Friday, January 26, 2018

The Jasmine Bloom by Rajat Narula (Book Review)


This book is available at Amazon Flipkart and Infibeam


Title – The Jasmine Bloom 
Author – Rajat Narula
Genre – Fiction
Publisher – Srishti Publishers & Distributors
No of pages – 225



Main characters – Sameer, Kavita, Ritu, Pari, Tania
Other Characters – Ammaji, Harmeet, Imran


The Blurb
Sameer Chadha lives with his wife Kavita and two adorable daughters named Pari and Tania. Caught in a mid-life crisis, he is unhappy with everything. His corporate career is languishing and is increasingly alienated from his family. His wife Kavita is a part-time poet and a homemaker who dwells in her past all the time whereas Sameer gets carried away with one of his colleagues, Ritu.

When their lives collide with Ritu, a married woman coping with her abusive husband and an autistic son, a chain of events gets triggered that throws everyone’s life into the unstoppable whirlwind.


My Review
The Jasmine Bloom is an extremely impressive and descriptive novel written by very talented author Rajat Narula. The story is about love, lust, complicated relationships, loss, pain and an unquenchable thirst for happiness in life. It is a commentary on the fragility of modern family life and an eye-opener that how our unfulfilled desires can wreak havoc on everyone.

The plot is not something unusual but the author’s writing skills are simply flawless and impactful that grabs your attention until the last of the page of the novel.

The author has left no stone unturned describing each character painstakingly that one could actually imagine each one of them. Pari’s bubbly and cheerful behavior, Tania’s typical teenage character, Kavita’s sensitive side as a poet and a dedicated homemaker and amma as a maid, each character are portrayed so well that you could marvel at the author’s impactful descriptive writing.

With that same grace and ease, the author has managed to turn this simple story into an irresistible feast that keeps a reader at a continuous pace.

Each character has his or her own story that you could relate them in your real life. It usually happens when the romance trickles down and adultery enters in a modern man’s life when he is burdened with so many things at a time. The author daringly brings forth the stark reality of modern man’s life where he never seems to contend with his life. Kavita’s indifference, Sameer’s incapability of balancing life and career and vulnerability of involving in adultery and Ritu’s easy way to escape from harsh realities of life and getting involved into an extra-marital affair seems absolute reality that one could find easily these days.

Yet the author maintains suspense at the end, letting the reader seep into the lives of these characters. Through the characters like Pari and Tania, the author smartly conveys how adultery or fickle decisions are taken by adults impact children’s lives.

All it takes one wrong action to get into a whirlwind of troubles that soon become never-ending. Sameer and Ritu’s immature decisions not only jeopardize their families but force them to repent all their life.

One of the scenes from the Jasmine Bloom reveals how adultery can go to such extent where a man and a woman are not bothered by anything. When Sameer’s wife Kavita suffers from a heart attack at home, her daughter Tania frantically tries to call Sameer but he is busy having sex with Ritu. This is one of the scenes that make your heart cry in pain. 


Rajat’s effortless writing and narrative style leave you astonished as he sums up the story with a shocking end. 

I strongly recommend this novel as the author’s impactful writing and narrative skills will leave your jaw drop for sure.

The Best Part
An excellent and dramatic narration, extremely well-depicted characters and well-written scenes


Not so Good Part
Ritu’s decision of keeping baby from her extra-marital affair seems unconvincing and makes you question is this how Indian marriages are supposed to be.

Writing Style
Rajat Narula’s writing style is easy breezy. The story flows in an effortless manner and nowhere in the story, one could lose the direction. His descriptive writing is simply admirable. Below are few paragraphs from The Jasmine Bloom that shows how painstakingly minutest details have been captured by the author:

“Don’t know.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. She hugged him standing up on the sofa, without taking her eyes off the TV. 

Tomato paneer, black daal, and rice lay steaming on the table. A dollop of butter melted slowly on the daal. There was a bowl of cucumber raita and the lidded box for rotis.


 They were a few feet away when Tania lifted her head and his eyes met hers. In that moment, everybody else ceased to exist. Aditi vanished, Shruti and Avantika also. The angry cafeteria lady and her two assistants too. It was only him and her. And then they looked away and everything returned to normal. 



The book cover and the title
The title is apt given its frequent references in the story. The book cover is not that appealing. However, they say, ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ and so is the story of The Jasmine Bloom. You will not be disappointed with the story as the author takes you for a whirling ride of emotions.

My rating 4.5/5 
I strongly recommend this book for its impactful storytelling and descriptive writing style. The novel ruthlessly sheds a light on our fickle modern relationships and it is totally worth your time and money.

About the author
Rajat Narula is a lead financial management specialist at The World Bank. His several articles and poems have been published in renowned newspapers and has won the Fairfax District award in USA for his poetry. He has worked and lived in India, Indonesia and USA.


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Saturday, January 6, 2018

When Love Happens by Manish Kumar (Book Review)











Book details

Title – When Love Happens
Author – Manish Kumar
Genre –Fiction
Publisher – Srishti Publishers & Distributors   
No of pages – 138

To buy this book, visit Amazon

The plot
Love can cause a life-long impact on someone’s life and it can change a direction of his/her decisions. It can impact on career, personal and professional life. It reflects in When Love Happens plot written by Mr. Manish Kumar. Nish falls in love with his classmate named G who belongs to a conservative family. Nish becomes very serious about his love towards her but she does not promise him anything. Though she keeps in touch with him during all these years. However, it badly affects Nish’s life but he tries to fight his obstacles by being determined.

At the end, G gets married to someone else as she does not go against her family whereas Nish throughout all these years fights odds and tries to become a stable person and focuses on becoming a writer. Eventually, he ends up becoming an IT engineer and a part-time writer.
 
Review
Everyone falls in love and fall out too and it is just another love story with an extremely mediocre plot. It fails to hold a grip on reader’s mind. The characters are also very mediocre in nature. The author wanted to express his personal experience story and how he fought throughout all his life but I fail to understand when and how he became mighty enough to fight his struggles. Till the page number 90, I could read same storylines again and again when the author says,’ I tried to focus on my life goals and become strong.’ But how many times?

The story has poor incidents with disinterested dialogues. Author has highlighted some of the incidents in his real life that took place but they are not at all entertaining and interesting. There is this one character called Chutki keeps saying,”Kya hai?”. The incident is poorly depicted.

lYes, the Love story is decent and could have been better if the author has narrated the story in the more interesting way. He could have peppered the story with rich words, great vocabulary and interesting lines.

Though I appreciate author’s efforts and genuine but the story miserably failed to impress.

Writing style
Very simple language and lacks rich words.

Book title and book cover
The title and the book cover is apt.

My rating
2.5/5

About the author
Manish Kumar lives in Bangalore and has been working with IBM for the past five years. He is fond of riding bikes and traveling to natural destinations. This is his first published book.

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