Whenever a book crosses its thickness above 250 pages, it needs to be very engaging, riveting, appealing and interesting to keep the readers excited to turn every page until the story does not end. And when the book crosses the mark of 300-pages, then it absolutely brings with it lots of expectations and hope for the reader that at the end of the story, it shall definitely give something to the life of the reader too. Not many books are able to impress the reader but one book which has recently surprised me with the way it is written is “The Light Catcher” by the author, Sameer Chopra.
The cover page describes the whole essence of the book which shows a great city with skyscrapers staying awake all the night, the protagonist standing alone and observing the city with a camera in his hand in a hope to get famous and mark his existence in the maximum city. The tagline says “A vicious circle and a thrilling redemption”.
The narrative used by the author to tell the story is one of the bests I have experienced by a debutante. Not even once did I feel that the book is written by someone who has just come into the writing world. When I read the bio of author, I understood that most of the parts in the story must be inspired from his personal experience which is why you find the story realistic covering incidents which are full of failures, full of moments coming in the hands and slipping away, full of passion of going against the world to prove oneself, the love for mother like a middle-class boy, the frustration at office, the heartbreaks etc.
The characters are so nicely elaborated that you understand the pain and confusion of each one of them. Specially, the protagonist, Purab, becomes a part of yourself as the way his thoughts and approaches are discussed makes you relate yourself with him after every 2-5 pages. The way he faces rejection at office because of being straight-forward or the way he is ignored by Professional Photographers irrespective of the commitment he shows in photography makes us feel for him but I am glad author kept the whole thing crude and practical rather than showing unreal and overnight success kind of a fairy-tale. The characters of Trisha, Rati and Sneha fits so well in the story that you would love and hate them with times when they understand and misunderstand the protagonist respectively.
The way book displays the two world- one of corporate in the first half and then one of the art in the second half is done with such distinctness that you can feel you are at both the places with the character. The injustice one has to go through to finally land upon success is nicely portrayed for both the worlds and essence can be truly felt as a reader. I am myself been experiential of both of these worlds hence I could feel how perfectly author has woven the same in his book. The details of photography are also mentioned in a way that non-photographers will also enjoy how a photographer has to get into details before clicking a picture of yours. Talking about the climax, it is very well ended with such emotions that I wasn’t able to stop thinking about everything for at least 3 hours after finishing the book.
Talking about the drawbacks, I could feel that author ended up making the protagonist think about his 1st love quite sometimes even after he gets into a lot of things and people which makes it little cheesy at times. Also, at few places, the details of photography are explained too much that you would even want to skip it if not interested as it does not take the story forward. The success of Purab is nicely discussed but how he takes certain decisions as an entrepreneur should have been part of the story to make it more exciting. The book could have been kept little shorter if a crisp editing could have been done. Except these few points, this book is a wonderful experience to be read. I will give it 4.25* out of 5.
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Thanks.
ABHILASH RUHELA
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