pass. She is still in the bathroom. The father, restless and worried, asks his wife to check. The mother finds her frantically washing her clothes. The bloodstains on her clothes have tinged the water red. Soon, the mother finds out that her little daughter has been raped. The girl tells her mother, “The uncle who wears a cap has beaten me with fingers down there.”
The father rushes her to a hospital where the doctors confirm that she has been raped. Her condition deteriorates and she is in a critical state now.
Police have arrested the culprit. This forty-year-old ‘uncle’ is a peon in her school. He, himself is the father of a teenage daughter.
The innocent victim also mentions that she had complained to a teacher but she laughed it out.
She goes to TAGORE PUBLIC SCHOOL in Gandhi Nagar, Delhi.
Barely three days before this heinous incident was a boy found murdered in the toilet of RYAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL in Gurugram, Haryana. Police arrested an employee of the school, a bus conductor, and reported that he had confessed to the boy’s murder. Later, it surfaced that a senior student of the same school had killed the boy.
The rapist and the killer didn’t think about the parents for whom their children were the hope and purpose of life. They didn’t think that their merciless act would paint a dirty picture of all schools. In the latter incident, the criminal himself was a juvenile. By committing this needless crime, he killed the myriads dreams of four parents.
The schools are supposed to be the safest place for children after their homes. They are not. Not any longer. Even the teachers are not true to their profession. The teacher the little girl complained to should have listened to her and should have acted upon immediately. She was a woman and must be a mother to a daughter.
The extensive coverage of these crimes by the media has ensured that the culprits would be brought to justice but, there had been a case that didn’t come into the limelight. Power stamped out the flames before they could grow. However, the ashes refused to cool down. Another five-year-old was raped in a school twelve years ago.
The news of an untoward incident in a school anywhere makes tremors run through me. My foundations shake and the earth threatens to loosen its grip over me. The sun looks away. Skies spit on me. The air cuts through the arches on my terrace hurling expletives. The ‘Nishan Sahib’ and the huge Cross installed on the terrace feel ashamed of their association with me. Terrible events of yesteryears still hover around and blatantly refuse to die.
I am not the only one who suffers when a felony is committed to any school student. My horrendous past troubles another person. It refuses to allow him peace as well and haunts him as severely as it haunts me. When a gross offence occurs in a school, he comes here after work, to visit the Gurudwara sahib and sit quietly for some time. The magnitude of our guilt is so huge that twelve years of remorse could not wash it off.
This man, Harjeet Singh, is a former employee of God & Guru Convent. The terrible events that took place fifteen years ago devastated him such that he had to quit his job. The disaster did help him to evolve as a human being and as a teacher; however, the cost of this transformation was so high that it would keep him burdened for life.
I am happy for him because his career flourished after he left me as it always happens with all the good teachers who unwittingly join this school. They prosper in life and career when they change their employer. As if, they serve here under a curse and once that curse is lifted, there is no looking back for them. Harjeet is now the Principal of a reputed school in North Delhi.
When he resigned from his job, his wife was pregnant with their first child. “If the baby is a girl, I'll call her Pankhudi and if it's a boy, I'll call him Soubhagya.” He had decided. Pankhudi and Soubhagya were two of his colleagues during the last three years of his tenure here. He adored both. His daughter is twelve and son is ten years old now.
It is ten past three and Harjeet is here.
Since the day I was founded, I have a special power. When someone associated with me contemplates sitting alone, their thoughts seep into me. I’m a sole witness to the rumblings of discontent and an audience to their soliloquies.



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Monday 14 October 2019

BOOK REVIEW - SUMMER HOLIDAYS





BOOK REVIEW

                         SUMMER HOLIDAYS

                                  By KORAL DASGUPTA


“Some sentiments are personal. They are deep and impassioned. They expose the raw, unfabricated feelings of the heart so ruthlessly that it feels naked.”  (Page 223)

To a writer, a review is not just about praise or criticism. The unimagined and never thought of perceptions that reviews bring out, which sometimes, even the creator of the story hasn’t touched upon are more valuable to a writer.

While reading ‘SUMMER HOLIDAYS’ I was wondering how challenging it was to write this story. For me, it would have been too difficult to write such a story. I was gobsmacked, mesmerised and in awe of the authoress. In an era when everyone writes either a Romance or a Thriller, someone chooses to write about families, siblings, and relations. And, it’s not just a naive attempt but a masterpiece. I reckon this book will soon be in the curriculum for the students pursuing literature. This is the story that I would call ‘Real Fiction’.

I have great respect for the people who respect relations. Our relations are our strength. They are the people God wanted to be in our lives. Our relatives are the people who love us in spite of knowing all our shortcomings. Their unconditional love brightens up our lives. We may not hear from them for months even then, we live with the assurance that we can bank upon them in the hour of need. The belief that some people are just a call away and will come to our aid no matter what the circumstances are makes us face all challenges life throws at us. A rift, small disagreements, trivial arguments, random quarrels should not cut off the divine bond that binds us. Our lives will always suffer and feel the lack of cheerfulness if we shove them out of the sphere, they are naturally an inseparable part of.

This story has touched me, stirred my emotions, wetted my eyes many times and for a change, made me a slow reader- I sipped it rather than gulping that I normally do. This book is a ‘Research Material.’

“When you don’t water your plants, they die.” This, Major Dhillon says about relations.

Narrated in an uncomplicated third person, the story begins with a rift between parentless siblings- a brother and a sister, that distances them for years but another pair of siblings-their kids, eventually bring them together again.

The protagonist, Rishi is a real artist. The way he treats Meera stirred the brother in me. He is protective but wants her to transform the small-town-introvert-maiden in her into a confident woman who flaunts her goodness. How great it is that a brother tells his sister that ‘She makes heads turn’. The teasing remarks he passes to his sister takes you back to your childhood.

    “Someone seems to have made peace with tattoos.”

The manner, in which Koral Dasgupta describes the artwork, shows her artisanal skills. I could see the picture that Viyaan buys and the sketch of the boy sitting under the banyan tree in front of the tea-stall.
I love the way he warns Viyaan Iyer, his employer against flirting with his sister. And, the way he snubs the taxi driver when he Meera reaches Mumbai. And, how he sweetly he treats Shabnam. Girls, do read this book and you will fall in love with Rishi.

Meera impresses as a motherless girl and a daughter of a disciplined Army officer. I love her no-prejudice-demeanour towards his father. Daughters are always so accommodating and understanding. I admire the efforts she put in to understand her brother, Rishi.

Major General Anil Dhillon is a stereotype army officer, disciplined, egoist and suppressor of emotions. He impresses towards the end when he accepts the imposter Rahul Pandey as his daughter’s suitor although he disliked his habits. That’s what a father is.

Viyaan Iyer appears rude. Despite his magnanimous personality, I worried about Meera whenever she meets him.

Deepti Bua is all right though, I felt that the author could have shown her thinking about her brother and niece a few times.

What a man Sharat Bahl is! A brilliantly drawn character blessed to have inherited the author’s great sense of humour. A perfect English literature professor. I had instant respect for him when he says, “In a few days he will see his dreams come to life. He will be able to touch it. Can anyone be richer than that?”
And when he says to Meera, “Usually it’s my wife who stands there staring at that photograph. I had just started to rejoice that she had suddenly grown young. Tough luck.”

And, the wife, Deepti Bua refuses to hold back.

“You can trust English Professors to be desperate.”
The ever-enigmatic and infamous Husband-Wife equation has been realistically expressed.

“Just check whether there are chilli flakes in the tea”

“You do all kinds of strange things and I have to hear about it for months after……… Why should I face the music for someone else’s strange habits?”     (Page 133 is fantastic)

We wonder how strange things manage to find only us. This is the kind of story that will bring solace to our distress of being cursed. When an author writes about the things you thought happened to you only, a sense of relief embarks upon you that you are not alone.

There is philosophy even in the humour. The comparison that the author draws between a Physics lecturer wife and an English-literature-professor husband is thought-provoking- She looked older than her age while he looked the same.

Shiraz, a mere gardener, the non-participant and yet very much part of the story is the author’s most favourite. Why, she tells in the acknowledgements. Shiraz never does anything wrong. He is the only one, Rishi has no complaints about. Shiraz is an unflawed human being. He grows beautiful marigolds. He talks to them. Rishi is so smitten by Shiraz that he finds his daughter the most perfect girl.
Shiraz would turn everything into an enchanting story.
He composes folk songs. Everything beautiful nature has, manifests in his songs. A lover of mankind is always a lover of nature though it may not be the other way around. Shiraz dies of snakebite.

“The ugliness is an illusion…You have to see through it to reach the real beauty…” Shiraz says.

The vain comparison between Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar irks the cricket-fanatic in me.

“Work like you are having a blast with the bat (like Kohli), rather than worshipping the bat like Tendulkar.”

And, not forgetting Kunj Bihari ji, the mouthpiece of wisdom, I strongly feel, he exists somewhere if not at IIT Mumbai. He exists and the author has studied him closely for she has written this character with remarkable precision.

Page number 239 to 243, I read with tears in my eyes despite the author’s spirited efforts of balancing emotions with humour. Let me tell you Koral Dasgupta, your brilliance failed here.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS is the kind of book on which I can write a thesis. It’s a book I can read again and again.
But, I am weird. Ending this write-up without criticism will disturb my digestion. A question I asked the writer in me after I finished reading SUMMER HOLIDAYS, why do we writers bring in characters, use them to our advantage and then discard them. I felt sorry for Professor Shayan Banerjee. Why was he in the story? And, the little boy who sold incense sticks on the road, who meets Rishi, rides on his bike, imparts a piece of valuable advice and perishes. Just one appearance?

I maintain that the way someone writes shows the way he or she lives. Only a person who values his relations could have written such a fabulous story. SUMMER HOLIDAYS will always remain alive in my memory. Beautiful story it is!

Do read this if you love your siblings and value your relations.



Saturday 21 September 2019

BOOK REVIEW-Till We Meet Again



BOOK REVIEW

                      Till We Meet Again

                                           -Shiabji Bose 



 
‘Ordinary people have extraordinary stories'- the blurb says. So true it is! 
The story is about the mundaneness of a lower-middle-class household. Their financial woes. The worries of the lone earning member to make children capable of battling the challenges that life poses and his lifelong sufferings to realise only two dreams- to erect a roof over head and to solemnise his daughter's marriage. His shoulders happily and selflessly carry the burden of all other lives. And, when he perishes suddenly, somebody has to take up his role. The quantum of responsibility remains the same irrespective of his capabilities. The bereaved family survives on the saving of the deceased father.  Constraints and worries are an inseparable part of such ordinary lives.

I maintain that the rich only know what life is but the poor understand what life is. The story equipped with the author's deep understanding of life subtly corroborates my belief. The intrinsic and detailed narration of the struggles of a family makes ‘Till We Meet Again' a good read.
'Till We Meet Again' (though I have inhibitions about the validity of the title for the story) is a promising attempt by the debutant author Shibaji Bose. 


Another thing about this story that kept me hooked to it is the protagonist choosing to become a hairstylist. I could relate to it as I have gone through the same. I am a mathematics teacher and when my son conveyed his desire to become a Cinematographer, I was in a fix. After a few sleepless nights, I weighed that my son's dreams are more important than the bizarre opinion of society. 

The narration is a bit unfathomable in the first few pages where extravagantly compound and complex sentences and needless rosy adjectives make reading tedious. The inexperience of the debutante might be the reason for it and the editor should have guided him. 
The letter addressed to the protagonist from the diseased father is the only astounding feature of the story in the first few pages.  The letter to which every father and every son can relate to earned the first applause for the author from the emotional reader in me. The writing improves gradually as the sentences become shorter. Writing a book is a journey and it was appeasing to see an author metamorphosing through his maiden voyage. 

I also felt some loopholes in characterisation. Aryan, the protagonist is ordinary in everything but is like a hermit. He is a dutiful son, a doting brother and a decent male who doesn't 'salivate' (borrowed from the author's diction) seeing women. I would have cherished some more humanly vices in him other than being an ordinary guy. 
Kavya impresses me as a character (not as a woman). Shibaji Bose has portrayed her as a worldly woman with believable traits. Although the revelation of her connivance against the protagonist came as a rude shock, I felt for her. Committing adultery by a wife to teach a lesson to her husband for hiding some wrong practice is indigestible but I accept it as the changing values and modernised institution of marriage. Surprisingly, the marriage survives after the wife's revenge. I had to console the reader in me when the story announced that the couple had united again because I had envisaged that the story would end with Aryan and Kavya tying knot. Alas! It doesn't happen. Uncertainty is one beautiful aspect of storytelling. Readers may not approve of the unthinkable turn the story takes but they always appreciate the author's extent of imagination to outthink them.

Be it Aryan's mother, or his sister- Rhea, be it Kavya, Reema or Priya, all the female characters in 'Till We Meet Again' are self-centred and ambitious. I felt a repressed disharmony and denigration in the author's portrayal of women. I am curious to know the reason for it. The author's rich vocabulary also impresses me.



Sunday 1 September 2019





BOOK REVIEW


"WHO KILLED THE MURDERER?"


   __________________________________By MOITRAYEE BHADURI








I love the books wherein every line enunciates what an ardent observer the author is. 'Who Killed the Murderer?' is just that kind of book.
A dark and spine-chilling story, 'Who Killed the Murderer?' will force the readers to ruminate how vulnerable and fragile life is. An untoward night, an irresponsibly hatched out mischief, unchecked immaturity and a moment of rage can bring us lifelong suffering. A selfish lie by a young girl against three boys (one out of the three is her twin brother) instigates two of them for revenge. And, when they have their revenge, her life changes forever. For the rest of her life, she lives with two daggers- one, pierced in her heart and another in her hand to harm others. She despises every pre-teen boy, even her son. So heart-wrenching! She turns selfish, self-centered, and wicked. No, don’t hate her. She is just sick and not responsible for her trauma. Faulty parenting and unruly schoolmates are accountable for her criminal psyche. 
An act of ghastly and cruel revenge can kill a person or turn him or her into a fearless, ruthless and deadlier survivor. No sane person would choose either even for his worst enemy.

 Though a thrilling murder mystery, this book is enlightening for the parents. The story is a testimonial of how the parents' ignorance and a casual approach can ruin the life of a child and the people associate with him or her. The unreasonable unwillingness of Shagun's mother to engage a psychologist and her excessive obsession for only one of her children (Shagun) only aggravated the ordeal she suffered with.

On page 141, one of the characters talks about “Rage disorder”. Psychologists also call it “Intermittent Explosive Disorder or IED. The sufferers show hostility, impulsivity, and burst into anger despite a lack of adequate reason. In the cases when family members are aware that the person is ill and needs to visit a psychologist but the ‘patient’ doesn’t admit that he or she is sick. They too, keep on suffering along with the person ill of IED. It is a dilemma for the people who want to help the patient but are helpless. I wish the psychologists could suggest a way to make the suffering person understand that it is a curable disorder and treatment and counselling can make life so much pleasurable and enjoyable for him or her and the other family members.
‘Once his cigarette is over, he will feel guilty and come back with an apology.’ Page 41

This is so true!

The author seems to know about everything- smokers, TV actresses, the casting couch, the police, the detectives, the beauty parlours, child psychology et al- everything is so well researched that you never feel inadequacy. Except for two moments when the private detective, Milli Ray lights smokes at wrong places- once in the living room of her super-rich clients, the Seths, and another in a hospital never did my over-analysing brain object.

I loved the way Moitrayee has pen-sketched her characters. They all are blessed-lesser-mortals- talented but have humanly vices.

Milli Ray fails to impress me. I will hail her only as a hard-working detective and expected her to be sharper and smarter than she appears. I would suggest the author to polish her character and give her a little more guile as she is likely to repeat her in another thriller. Milli Ray, the ex-cop and detective, deserves it and I am already yearning to read another adventure by her.

The portrayal of Shagun's character is the immaculate and sheer brilliance of Moitrayee’s writing. She has really worked hard on presenting her protagonist as a ruthless but suffering psycho. At times, one can feel the author's empathy for her leading lady. She is parti pris to her protagonist in her narration. I justify it.
ACP Trehan, smitten by Milli’s dynamism appears, like a Sub-Inspector and lacks the flamboyance and authority his rank and occupation warrant. May we see him  act like an ACP in future adventures. I wish!
Rik Sharma alias Rishabh Gupta and Neel Khatan appear as good as their character-traits are. The rest of the characters are mere props.

The writing style and the mature handling of such a sensitive story need a special mention. When you are an author yourself, you tend to read a book more with a writer’s frame of mind and less as a reader. Moitrayee’s writing forced me to read it more as a reader. Not many writers have done that to me. 

Yes, Shelley said, “Sometimes, the devil is a gentleman. I say, all devils are gentlemen with some behavioural dysfunctions.

And, at last, I wish to ask Moitrayee if she aspired to be a detective at some point of time in her life.

Few Things worth mentioning…
1.      A few chapters end with a one-word-sentence. They build up curiosity.
2.      There is not even one steamy scene despite so many entangled and complicated relationships. I admire.
3.      The mention of Bradley Cooper. He doesn’t have a prominent upper lip like me… You know, what I mean.
4.      This is a must-read book for the parents like Mr. and Mrs. Chopra. And, if anyone feels he or she has the slightest of characteristics as Shagun, the protagonist has, they must seek the help of a psychologist immediately. Please don’t let one bad night or an unpleasant incident deprive you of the happiness and love you deserve.
Nobody is a villain. We just need to wring our hearts to squeeze out the poison. We deserve it. We deserve a life. We deserve happiness. We deserve love.



Monday 29 July 2019

THE LAST BALL SIX- REVIEW





THE LAST BALL SIX- REVIEW













A Racy, Hilarious Saga of a Mad, Mad Indian Cricket Fan

If cricket could be equated to religion, Tijinder Tuteja or Titu would automatically qualify as Devotee Number One. Period. Cricket was the elixir of life for him.
Over time, Titu gets addicted to T20 - the new, bang-bang variety of cricket. His favourite team is the Punjab Pulverizers and his god is Khoobraj Singh, the PP's acest batsman. In a bit of a stroke of luck, Titu wins a couples entry-pass to the final match of BPL - the Bharatiya Premier League - the T20 cricket tournament on the face of this earth... and the cherry on the cake is that PP are going to be playing HH - the Haryana Hounds.
It turns out to be quite a humdinger of a match - sending Titu's heart-rate and blood pressure soaring with each passing minute. He turns very pale and begins to perspire copiously. But so engrossed is he in the match that he doesn't feel the gnawing pain creeping up his chest until suddenly, he collapses in his seat and his heart stops beating. Horrified, Tilottama, his wife, let's out a scream of despair which promptly gets lost in the excited, unrelenting uproar all around them.
What happens then? Does cricket manage to, quite literally, kill its biggest fan? Or does cricket, with one, final, life-saving stroke of its bat, manage to redeem the life of its biggest patron ever?
Who wins this match of life and death? Find out!




                                                                          REVIEW


I don’t remember who introduced me to cricket but, I started playing with ‘Thapki’ the baton for beating clothes every household had before the washing machines became common and compulsory. Gradually, the addiction to cricket grew so much that I even slept with ‘Thapki’. I was six when I got my first bat after much persuasion- a fish cover with number 5 sticker. Even the shopkeeper tried to dissuade me saying that I was too small for a fish cover bat and that too so long.
My father was as strict as Mr Tuteja. Knowing that he would not allow me to play a match during examination days, I used to slip away before anyone in the house woke up. Needless to say what sort of welcome I used to get when I returned after playing. ‘THE LAST BALL SIX’ brought back all memories.

Delectable, with not a pinch of sorrow in it. Very Punjabi. Very 'Cricket-ish'. Simple. Unpretentious. Humourous. And, very relatable.
  
Pradeep Kapoor, after reading this book anyone can know why you are a successful paediatrician. You have such fetish for everything life is about- relationships, families, parenthood, love, adolescence, even womanhood and most subtly, the indispensable ingredient of happy living-Humour. Now, I know why in every pic you share, you always appear smiling even when you are not.

"Oh, you can smile after anything."           -Page 199.

As you read into this book, you realize and wonder what a devoted student of life the author is. The way he describes the Tuteja household is remarkable. You feel you are virtually living with that family. Gradually, you can assume reactions of the others when one of them says or does something even before reading further.

All the characters have been so well crafted that I felt I know them intrinsically.
The evolution of Indian cricket from naive participants to giants runs parallel to Titu's (Tijinder Tuteja, the protagonist) life. The author has given a detailed account of all the major cricketing events from 1971 to 2011. I won't comment on how essential these details were to the story, maybe, to portray Titu as a diehard cricket fan, but they sounded more of a hindrance to the story.
Everything about this story is so Punjabi. The author has chosen the names meticulously. They sound familiar and funny at the same time. Titu's marriage,  'phoopha ji' ke tantrums,  Mama's (the 'moonch' wali Helen) cabaret,  the 'Nagin' dance, the dancing getting 'frighteningly vigorous' just at the gate and not to forget the 'Milni' everything has been so vividly described that the words create a spectacle for you to relish.

The narration neglecting Titu's old parents in the last 50 odd pages pinched me. Sorry. I am too emotional to handle this slump.

This is a book for every Punjabi, every cricket buff and lovers of simple but relatable stories. It will make you smile, laugh and take you the allies of your childhood that time and life have mercilessly made blurred.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

A Tracker and the Heart Stealer by Rajeev Pundir














By Rajeev Pundir

Whether he liked it or not, a writer should not pass a review on the works of another writer. However, Dr Pundir is a dear friend and has insisted me to give a feedback on his novel "The Tracker and the Heart Stealer". 

This is a repeat of plot by the author after his first book which was also based on the distrust and suspicion in husband-wife relationship. Though, this time, there are more twists and turns.
I have read the previous book on the same plot. Dr Pundir understands the complexities of all sort of relationships especially the one, most of us find enigmatic- the man-woman relationship. He always impresses me when he expresses the POV of a woman.

Reading this, I had a feeling that a short story has been stretched into a novel. The first half is too slow and I battled hard to go through it while the second half was so fast paced that I sensed the author was in a hurry to end it. The second half could have been better.

Author’s age and experience of life reflects in the pieces that describe the atmosphere of protagonist’s home. The conversation and behaviour of a workaholic husband with his wife who is craving for his time and attention and the conduct of the two little girls respectively with their father and mother seems very authentic.


The character of Brijesh, the protagonist, could not impress me. He dreams to climb up the ranks but he lacks the qualities of a top cop. Going to fifth floor by stairs tires him and he is too dumb that he was easily fooled by a treacherous woman. Threatening calls from the betting syndicate make him shiver. The protagonist as a top cop lacks the power to perform physically, mentally, and emotionally. His ways were highly unbecoming of even a Policeman; forget an inspector or an ACP. I don’t know if the author has deliberately portrayed him that way but, his qualities are nowhere in sync with what he aspires for. A decorated Police Officer should not have given up as easily as the protagonist.  He could not earn my sympathy.

The few analogies made me smile while reading…

Woman and a creeper are alike. They climb whenever and wherever they find even the weakest support”

"Whatever you give, nature gives you back multiplied….”

The story gives a message that it is important to strike a balance between your professional and personal life. Your family has a right on your time. Doom is inevitable when your ambitions outgrow your sense of responsibility towards your family.

An enjoyable read. Best wishes to Dr Pundir for his future writing projects. I know, his best is yet to come.


Wednesday 14 February 2018

BOOK REVIEW- WHEN THE CHIEF FELL IN LOVE

BOOK REVIEW

 WHEN THE CHIEF FELL IN LOVE

                                               By TUHIN A. SINHA








BLURB

Vihaan Shastri, India’s young and dynamic Defence Minister, comes under attack when 20 soldiers are killed during a terrorist strike at an army camp in Kashmir. With the whole country seething with rage and thirsting for revenge, and the government depending on him to resolve the crisis, Vihaan finds himself battling a strange distraction: Zaira Bhat, the only woman he has truly loved, is back in his life, after 12 long years. In a chequered relationship which began with a love affair in 1990, and which had the two love and lose each other twice at different stages of life, Vihaan and Zaira now find themselves in an extraordinary situation. While Vihaan is the defence minister of the country, Zaira is the daughter of Kashmir’s leading, and most wanted, pro-Pakistan separatist leader, Bilal Mohammad Bhat. Is Vihaan capable of pulling off a double coup? Can he win back the love of his life and also save an on-the edge Kashmir? Come, be a part of Vihaan and Zaira’s crazy journey as they make their way through learning what it is to love someone eternally . . .


REVIEW 





A book is not just a story. Reading a book is reading a mind, acquainting with the person the author is and peeping into a psyche.

After reading "WHEN THE CHIEF FELL IN LOVE" which I finished in a little over five hours, I feel, I know the author, Tuhin Sinha well enough.

When I started the book yesterday afternoon, I was in no mood to finish it in a single sitting because the story began with a college love story. Honestly, going through the first fifty pages or so was an intense test of my patience, and after that, there was a series of conflicts. The story gained pace and it became more engrossing after every page thereafter.




The second part of the book, after the protagonist resigns from his post of the defence minister, fascinated me. I have always believed that books and literature have the potential to bring a change in the society. Tuhin Sinha strengthens my belief with this story weaved around the burning and disturbing state of affairs in Kashmir. I love the authors who feel responsible towards the society. The solution he suggests also seems appropriate in the present scenario when nothing else is working.

The few characters in “WHEN THE CHIEF FELL IN LOVE” are all well drawn. However, I craved to know about Vihaan’s sudden inclination towards politics. Because of my personal reservations, Zaira failed to impress me as a woman. Author has done a fair amount of research to make the book appear a NONFICTION FICTION.

The first half could have been made more interesting. Also, there are a couple of proofreading errors which must be taken care of in the reprints.

Tuhin comes out as a cognoscenti about Kashmir and it is certain that he would enlighten the readers about the deeper roots of Kashmir issue. I wish him all the very best.


PUBLISHED BY : FINGERPRINTS
https://www.amazon.in/When-Chief-fell-Tuhin-Sinha

Monday 9 January 2017

REVIEW- A GIRL WHO LOVED A SPY




REVIEW


A GIRL WHO LOVED A SPY

BY KULPREET YADAV





Andy Karan, the spy, shines in a test of personal will, the survival, and the duty











About Kulpreet Yadav

An Amazon No. 1bestselling novelist and motivational speaker, Kulpreet Yadav is the Founder-Editor of Open Road Review, an international literary magazine that has published over 300 writers from 24 countries in the last five years. As a Creative Writing Mentor, Kulpreet has conducted numerous workshops for aspiring writers in India.
Kulpreet's motivational and training workshops are a unique combination of creativity, communication, leadership & entertainment that has benefited thousands of working professionals and students at premier institutions and global corporate brands. 
A product of the Naval Officer’s Academy, Kulpreet quit his job of a mariner as a Commandant with the Indian Coast Guard on 1 Jan 2014, to pursue his passion of writing and speaking. Shortlisted in several literary contests, his stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications in India and abroad.

                                        
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About 'A Girl Who Loved A Spy' -

"Everyone is imperfect and everyone deserves to be loved." It all starts when Andy Karan is asked by Monica, his boss at the 'New Delhi Today' magazine, to investigate the murder of a lawyer. As Andy is sucked deeper, he discovers a shocking connection between organized crime and desperate businessmen. As a part of the secret organization called 'The List,' which does all the government's dirty work, Andy has been working undercover for the Indian Intelligence Service ever since he left the army, a fact not known to Monica. Risking his life and wading through political twists, human redemption, and tangled conspiracies, Andy finds himself pitched against a dirty bomb in the hands of the enemy. It's not that Andy wants to live forever, but this is one case he can't afford to lose. Not just for truth but, for the first time in his life, for love.


My Review....

After starting it, I simply could not put it down. It is captivating from the first to the last word.
I believe that the thrillers give a writer less scope of flaunting his literary abilities and that is where this book Impressed me. Kulpreet Yadav doesn't miss any chance of showing his writing prowess and keeps bringing in piercing metaphors and made me read those lines twice or even thrice sometimes.
The author remains ruthless with his characters and doesn't refrain from killing them. Even Andy Karan, the protagonist is vulnerable. He falters, is fearful, suffers a life-threatening bullet shot and is not portrayed as a superhero. However, one thing which I had realized in the middle of my read that Andy would emerge as a winner whatever might happen to him. I feel, little more tension would have made it even more intriguing.
Just one word for 'A Girl Who Loved a Spy ' - ENGAGING.

ONE TOUGH DAY THAT BROKE THE DREAM OF A BILLION PEOPLE

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