SMTP- CarorPati turns RoadPati : Book Review

Monsoon in Bangalore is very much unexpected; suddenly the sunny day turns into a rainy one and pours water on all your weekend plans. However that makes the weather best suited for lazy afternoons on couch, when you need just a mug full of coffee and a good book to enjoy a lazy day. I always like reading fiction more than other type of literature. So when I got to lay my hands on this book I was not sure what I should expect out of this book as this is from a debutant writer, but as the title of this book suggests I was sure to see many twist and turns in the story.

Writer of this book Ashutosh Bhatia is basically from Jaipur and is CEO of a renowned Information technology firm. And I think that is why he decided to base this story in the Pink city of Jaipur and the protagonist Aaryan is related to the IT field.

Story starts with teenager Aaryan, who is freshly out of school and is confused about his future. He has big dreams, wants to do something really big with his life but lacks determination. He wants to do something today but by tomorrow his plans change. He keeps making mistake but his family supports him and tries to guide him on right track. He wanted to become a fashion designer, and then when his family agreed to his choice he decides to take admission in local college for Bachelor in commerce, then on his mother’s suggestion he joints a computer course and develops interest in website development. That is where his story towards success starts. He starts with a small business of website development and then slowly grows to all areas of IT industry.  In this journey of success he faces many turning points, some leaves him with bitter taste of failure and some lets him face success. He climbs up, falls down and then learns from his mistakes and tries to climb up again.

 

In this whole process of him becoming a freelancer to a CarorPati businessmen he learns many lessons and meets many people who touch his life in different ways. His elder brother always guides him to what is right for him and his love interest Shona always stands by him in his thick and thin. One side Aaryan learns from his mistakes but other side he always makes sure to make a new mistake and one such mistake makes him turn from a CarorPati to a RoadPati. However that teaches Aaryan the lesson for his life and he starts to work towards making it big all over again.

This one is a good inspirational story, with clean language (something which can be read by teenagers as well as elderly). There is no complex love story involved here, and it mainly deals with a man’s journey towards success and how some mistakes can make him loose everything he has earned.  There were few things which could have been better, like the sudden disappearance of the track of Sandra and the Buddha girl. The reason for which his employee takes such big revenge from him was not very convincing for me. For someone who is not from IT sector, all the technical programming terminologies used in book can be confusing. Also if little bit more attention was paid to the language (grammar and flow of story) then that would have been great for this book

 

If we ignore these flaws then for a debutant writer this is a wonderful job done. Writer has succeeded in creating story of an ordinary boy who has extraordinary dreams and with his hard work and skills he finally makes it big in life. It can be inspirational for people who have similar dreams and a good read for readers who avoid love stories. Many of us will be able to relate ourselves with the confused teenager Aaryan and for people who work in IT and programming this will be more fun story as they will be able to relate with late night working and project pressures .For me this is an average book with a motivating story of an ordinary man. I congratulate Ashutosh Bhatia for his first book and wish him luck for his future, hope to read some more good stories from him in future.

 

 

Just Married, Please Excuse: Book Review

I like reading fiction and when I saw this book was up for review on Indiblogger, I quickly grabbed my copy. This is the first book by the Author Yashodhara Lal. She was a marketing professional and an IIM graduate. And she also writes at her blog ‘Y on earth Not’.

Most of the Fiction books talk about a girl and boy falling in love, convincing parents, fighting the odds and getting married and then living happily ever after. But do they really live happily ever after; this is the book which tells the story of that happily ever after phase, or not so happily ever after phase. This is the story of urban Indian couple. Who is well educated, working in MNC, but from two completely different backgrounds. Yashodhara (Y) is a Delhi girl with an MBA from IIM, while Vijay is 7 years older than her and belongs to a rather old-fashioned Jaipur based pure vegetarian Brahmin family. They meet at their work place, and just after 3 months of dating Vijay propose to Yashodhara. In her early twenties, Yashodhara wants to stay away from marriage for few years or may be throughout her life. However finally these two opposites settle down in a marriage, but do opposites really attract, well not always.

The life of Y and Vijay is like any newly married couple these days. Working couple, both have their opinion in everything, and both wants to win every argument. From selecting curtains for their house to keeping name for their newborn, they rarely agree on one thing. But their small-small arguments are not heated arguments always, it makes the reader laugh. The other characters in this book are also interesting and will sound very close to real life. Some incidents in the book are really very funny. Like, Vijay’s love for Alu Gobhi and everyone’s enthusiasm to feed him alu gobhi. Yashodhara’s mom googling the lyrics of the song to prove she is right. And, the conversation between Vijay and Kajal are always hilarious. But if I am asked, other than the fun what I got out of this book, then that will be the statement made my Yashodhara’s mother-in-law about marriage “Ladne ki kya baat hain? Arrey, kabhi main maan jaati hoon, kabhi wo maan jaate hain”. This one is the very simple but powerful mantra behind every successful marriage.  

This book is written in the way you talk style, use of hinglish language will make the reading experience fun for some but pain for others who don’t understand Hindi L

For me in whole this book was a joy ride. I enjoyed reading it. And being a newly wedded (1 year in marriage is still new rightJ) myself I was able to relate to the story very well. I had so much fun reading this book and I will recommend this book to all newly married couples and everyone else who wants to take a fun break.

Two Fates (Book Review)

 

 

Last time when I saw the book review program for novel “Two fates” on blogadda I got really excited, as this book seemed exactly the kind of stories I like to read. And I don’t need to tell you how happy I was after receiving my copy; I finished reading this book in just 2 days.

One should not get confused with this book being one more Punjabi-Tamil love story by seeing the cover page of the book. It is not a novel about two state marriage, however this is the story of an interstate divorce. The first time writer Judy Balan calls her book “Two Fates – The story of my Divorce”. This gives a little idea of what one should expect out of the book, but the way story unfolds and the interesting characters and hilarious incidents glues you with the book till end and makes it an interesting read.

If you have read “Two States” by Chetan Bhagat, where a Punjabi boy falls for a Tamilian girl and after winning over all odds they finally get married and live happily ever after. Then this story takes you one step ahead. Years after marriage when the boy and girl fall out of love and want to go in different directions, making the family accept their decision to part is as difficult as making the two state marriage a reality.

The main character of this book is beautiful and smart Tamilian girl Deepika, who is like any other 21^st century Indian girl, twisted between modern thinking and desi heart. She wants to live life her way, but do not want to make her family and friends unhappy by any means. She is married to Rishab, a Punjabi boy with IIT tag which gives him the certificate of being most intelligent and educated boy in the whole family. They win over all odds and make the respective families ready for the north-south marriage. Years pass, Deepika and Rishab fall out of love because of their nonstop arguments over which colour the wall should be painted, what is the right time to make love and many such petty issues. They do not want to live together anymore and badly want a divorce. But as we know in India marriage is not between two individuals, it is the marriage between two families. By now their families are so close that they are doing holidays together, their cousins want to marry each other and become ideal couple like Deepika and Rishab, making it a difficult task for our lead characters to make the same families hate each other which came closer because of their constant efforts. Will Deepika and Rishab get divorce or the love between families will win and make them stick to each other for family’s sake, Two Fates deals with this.

Author puts this interesting story in very easy to understand language. The characters of this book are very close to real life, the way they talk and behave in certain situations is as real as we Indians do.

For me this book did what it was supposed to do, Entertainment!  It was a fun read with lots of laughter moments. All in all it’s a good read. I am looking forward to read more from Judy in future, and best of luck for her “Two Fates”.