Skip to main content

Book Review: Muawza by Sanjiv Priyadarshi

Muawza by Sanjiv Priyadarshi is a collection of eleven short stories. The title Muawza is an Urdu word meaning compensation. The book is built around quite a number of themes that matter in life. Friendship, sacrifice, societal status, blessing, death, irony of fate, and of course compensation are the prominent themes that takes the storytelling to an elevated level. The great thing about the book is its literary stature that is inclined towards humanity and compassion. Within so short space, the author managed to tell stories that looked replete from all sides.


Nearly all stories are well-narrated, have subthemes, and ends unexpectedly. However, readers may feel that the tempo and feel of the book is terrific in first five stories, especially dealing with death and other tragedies that could not be amounted with any other compensation.

The first titular story Muawza discusses the futility of life of people living around roadside i.e. slum dwellers, who are often victimized by random accidents. An old man dies in an accident; his widow gets two lakh rupees as compensation by an MLA. The slum dwellers weren’t sad about the death but astonished by the compensation price. Another poor Haria often broods about his missing son Krishna. He waits for him. Ironically when Krishna makes a home return, the fate takes a cruel turn…but that compensation may go fruitless.

The second story is quite emotional where a better-off couple keeps the hope alive to see and adopt a girl suffering from brain tumour, from Assam. But as they reach her home in Assam a bad news jolts them.

‘Let’s Begin Afresh’ sheds the pain of a mother who is struggling to find a shelter home after being discarded by her son Amit. Life’s loss cannot always be compensated for emotions. Crime & Karma is another profound story on the moral choices one makes. It’s a heartfelt story of a Nepali smuggler.

Most of the stories towards the end of the book are shorter than the early ones. The book is brilliantly written. The author aimed to bring a gamut of medley of emotions that grip human lives whether they are city people, slum dwellers or rural folks. This is one of the short crisp read that will fill your heart with pain and sympathy that you will exude for the characters that you come across while listening to their woeful tales of fate. In all stories of Sajiv, except a few, fate is evident like banter in the backdrop.

Irrespective of falling into any specific genre, this book can be picked up by any kind of reader for a delightful and engrossing experience.

Buy from Amazon/Kindle

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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 ...

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...