Skip to main content

Book Review: Mannu Rikshewala by Tuhin

Mannu Rikshewala by Tuhin explores the grim realities of the society of the urban life through three best characters: Ankita, Sameer, and Mannu. The book delves into various themes, like equivocal voice of love, the urge to find out the purpose of life, hidden desires of extremely poor people. Though Ankita and Sameer fill most part of the book, Mannu is the central character of the novel. The kind of conviction portrayed through this struggling character Mannu is best of class.

The story is staged against the current time Delhi. Mannu is a poor young man who cycles a Riksha for sustenance. He looks older than his age; he is tenth pass and knows writing and reading, all these aspects make him a bit different than other cycle Rikshewalas. Like many other poor, he too has a sad story of his past where he was forced to quit school to work in order to support his family and save money for his sister’s marriage. He has some plans about life but circumstances keep his hands tied.

Ankita works in an NGO to teach poor children. Her boyfriend Sameer is a man from the corporate world. They like each other but still their love story has not seen that stage, where they could go intimate or trust one another blindly. They share mutual understanding. One fine day, in frenzied hurry she forgets her diary on Mannu’s Riksha. Mannu goes through her diary and comes to know about her past life as well as present-day trivial issues. Next day when he returns the diary to Ankita, he feels a strange bonding towards her. She expresses her gratitude and then gets inside a cab.

The cab driver kidnaps her and heads for a farmhouse at a remote place, in Haryana. The gang that resides in the farmhouse has raped and killed many girls from the city. The same is going to be the fate of Ankita. She tries hard to get out of the cab but to no avail, also the mobile coverage is patchy. On the other hand, when Mannu sees her getting inside the cab, he senses something wrong. He was aware of that cab driver’s criminal background that used to pick prostitutes from around a known Paan shop. On a wild instinct, Mannu begins chasing the cab. It is the height of madness for that girl that he chased down almost 90 kilometers. With some brain and bravado, he initially manages to save the girl from them but not for a long time. Ankita and Mannu runs away in the same cab in which she had been brought, but their luck peters out when the petrol dries up and with a draining mobile battery they manage to talk to Sameer only for a few minutes. Taking the clues from their phone call, Sameer informs the police to search them.

They are saved. After the incident, Ankita has to fight another fight: to come out of that shock. Every time she remembers the incident, the innocent face of Mannu appears before her eyes. But she could never decide what her true calling is: whether she loves that Rikshewala or Sameer. In the end she gifts a diary and a note of thank you to Mannu. Saving that girl is like an achievement for Mannu. He did what he actually used to hear from the stories of his uncle. Mannu knew that despite being a Rikshewala, he was a hero, an extraordinary man somewhere deep inside him.

The novel is a light read. The author has put in good efforts to make it as much as riveting possible, especially with the kidnapping and running away scenes. It could have been more dramatic.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should ...
68 comments
Read more

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike.  This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversatio...
65 comments
Read more

Character Sketch of Binya from ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Ruskin Bond

The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond is a popular children’s story. It features Binya as the main character, though there are other important characters as well, but the story revolves around Binya and her little beautiful umbrella. The story is widely popular among children, thus it has also been included in the schools’ syllabus all across the country. Since it is often taught in the school, thus the character sketch of Binya is often demanded by students from year to year. Character Sketch of Binya from The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond Binya is the main character of the novel ‘The Blue Umbrella’ by Ruskin Bond. Her full name is Binyadevi. As in the hills or anywhere in India it is a kind of trend to call children with their short nicknames. Binya’s elder brother’s name is Bijju, whereas his real name is Vijay. Binya aged eleven is a hilly girl. She lives with her small family in the hills of Garhwal. Her father died when she was two years of age. For sustenance, the...
41 comments
Read more