Confused Soul

Before you guys think the post title as a cryptic one and make wild guesses, let me tell you that actually it is the name of the book, I finished yesterday. Since I’m not an avid reader (Ohh!!! I’m not at all a reader), let me pat myself for completing two books in just 3 days (I should correct it as 3 and half nights). All thanks to Ms. PENGUIN, who gave me the lovely Ma’am just after I finished the highly exotic story of ‘The Alchemist’. OK, let’s come back to the main business, this post is all about ---Anything for you Ma’am--- and nothing to do with ---The Alchemist--- … Don’t worry, I’ll write a separate post for the later.

You all must have remembered this dialogue from ‘OM SHANTI OM’, and this book is all about this dialogue. Since I am not an avid reader so many may differ on their opinion from me on this book, but it doesn’t matter as these are solely my opinions. Let me start from beginning, when I was handed over this book. I didn’t like the cover of the book at all, but Ms. Penguin again deserves thanks for putting a white cover over the book(though the intentions were not to block the view of the cover...). Hmm!!! finally I started the book and in first few pages, it didn't appeal much. But as I moved further, I found the characters as a part of real life(Believe me, you can certainly relate with the characters in the book) and my interest in the book started increasing exponentially. Since it is a story of another engineer and it is not very late when I was in the college, Ma'am started appealing me.

One thing, I want to mention that I liked the name of the characters in the book Shreya, Rijat, Palak, Ria, Prof. Pappi, Peela, Bajrang alias TANKER etc etc...Also some anomalies like phrases as AS-SMOOTH-AS-A-BABY'S-BOTTOM and "A-SONG-ON-MY-LIPS-AND-A-BAG-ON-MY-HIPS" made reading interesting(I suppose this is how a dumb reader judges a book). In addition to it, I can bet that one will surely fall in love with Shreya if she is like the author described her :). The vivid descriptions of the scenes and circumstances are good but sometimes these get over explained and reader wants to finish it ASAP. Still the good narration of the story keeps you stuck with the book. Also one thing for sure that this book will make you smile many times if you really had fun in college life. It is one such book where everyone will find some shades of himself.


Now if we look at the bad part then the author seems to be extreme in all the cases. Being an Industrial Engr, it was not mandatory for him to fall in love with 1s and 0s but he did. It seems that everything is either very very good (notice very twice) or very very bad and nothing lies in between. Also everything is great for Mr. Raheja (author of the book), winter, October, trains, monsoon everything. Either the author doesn't want to tell us about the NOT-GREAT things or it's just like that. Is someone smelling an oxymoron here???

Again too many co-incidences in the book result in indigestion. One or two co-incidences are okay but here if we count then it goes like one, two, three, four... LOST-COUNT. Also if a book has these many co-incidences then the climax of the book becomes very predictable and the same happens with this too. The moment when the suspense must be at it's peak, it becomes completely predictable and the worst part is that it finishes as per the predictions.

Anyways, it will prove a nice reading if you want to remember ur old college days. Also if you want to see that what one can do to meet his love(that also is not sure) then it's a must read. But BEWARE, if you are expecting a masterpiece like 'FIVE-POINT-SOMEONE' then it will be nothing but a pile of 230 pages. Actually it is the worst for this book that FIVE-POINT-SOMEONE has arived before it and set a benchmark for the books on similar lines. Anyways, it won't burn a hole in ur pocket as it costs only 100 bucks, so go ahead and read it to refresh the unforgettable fun and love of ur college life...