Skip to main content

Book Review: 'In Love and Free' by Jagdish Joghee

It's been a while since I came across a quality work of literature that could provide me with enough brownie points. A quality work of literature need not be complex in nature or its constituting elements. It could be a emblematic of simple story narrated with subtlety, nuances, intrigue and just enough emotional charge. One such work I found in Mr. Jagdish Joghee's debut novel viz. 'In Love and Free'. Central Idea of this book is 'infidelity' and that's one topic Indian authors of Metropolitan cities are exploiting relentlessly. And this is not to suggest it's only a tier-1 or tier-2 cities' phenomenon, it's rather an age old infatuation and false thrill that put its practitioners almost always in danger. Our book's heroine Ms. Shruthi is a very strong character who has been fantastic with her studies, family, husband and kids. She has got money, she has got career and she lives without a care in the world but she unintentionally (first) falls in the trap of her maneuvering and opportunistic neighbor, Rahul, who first comes across her as a chivalrous guy and free from all evils but once he leads her into the path of adultery with free flowing abundance, he appears in front of us a 'thinking' madman. As Shruthi finds out subsequently that Rahul might as well have killed her first wife and tricking another, Meera with Shruthi herself, She gets to feel the extent of filth and treachery she has gotten herself into. Rahul starts blackmailing her with his girlfriend Deepa and when Shruthi doesn't relent to his call of ransom and physical needs, he reveals their sexual adventures to his father and ever-faithful husband, Madhan. In just a stroke of luck, Shruthi having everything in life, finds herself luckless. How she recuperates from this unfortunately saddening ordeal forms the crux of book's climax.

I have just narrated you the plot here in brief and it's really pretty brief in totality too. Book is only 104 pages thick and it's flow is effortless. Book deals with a serious issue in 'infidelity' and enough space has been provided by author to the elements of love, loyalty, forgiveness, mental toughness and importance of family to tackle it successfully. Writing is flawless from grammatical point of view and I couldn't find it straining at any juncture. Blurb is absolutely 'to the point' and just enough informative to give its readers a feel of what to expect from it. Character development is one area where I must congratulate the author for a book as thin as this one introduces and let us know the lives and deeds of all its main characters with finesse. Proofreading and editing are upto the mark and make it for the 'impressive' debut for the author.

Verdict: A simple story with a serious societal issue at its core and enough emotional charge in its narrative that will surely provide the readers with moments to ponder upon. This is really what a quality work of literature is expected to do.

Rating: 4/5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Racing Extinction (2015) : A Commentary

It's really hard to switch on to a different language from the one you have constantly been tinkering with. I grew so accustomed to writing in Hindi in last few days that it started dawning on me that I might never be good again with my English. So this is a tester, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday, one of my movie group friends, an American by nationality, questioned my fondness of documentaries. I specifically wrote in one of my columns that documentaries demand your unwavering attention and once you gave 'that' to them, you are rewarded much more handsomely than a proper, narrative, fictitious film. My reasoning for believing so is that a documentary is an experience of a creative process. It doesn't get made to 'entertain' you. They are there to reveal something to you. They teach you something. You get overwhelmed by them. 'Racing Extinction (2015)' was one such documentary. I watched it in last couple of days. I couldn't complete it in one ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Love and Friendship

Friendship is an aspect of life that’s not controlled by its beholders. Ideal friendships, well they are the things of past now. Many a times we have seen our parents or their parents talking about their old great friends and how amusingly they tell us about their bonding, the moments they spent together and we see a ‘priceless’ twinkle in their eyes…..that’s something which is missing from modern friendships. There are terms & phrases like ‘yaar tu to apna bhai hai’, ‘yaar tu to ghar ka aadmi hai’ which even today invoke something very beautiful inside our hearts but we all know that the feelings underneath them are ‘hollow’, they are just mere words, ‘emotionless’ and ‘impassive’. Well who am I to comment on such an indefinable ‘qualitative’ perspective? I’m one of you, those wretched creatures that are still in need of true, great friendships. Well I certainly can’t say that I haven’t got friends. I’ve got friends, plenty of them in fact, and some of them are real great. I s...
1 comment
Read more

Book Review: Unanswered

'Unanswered' is a book penned by Mr. Kunal Uniyal and it's his third book. I am calling it a book, using a common noun to describe it and I have a good enough reason for doing so. It's a book that consists off both poems and prose and I was in real dilemma picturing its prognosis in my mind. It started with a poem named 'You and I' and beautiful it was, all poised and lyrical. And then came a snippet of a prose by the name 'Life of a Yogi'. They were really not connected and I was perplexed. Then I allowed myself some comfort and decided to dig up some more. Some more beautiful poems and accompanying yet again not quite related passages of prose followed but now they looked more in shape and very much in order. Now I was beginning to realize that there was more to this book than met my eyes earlier and it's scope is much wider that what I originally thought. You are required to engage yourself with this book and once you do that, you will know you ar...
Post a Comment
Read more