14th Book of 2022
I finally got a Kindle for myself this year and I was looking forward to read a completely new author’s book on it which has been released in Kindle edition only. After searching a lot, I choose to read Golam Maula’s A Dangerous Mind as my first Kindle book. It also has a tagline that says “Consciousness belongs to God”. This 356-pages book is quite a ride as author takes you on a journey which has a plot with many twists and turns. Though it is not a thriller but author manages to keep changing the theme of the story after every few chapters which keeps you interested and excited to know what’ll happen next. The book is quite a good page-turner which will make you finish it within 2-3 sittings itself; though it took little more time for me to complete due to my first Kindle reading experience.
Author’s writing style is cool – yes, I am using this term to define the way he writes because it makes you feel that you aren’t reading a book but watching it on a big screen. The narration is fast-paced and doesn’t bore you as author keeps his characters on toes always. Generally, as a reader, when you complete the first 50 pages of a book, you are able to guess on what tone the story will move ahead but here, I would really like to applaud author for choosing to write in a manner where you feel that you have read not one but many stories in a single book itself. The characterizations of both the main protagonists- John and Anjali is done so perfectly despite the fact that their background is from two different countries – US and India. I was quite impressed with the way their aesthetics and beliefs are portrayed in the book which makes you understand them so well that you feel you already know them.
The book starts quite romantically which made me imagine it all in a very Bollywood-ish manner – a boy trying to search a girl whom he found at a temple praying but her beauty mesmerized him. Then they keep on bumping or meeting each other at some places after which they finally get to have a conversation and know each other. The instant liking makes both of them fall in love. Till here, I really enjoyed how author defined the emotions of a boy who wants to get to the talking terms with the girl he has got attracted towards. Their initial conversations also make you fall in love with the characters and imagine yourself in a beautiful relationship.
Now, the tone of the book shifts again and author gives prominence to the casteism and belief system of parents and its impact on the children - How marriages are not seen as compatibility and love of two people for each other but it is made more about what castes they belong to. The whole struggle of the two characters will make you resonate with their pain as many people in our country go through this issue and end up suffering emotional damage for a long time because of losing someone for no reason at all just because they belonged to two different castes. The characters of parents are also nicely crafted which makes you understand where they are coming from and why they are so hell bent over their decision.
The main power of Golam’s writing gets revealed when the story proceeds after this where John meets an accident where some revolutionary medical experiment is performed on his treatment which changes his mind, his life and his perspectives forever. He is being referred to as the most intelligent person on the planet. He also ends up losing memory which keeps on coming back and losing again periodically. Now, in such scenarios, when Anjali finds John in a completely different zone and mindset, the real test of their relationship begins where she tries all her efforts to keep it up but John’s memory loss makes him explore life very differently. Here, I started imagining everything in quite a Hollywood-ish way which is a completely contrast to the first half of the book which I mentioned was quite Bollywood-ish till then.
I liked how Maula used philosophical aspects where there are many colours of life being explained through characters in their conversations. I liked one section in the 2nd half of the book where John is reading Anjali’s diary paragraph by paragraph and she is explaining her point of view about why she wrote it and how things have changed since then. The climax is quite painful but predictive as I had guessed somewhere in middle of the story what would happen with the characters later on.
Now talking about the drawbacks- firstly, this is quite a lengthy book which I believe could have been cut short by 25% of its total length with good editing. Secondly, I believe author got quite preachy at places when he talks about religion, faith and other such aspects which somewhere makes you find Anjali’s character quite boring at times. Thirdly, the word “Ardhangini” is used so many times in the book to prove how serious and beautiful relationship a marriage is that you would want to give divorce finding this concept being pushed every once in ten pages.
Other than this, I believe author has done quite good research to make the whole medical scenario of John look natural. Similarly, his efforts to know about India, its culture, belief and religion is evident otherwise it’s not easy to describe the whole country and its people the way Golam Maula has done. I give this book 3.75 stars out of 5.
P.S. This book has been awarded the best novel of the year 2022 by APS Book Awards in Chicago, USA.
Thanks.
WRITING BUDDHA
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