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Book Review - Colourful Notions:The Roadtrippers 1.0


Soul-searching (or at least an effort to do that) has become the new go-to objective of our millennial directors and writers who try to weave a narrative involving some characters that are confused at most of the things that do and thus are 'ordinary' by greats' standards. They look out for an answer, of all the troubles they are having in their lives and thus look out for an endeavor which if not provides a satisfactory solution to their troubles, at least give them a respite for a short while from their unremarkable lives. Hollywood and Europeans are working on this issue from 90s and they visited the orientals as well in search of their lost inner-selves. They might think that they are closing in on a solution but what about the developing Asians? They are catching up fast with 'well-developed' (but ever-so-confusing) Americans and Europeans and thus are getting the headaches and 'made-up' problem of their owns. Well, the author of this book, Mr. Mohit Goyal, happens to find out the exact average Joes for his narrative and they are named Abhay, Shashank and Unnati.

Finding the suitable meaning of love, life and relationships has been deemed the most difficult task of our planet and those who have managed to crack this puzzle are named Buddha, Jesus and Krishna. No ordinary fellows by any standards. But our three entirely ordinary characters in Abhay, Unnati and Shashank decide to take a dig at it, without actually ever knowing what they are going to dig into. They plan a road-trip (why do these confused guys always decide to travel?), a crazy one to cover-up India's 25 most iconic tourist spots in over three months time. It's a life-quest of sort for these three individuals. Abhay has resigned from his job, Shashank has taken a sabbatical from his family business and Unnati is an assistant RJ who turns-in for this adventurous journey for she has been favored by Abhay to give a voice-over to this journey which they will be video-graphing. Aha, a feature film or a docudrama, your guess!!!!

Credit must go to Mr. Goyal for capturing the essence of the breathtaking beauty of some of the places possess. However, don't depend on this book for a travelogue/tour guide of all those 25 places his characters are determined to visit. The real purpose of this book is to showcase companionship and an honest effort to figure out everything that I have mentioned in first paragraph. One must applaud Mr. Goyal for coming out with an experimental tale of love, life and relationship in the guise of a 'cliched' road-trip.

I have always maintained the belief that book that come from Shristi's stable are flawless in their technical aspects. Add to it the endearing writing style of Mr. Goyal and an intriguing road-trip this book rises above the level of many contemporary Indian narratives. Had it not been for the lack of an element of surprise or two, I might have been much more enamored by it.

Rating: 3/5

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