Book Review: Fraudster By RV Raman

About the book:

There are people who will do anything to silence the ones who come in their way, those who will stop at nothing, including murder. 

A young banker is found dead a day after she deposes before a commission investigating large-scale financial fraud... 
A doyen of corporate India falls to his death from his south Bombay flat... 
A high-security server room of a multinational accounting firm is hacked and the hackers aren't looking for just company secrets... 

Illicit finance, high-stakes crime and vicious manipulation come together in this story of corruption, greed and treachery among corporate India's black sheep. Arresting, fast-paced and written by an insider from the corporate world, Fraudster will keep you on your toes till the very end.

Paperback available in bookstores across India. Flipkart | Amazon |Infibeam
eBook available globally. Kindle | Kobo | Google Play | Nook 

About the author:

Over a career spanning three decades and four continents, RV Raman advised several banks, financial institutions and corporates on various matters. He has now turned to writing fiction set in corporate India, based on his insights and observations.

Having moved away from full-time roles, he now teaches business strategy at an IIM, mentors young entrepreneurs, advises select clients and writes.

Tired of extensive physical travel around the world, he now prefers less punishing mental excursions into fictional worlds of his own creation. He lives in Chennai. His complete profile is available here.

Fraudster is his first corporate thriller, and is available in most book stores including Flipkart &Amazon.

RV Raman on Facebook 

My review:

What I am sure about in this novel is the fact that it keeps you glued till the end. To say that it has mind-blowing twists and turns in the plots, seems an understatement. One murder after another, one attack after another, and the writer has craftily kept us guessing till the end who the culprit is. 

No doubt that the author's experience in the corporate world comes in handy when he writes the story, revealing and disclosing such malpractices which the reader is taken aback with. 
When I started reading it, I had initially thought that the book will at best, be predictable. As luck would have it, it was everything but. 
That the setting in time is contemporary makes the reader even more intrigued: all the threats faced in IT operation, the perpetration of scams - everything is real to a fault.
I might need to dig lexicons to find a word more effective than 'thrilling' to describe the book. The plot twists outdo themselves every single time.
How all characters fall in place and raise suspicions with their activities was the best part of the book. However, one cannot deny that the end appears a bit too hushed, with little happening compared to the racy pace it had earlier. I was also a little disappointed in the way the culprit was finally revealed, it somehow lacked the dramatic flair that was otherwise characteristically remarkable throughout the novel. The end is, in no way, disappointing, but it does not match the grandeur of the rest of the novel.

My Judgement:
Better than even some of the bestsellers on the block, this one deserves to be picked.

"This book review is a part of The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program and Blog Tours.  To get free books log on tothereaderscosmos.blogspot.com"

Why I recommend: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

About the book:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid

At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . .

Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.

But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez’s own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

About the author:

Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani author best known for his novels Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013).His fiction has been translated into over 30 languages, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, featured on bestseller lists, and adapted for the cinema. His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, and the Paris Review, and his essays in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. Born in 1971, he has lived about half his life, on and off, in Lahore. He also spent part of his early childhood in California, attended Princeton and Harvard, and worked for a decade as a management consultant in New York and London, mostly part-time.

Why I recommend:

Here is why I would recommend this book to everyone. Everyone, at least once, irrespective of their nationality, religion, color et cetera et cetera.

1. The conversational style:
The book has been written as a conversation between a Pakistani who used to work with a valuation firm in America and an American tourist, one might surmise. It is actually a proof of how there can in fact exist a conversation without one of the persons having any word to say. Yes, this conversation between two people is a monologue. This is one of those unique characteristics of the book that you arr able to retain for long after you have read it. If for nothing else, read the book for this uncanny, pleasant presentation, formally known as the Dramatic Monologue.

2. Exploration of themes like Human fallibility, Identity crisis 
No book has ever depicted human fallibility, a screwed sense of judgement and the inevitable return to the motherland, so accurately and so curtly as this. It manages to capture the agonies and apprehensions of a Pakistani in the post 9/11 era. His lost sense of dignity. That feeling of being torn between an impossible love affair and a loyalty towards the motherland

3. The big things in life.
As the narrator confides the story of his life to an American Stranger at a cafe in Lahore, it is like a memoir. We fell a sharp tinge of pain, a surge of emotions in the honest way that the narrator, Changez reveals all little secrets of his life, facts privy to him in a brutally honest admission.And then it strikes you somewhere in the middle of the plot. You may whine about petty stuff, ...over trivial material things. Eventually you are doomed to understand that none of this matters. None of this suffices to give you solace in times of need. You cannot warm up to a job that no longer excites you. You cannot gulp down a glass of beer when your brotherhood is in a turmoil of sorts. You cannot find peace with money.

4. A recurring theme: Your past
The fact that the narrator is so nostalgic about the life he had, about how he fantasized it could have turned out differently had some things not been the way they were, And man's tendency or rather reluctance to let go of this past, to come out of all that has happened that changed everything is a theme around which the plot hovers.

5. The plot
The plot is, as such, very light on the reader. maybe it is because of the conversational style.
The Guardian sums up the plot, 'We learn that Changez is a highly educated Pakistani who worked as a financial analyst for a prestigious firm in New York. But after a disastrous love affair and the September 11 attacks, his western life collapses and he returns disillusioned and alienated to Pakistan.'

6. Changez, the protagonist
Now, this is not a perfect, infallible (and hence, non-existent ad unreal) protagonist, he has flaws in his character. Human flaws. And he admits them. Like, for instance his pleasure in the aftermath of 9/11.
His relationship with Erica is another equation that demands calculations from the readers, and makes up a large part of the second half of the novel. His intellect drew him to the mine of opportunities that is America. And it is ironic, how pleasant his life was until, you know, 9/11 happened, and he became disillusioned.

And last but not the least, a character to look out for and try to decipher is Jim.


Let me know what you feel in comments below.

Book review: Bad Romance by Harshita Srivastava

About the book:

Life is a bitch and I’m one of its victims. I had the perfect life. I was blessed with the perfect boyfriend, a perfect best friend, the perfect set of girlfriends and perfect choice of career. There were some loopholes but then they went beyond my perspective. Overall, I had the kind of life people would ideally like to have but happy times aren’t meant to last forever.

Sometimes we feel that we have figured life but that’s something that is never going to happen. You know why? It’s because it has this habit of kicking us right in the middle of ecstasy. No wonder, it did the same with me.

This is my story, my story of that exploration within, my feelings, my emotions, my thought process, my priorities, my conflicts and my journey into the temptation of love, lust, lies and betrayals. This is the story of Kritika and a man who gave her life another dimension, Tanishq. This is a story of the complexities of relationships and the trap that a simple idea of sensuality, pleasure and euphoria can put you into. This is a story for everyone who has loved, lost and fought for survival and love, together.

About the Author:

A full-time writer, Harshita Srivastava is the author of 'One In A Million' that got published by Mahaveer Publishers in April 2013 in her final year of Mechanical Engineering at G.L.Bajaj Institute of Technology and Management, Noida. She is an avid reader and a prolific blogger. She loves reading classics and is a diehard Mills and Boons fan. She loves to see happiness around her so she’ll always be found motivating people or making them smile. Apart from writing, she loves travelling, reading, listening to music and spending time with friends and family. She is currently working on her second novel 'Bad Romance'.

My Review:

The tagline "Love, Lies and Betrayal" aptly sums up the themes around which the novel revolves. It is the story of any girl-next-door. Life in a hostel, a string of relationships, et al form the core of the plot.
The best part of the novel is that it comes in layers: First, it manifests itself as a fairy tale romance, then it resurfaces as a story of two people oscillating between infatuation and superficial love (peppered with the inevitable love triangle) and finally takes a plunge when it delves into the darker human emotions, harsh living realities, and gory human frailties. It soon undergoes a metamorphosis into a saga of shattering human fallacies and an encounter with the ugly truth. And the truth is: Stories about real relationships flummox and fluster you beyond measure, that reasoning between the right and wrong becomes almost difficult. The part of novel which has an interplay of these themes is the best part.
I managed to read it and finish in a couple of hours, so it can become a good one-night-read.
The downside is that for one, there has been a lot of scope to do footwork. For instance, the character sketches could have been worked upon, because a book can get under the skin of a reader only through the characters. Also, a reader is interested in knowing the personality of characters: what makes them them. Same goes with the expression and description of critical and crucial incidents. It is for the same reason that we get abrupt beginnings and endings. Also, editing finesse has been conspicuous by its absence.
Overall, it is a kinda 3.5/5. A .5 extra for the potential of the storyline.

Best Lines:

We don't stop loving people. People die but does our love for them depreciate? It's just that we get used to being without them.

My Judgement:

A raw, bare and verbatim depiction of contemporary relationships is how this novel can be best described.

Find the book here: 

Thank you for stopping by, and reading through!

International Authors' Day: My bookish Journey!

Hosted by : Book R3vi3ws

Today, on the splendid occasion of International author's day, I would love to go down the memory lane and trace my metamorphosis into a compulsive bibliophile. I hope I won't bore you. I hope you identify with snippets and parts of it. And I hope you join me in this journey of plunging into the fantasy worlds of the books I read.  Here's my story.

I don't have a family who was too passionate about reading, everyone read newspapers, magazines, and maybe a novel once a year. But none of my family members was zealous about the blissful act of reading. For me, it was purely  the "Fates" that I experienced the heavenly mirth of reading. My earliest memory dates back to when as a 9 year old who had a tough time falling asleep without anyone by her side, I used to read myself to sleep: a short story per night out of my coursebooks. Not a bad beginning, right? And then I won books as prizes in elocution competitions. That is technically, my first tryst with books outside of curriculum. I still read it: The beauty and the beast in Hindi, and it happened that year in English.

And then, I pestered my parents to buy me scooby-doo novels. (Well, kids do that, I was just fulfilling my responsibility). Year after year, I Started getting more books as prizes. Then finally, I could lure my sister into the fantasy worlds of the novels, and we started shopping online for books. Till date, books are the only thing I shop for online. And then, My life REALLY began with my first ever visit to the book fair. There was no looking back. I have visited every book fair, every possible bookshop and my library spans possibly every genre. 

Today, the person who is writing this post has evolved as a bibliophile. I had my Facebook last name as bibliophile for years, my bookish obsession has made me a book-blogger, book-reviewer, book-hoarder, a crazy fangirl.  Which also implies that I love these mobile cases, necklaces, posters, jewelry, mugs, et al which are bookish to their core. 

I am the kind of person who keeps telling her friends to buy her these as gifts. And yes, I have received them very generously from some of my closest buddies. The books they have gifted is a reminder of their love, and it's almost like anyone who hasn't gifted me books isn't really a friend for life.

 (Dear all friends, who are feeling hurt and want to prove their friendship: Next on my please-gift-me-list: any and every book by Dan Brown,  John green, The Hunger Games Trilogy, Mathhew Quick, Ashwin Sanghi )

So, When I started this blog a year ago, I just had an itch to showcase my passion for books. That it would acquire these dimensions was the biggest surprise all year long. At 10,000 pageviews and loads of books coming up for review, I feel blessed to be a part of this book-lovers community.

Do be a part of our facebook flash giveaway here: So Many Books, So little time pinned post

Enter giveaway for Tantra By Adi (Paperback)
(Indian addresses only)

Anu is a vampire Hunter.But when her enemies murder the one person she truly cared about, all she wants is vengeance. The only clue points to New Delhi, so Anu puts in for a job transfer.

In India, she finds more than she expected. For one thing, her fellow operatives have made a truce with the vampires. For another, it’s way too hot to wear leather.

At first, it seems Anu’s biggest challenge will be evading the nice boys her aunt wants her to marry. But when children start disappearing, she discovers forces older and darker than anything she’s faced before. All of Delhi is in danger, especially the sexy stranger who sets Anu’s pulse racing.

To prepare for the coming battle, Anu must overcome her personal demons and put aside years of training. This time, her most powerful weapon will come from her mind, not her weapons belt.
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Book Review: About Matters of the hurt By Sourabh Mukherjee

About the book:

Genre: Romance

About Matters of the Hurt: Love Stories - Round the Clock is a brisk read with lasting impact - a collection of four contemporary romantic short stories, aligned in settings and mood with the four parts of the day. The collection paints love in its various hues that make it the only emotion worth dying for. A slice of life in true sense, the book takes us on a soulful journey as we relive loves lost or found or nurtured unprofessed in the deepest recesses of our hearts.

About the Author:

Sourabh Mukherjee works in a Senior Management position in one of the world’s leading management consulting and technology services firms. Born and brought up in Kolkata, India, Mukherjee has several fictional and non-fictional publications in magazines, journals and websites –some of them date back to his early childhood. 

Mukherjee loves traveling, and is a keen observer of human behaviour and cultural diversities. He is an avid reader of fiction, and is passionate about photography, movies and music. For more information about him and his book, visit http://www.aboutmattersofthehurt.com

My Review:

A collection of 4 stories, this book seems almost customized for today's reader. Do you get those times when you have an irresistible itch to read, yet you are short of time. This is the perfect book for that occasion. the first story has a poignant angle to it, and you should wait till the end to get the satisfaction of having read through it all. The author almost surprises us with the ingenious twist in the end. Another story plays with the themes of intoxication, hidden pain, and loss of a loved one. And the last one, Love Came Calling Again, is my favourite. It has a tincture of both hopelessness and hopefulness, simultaneously. And a subtle ending is a cherry on top. The first story, poignant and heart-rendering as it is, is sure to make you pause and digest what has happened. More so because it is a short story and is supposed to end abruptly, leaving you at it. The good thing is, none of the story leaves you in a cliffhanger.

But the end certainly does leave you moved and dumbstruck for a few seconds.

And when the book proclaims that these are stories round the clock, it means it, like quite literally. 

Nothing too intense, nothing too light, the balanced approach of the book gets another thumbs up fro m us. 

We look forward to more writing from the author, now that the spark has been ignited. :)

My Judgement:

 Wanna keep up with your reading, but this is just one of those days where you cannot commit to novels, yet yearn for contemporary romance? Grab a copy!

Find the book: 

Book Review: The Secret Letters By Robin Sharma

About the book:

Genre: Self-Help

From one of the most widely read authors in the world comes a story of breathtaking power and dazzling suspense about what it means to be fully alive.

Jonathan Landry is a man in trouble. After a bizarre encounter with his lost cousin Julian Mantle—a former high-powered courtroom lawyer who suddenly vanished into the Himalayas—Jonathan is compelled to travel across the planet to collect the life-saving letters that carry the extraordinary secrets that Julian discovered.

On a remarkable journey that includes visits to the sensual tango halls of Buenos Aires, the haunting catacombs of Paris, the gleaming towers of Shanghai and the breathtakingly beautiful Taj Mahal in India, The Secret Letters of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari reveals astounding insights on reclaiming your personal power, being true to yourself and fearlessly living your dreams

About the author:

Robin Sharma is the globally celebrated author of 15 international bestselling books on leadership including The Leader Who Had No Title, the phenomenal #1 blockbuster that is inspiring a movement around the idea that “Now, anyone - in any organization - can show Leadership”. His work has been published in over 62 countries and in nearly 75 languages, making him one of the most widely read authors in the world. He shot to fame with The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, which has topped international bestseller lists and sold over 4,000,000 copies. Robin is the founder of Sharma Leadership International Inc., a training firm with only one focus: helping people in organizations Lead Without a Title. Clients comprise of many of the FORTUNE 500 including Microsoft, GE, NIKE, FedEx and IBM. Organizations such as NASA, IMD Business School, Yale University and The Young President's Organization are also SLI clients. Robin is a former litigation lawyer who holds two law degrees including a Masters of Law (Dalhousie Law School).

Book Trailer:

You might also like to see the author talk about this sequel to The Monk Who Sold His ferrari

My Review:

For someone who is already a Robin Sharma follower, it is a refreshingly different story narrative that the author presents. For those of us who have read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, and other sequels and prequels to his chef d oeuvre, we certainly expected to have something different if we are to read more of him, and to our exultation, the author treats us to the most creative, fresh and stimulating read. Right from the beginning, it has a rebellious tangent to it which was never seen before in his books.Here the protagonist is resistant to undertake the journey of self-exploration, unlike his other protagonists who were rather keen, and till the end he doesn't realize that he is on a life-altering journey.

I personally read the book at a time when I was dealing with multiple sources of stress and disappointments. So, I would say this was precisely what I had needed. The book emphasizes more on the journey rather than the sermon. As you may have surmised already, the secret letters are pearls of wisdom, and that is all I can say without giving away too much.

For the uninitiated, this is what I have to say: While reading The Monk who sold his Ferrari is a fierce recommendation from yours truly, you SHOULD read this one, because it is a rare book that teaches you pearls of wisdom and life lessons, and an even rarer fable that can do this without sounding didactic.

And a common message to all: there comes a time when discovering your self worth takes precedence over building your net worth, this book is precisely for those moments, to guide you through that period of revelation and challenging discoveries.

The protagonists character sketch is such that at times you will feel like you completely relate to him, and then it will be a pleasant transformation that you will undergo along with him, by the time you reach the end of the book.

If you don't believe me, consider this:

"I didn't know what was worse- taking weeks out of my life to travel around the world collecting someone elses stuff, or having to write about it. Self-reflection has never been my forte."
The book has beautifully interwoven the threads of travel and self-reflection and discovery, and the result is awe-inspiring. 

My Judgement: 

Even if you are not a big self-help fan, this one is customized to cater to your whims. If you liked Eat, Pray, Love By Elizabeth Gilbert, go grab (or download) a copy now, 

Best lines:

And it seemed to me that all the excuses I used to make were nothing more than lies that my fears had been trying to sell me.

Find the book here:

Book Review: Adhuri Prem Kahaniya by Santosh Avvannavar

About the book:

Adhuri Prem Kahaniya has been developed while keeping into perspective the lives of 12 individuals. The book sheds light to some aspects of the lives of these individuals in these 25 short stories. This book might turn out to be a great read or ice breaker for people who are stressed out. Most of the stories have a certain romantic and erotic viewpoint and is written mostly for people who are extremely busy with their lives and do not have time for some romance. These people will thoroughly enjoy the book and all of the different aspects that are brought to light by the tumultuous and often funny experiences of these people.

About the author:

Santosh Avvannavar: Santosh started his career as a consultant and Soft
Skills Trainer. He did his college education from NITK, Surathkal. He
functioned as a researcher at University of Eindhoven, University of
Twente and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He was also the
Placement President, while he was working at IISc, Bangalore. He has
over 25 publications of mostly research documents that have found
their place in National & International Journals. Also, he has done 16
conference papers and regularly functions as a writer of different
articles for a national and worldwide daily paper. He is an advisor
for different organizations. Throughout his personal time he composes
his thoughts in a website, namely www.amritafoundation.wordpress.com
and ventures into fiction writing. He delivered seminars and training to more
than 30,000 people in India and abroad over the span of 6 years.

Book Trailer:

                               

 My Review:

The title of the book, the blurb and the quote line, “The weakness of a man is the strength of a woman.”, all of these concoct to lead the prospective reader to a belief that these tales are going to be the heart-rending, poignant tales of suffering for love, pangs of separation, the agony of future, the vagaries of society that hinder the blossoming of love. The content of the book, however, actually is just 12 tales of different people in the form of chapters, which are further sub-divided into sections. This compartmentalization was juvenile enough to make it jacose. Once you have read the entire book, an exercise which can be in fact a challenging task given the grammatical lapses and inaccuraciesand punctuation omissions, apart from the lack of editing and proof-reading conspicuous by their absence, you realise that the author has attempted to bring some points home, the primary of them being the hostility that love still suffers at the hands of society.

 Other aspects include the numerous manifestations of love, the puerile love, the unfulfilled love, a brief fling, et al. The reader is left craving for a single “true love” story, because all these stories, irrespective of how true the love they portray fail to convince the reader of this fact. Again, this might be because a regular reader cannot help donning as a grammar Nazi, but for a casual reader, it might just work fine.

Each chapter is a random strip of a man's life, ambulating from one relationship to another. Perhaps, a narration or two from a girl's perspective could have done wonders to alleviate it. One mystery that the book will help you solve is the facebook relationship status, “It's complicated!”. Disheartening as it sounds, this book even does not make up for its lack of presentation skills in the content. The content has potential, though. The content cries for an editor to recuperate it from the grammatical ravages and lend it a potential place among the easy-to-read bestsellers which the market is witnessing a deluge of.

Judgement(Read: warning) : If you want a casual read, but can refrain from dissecting the book under lexical jargon and linguistic technicalities, only then go for it.

Lines to look out for:

In school, we are taught there is only one 'God' and one religion ‘humanity’. But reality is something else. Did not our parents study from similar school of learning?

Book Review: Crimes against Women

About the book:

As 2012 came to a close, news of the gang rape of a young woman in India’s capital generated headlines around the world. Her assault on a moving bus with a metal rod, and her death two weeks later from her injuries, focused attention on the dark side of the world’s largest democracy: the struggle that faces many Indian women in a country where chauvinistic and misogynistic attitudes prevail. The Wall Street Journal’s India bureau explored this horrendous crime and others that explore the experience of Indian women in the 21st century. The reporting in all the stories stands out for its gripping detail and its emotional pull. In many cases, central figures involved in these everyday dramas were speaking for the first time.
The book begins with the story of a Catholic nun murdered in rural India as she tried to preserve ancient tribal ways in the face of mining expansion, while also coming to the aid of a woman who had allegedly been raped.
Next is a riveting account of a young woman from rural Bihar who was duped into moving to Delhi, where she was forced to marry or go into prostitution -- and the disaster for her and her family that ensued. The woman broke her long-held silence to speak to the WSJ about what happened.
The book ends with the WSJ’s world-beating coverage of the New Delhi rape case, including intimate portraits of the victim and her friend who tried to save her but couldn’t. He granted the WSJ intimate and exclusive access to tell his side of the story.

About the author:

Paul Beckett is Asia Editor of The Wall Street Journal. From 2007 until April, he ran the WSJ's South Asia Bureau.

Krishna Pokharel is a New Delhi-based reporter with the WSJ. He writes on social issues.

My review:

We've all been acutely aware of the rising graph of crimes against women. This compilation from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) assimilates three of the most gruesome, horrifyingly horrendous cases of barbaric bestiality shown against the fairer sex.

WSJ has done a commendable job by exposing some grim facts about the three cases: The Murder of Sister Valsa, Falak: the true story of India's baby, and the achingly unfortunate case of the Delhi Bus Rape.

The whole outcome of reading these accounts is that these are so sensitively reported that one cannot help but feel moved, even shocked to one's heart's core. These have been terrible tragedies, and sadly we have made them a part of our history, a despicable abhorrent history nevertheless. Gender-bias has always been embedded in the matrix of Indian society which may superficially wear the cloak of modernity, but still remains a highly son-worshiping land and son-worshiping people.

The case of the murder of sister Valsa is not just an account of how the ruthless demise and departure of Sister Valsa left a girl crippled for life, but also a sad commentary of the brutality which “influential” people exercise, the apathy of those in power.

The case of Baby Falak is yet another horrendous account of possibly all kinds and dimensions of oppression those females, of all ages, may be subjected to. It depicts how women can be deceived by promises of a bright life, which ironically translates into hell the moment they enter the trap, and the depiction is raw, uncut. The fate of Baby Falak shook the entire nation.

Then is an account of the December 16 Rape case. The case which actually gripped the entire nation, bringing life to a standstill, it counts each moment: when we were praying for the girl to get well, the media was having endless discourse on women's issues, social media was inundated with countless prayers for the victim, curses for the accused.

The book harbours a photo gallery too, which apart from its functional act of capturing the eerie effervescence, also adds to the overall poignancy.

From an objective point of view, it would only be justified to demand another, more comprehensive volume from WSJ on the unfortunate cases of 2013, giving their opinions on it too.

While on one hand this is a factual account, no alterations or modifications, thereby laying bare reality in its harsh form, there is a space for including the heated deliberations and debates that ensued so as to better bring to the fore the horrendous crimes, the misogynistic attitudes and the chauvinistic bent of mind.

Book Review: A Wild Rose by Uzma Zafri

About the Book:

Ritu Anand. Vivacious television anchor envied by many, makes the biggest mistake of her life. A man is at the center of it all. Who is he? And why is he after her?
Ritu Anand is a strikingly beautiful and wealthy divorcee, all of 25 years. None but her parents and best friend in life, Sumbul, know the truth of her divorce. Her career too, had gone to dust thanks to her failed marriage and traumatic ill-health. To the rest of the world, Ritu maintains a façade of still being married. In an effort to piece her life together again, she goes back to being an anchorperson after 3 long year.
And a very important part of this new life becomes the enigmatic Anshuman Sinha. Not very tall and with an average physique, deep hazel eyes and sharp intense features, Anshuman is dangerous and irresistible – he is the very picture of 'Ritu's Man'. The devastatingly dashing ‘casanova’ soon has the ‘love starved- Ritu’ eating from the palm of his hand and dreaming of a picture perfect life with him. The gullible Ritu is soon weaving the tapestry of a picture perfect life, of a happily ever after with her lover. But there is her hidden past to deal with. What was the truth behind her sordid marriage? And coming to the present, what did she know about Anshuman at all?
264 pages

Published September 20th 2013 by Mahaveer Publisher

About the author:

Though she belongs to an affluent Muslim family, Uzma Jafri has been brought up in the most cosmopolitan way. A commerce graduate from Delhi University with a keen interest and active participation in public speaking helped her to chisel a career in the media world. A television Anchor by profession, she glows as a human being due to the unconditional support and love of her husband and child.

'A Wild Rose' is her debut humble attempt. Being a feminist at heart and in her actions, Uzma wrote this woman-centred fiction so that she could share her views with her readers. She is also a patron of the Non Profit ‘Serve Humanity Foundation, NGO’ which solely aims at serving humanity irrespective of colour, religion and culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89UsX4B15sI

My Review:

 The lasting impression that the novel makes is that it does not appear to be a tyro's work, so furnished is the expression of emotions. However, it is a lugubrious tale of a woman who is left emotionally crippled for a lifetime because of the games people play.

Usually the expectation from a first time author is to create a refreshing story, with a refreshing perspective, set in the contemporary times. Given that the plethora of love stories inundating the market only adds to the expectations, the mysteriously captivating cover and title and blurb of the book worked wonders to compel a reader to read with captivation, engrossed in the story.

Gripping, the novel surely was. The characters have a tale to narrate

The ending is harshly disappointing and the elements governing it are highly regressive, not to say, to an extent, anti-feminist. At the risk of sounding too acrimonious, tears refuse to come even at the misfortune that befell the gullible, credulous, naive Ritu because we certainly expect a better substance of character. The author crafts a character which is utterly impossible, because for one she is a successful woman, talented and in possession of all one could aspire for, yet somehow it seems highly improbable that after having faced so much deception in a farce marriage before, she could so easily be guiled into yet another vicious deception, a snare that she willingly let herself into. It was so explicit to even a restless reader-spectator that Anshuman had done all acts to raise suspicion, and that he should have been raided by the girl for a test of fidelity. However, the author had anything else in mind. The better part is that it has been written convincingly, though. Her friend Sumbul has been an endearing character and also lends a great deal of conviction to the plot.

The language is both simple and adorned with some enjoyable phrases. It is an easy read, and one is satiated for the desire to read because it finishes within a couple of hours and yet leaves you exhausted if you venture under the skin of the characters. That is something commendable, which not many authors can do.

The Urdu poetry is another icing on the cake, but the icing has been used with miserliness, we crave for more, so that it can have its desired effect.

The book, on the whole is not a masterpiece, but a good read, nevertheless.

Best line: Cappuccino tasted better that day as it was brewed with a cosy tete-a-tete between two best friends.

And of course, the metaphor of love and a wild rose is impeccably impressive.