Kevein Books and Reviews

At one point the book looks highly influenced by Hindi movies of the 1980s, but as you go on reading, the difference that follows make readers believe that the story is a different one and is here to tell a different tale. The book is highly exploring in nature. It does so by taking deep insights into the society of India and of course, human nature that can never be devoid of desires and episodes of hedonism. Sometimes the characters are meek, while other time they become frenzy about circumstances, and like many of us – they do try to change their fate, but Tit for Tat is the perfect suit. Many readers can positively feel that the writer Preeti Singh is a religious person – as it is being reflected in her debut novel, ‘Flirting with Fate’. The core theme of the novel is karma (human actions), along with auxiliaries themes like social reclusiveness, lust, evilness and hunger for love and materialism. So, here, the protagonist Anand is a good chap, initially, a boy bein...

R.K. Narayan fittingly depicts the stories of relationships in his books. There may be one or more relationships which are taken for scrutiny and presentation. In ‘Swami and Friends’ and ‘The Dark Room’, for example, there is one major relationship each i.e. of Swami and Rajam and Savatri and Ramani which assumes significance. Narayan’s first novel, Swami and Friends delineates Swami’s character as that of a pre-adolescent boy going through many misadventures. Swami and his four friends – Mani, Pea, Shankar and the newly admitted Rajam – the son of the Deputy Superintendent of the police, are the main characters in the novel. Thus, life for Swami means his friends and himself, his parents and himself, his teachers and himself, coping with everyone in an individual way. However the main concern is the Swami-Rajam relationship. Rajam is Swami’s hero. While ‘nestling close to his granny, very snug and safe Swami narrates to her everything about Rajam and Mani, how Rajam...

Strange Obsession by Shobha De can be converted into a high-drama Bollywood movie. The novel scores well on romance and ecstasy, but eroticism and feminism gallops throughout the book. When Amrita Aggarwal, a fine-looking aspiring model, reaches Mumbai to have a career in the modeling world, she is emotionally abducted by Minx, an ugly lesbian with some high connections in the police. Minx helps her to become the supermodel of India, however, on the other hand Amrita finds herself in an inextricable web. As an upshot, Amrita becomes her sex slave and endures Minx’s torture in order to maintain her growth momentum. However, little did she know that Minx has developed grueling passion for her? When Amrita’s initial struggle to break free meets with an abject failure, she lives a stale life amid such glamorous name and fame. In the company of Minx, Amrita’s life becomes hellish and miserable as she finds no way to attain her freedom. Minx becomes addictive of her body and sees...

Shashi Deshpande in her novels explores and exposes the long smothered wail of the incarcerated psyche of her female protagonist imprisoned within the four walls of domesticity and sandwiched between tradition and modernity. These women however disown a ritualistic tradition bound life in order to explore their true self. Shashi Deshpande’s heroines are all curious to retain their individuality in the teeth of disintegrating and divisive forces that threaten their identity. Bogged down by existential insecurity and uncertainty the women in her novels are in quest of refuge which in ‘The Dark Holds No Terrors’ is portrayed by the protagonist Sarita. ‘The Dark Holds No Terrors’ is the story of a marriage on the rock. Sarita is ‘two-in-one woman’ who in the daytime is a successful doctor and at night ‘a terrified trapped animal’ in the hands of her husband Manohor, an English teacher in a small college. The novel opens with Saru (Sarita) returning after fifteen years to her fa...

Munoo, a 14-year-old orphan, is the hero of Mulk Raj Anand’s great novel Coolie. The plot revolves around him, and accordingly, the storyline is based on humanitarian values like his previous work 'Untouchable'. The story portrays the clever methods and the wits taken up by the hill boy who's forcibly out of his hilly village to earn a livelihood. In the process, he gets exposed to the world's depressing realities. In the quest of identity and some means for sustenance, he takes the ways along with some equally socially and economically downtrodden people to towns and cities of India. The plight of his fate stretches from Shimla to Bombay, but he finds no solace. Often found labouring hard either as a home servant, factory-worker, or rickshaw puller. Everywhere he goes, is being exploited, making his survival a fight to fend for himself. The fight for survival highlights, with unrefined propinquity, the sad providence of the underprivileged people of colo...

The novel – Untouchable needs no introduction for an Indian reader because its background is well known to him.   The very title is a telltale.                         Humanism, which is the key concept of his novels like Untouchable and Coolie, reveals man’s essential dignity and nobility. According to this approach to man – man is the creative source of infinite possibilities. Mr. Anand is a humanist who reveals the essential dignity of the underdogs of Indian society. Anand in all his novels emphasizes the fact that nobility and dignity are not the monopoly of the rich. The poor have their greatness, honour as well as the richness. This humanism is the central theme of his novels. His humanism justifies that man is man, be he a sweeper, a prince or a coolie. The novel Untouchable has the confrontation between tradition and modernity. Anand realized t...

Like many other poor peasants Hori too wants to own a cow in a hope to elevate his puny social status to some height of self-importance. Much opposite to his circumstances, he purchases a cow at a debt of 80 rupees. However, things spiraled out of his control when he tries to cheat his younger brother, Heera, by 10 rupees. This haggle causes a huge fight between Dhaniya (Hori’s wife) and Heera’s wife. Heera poisons the cow and runs away to avoid being caught by the Police. To settle down the cow’s death matter, Hori takes some loan from a moneylender and bribes the police. On the other hand, Gobar (Hori’s son) has an affair with a widow Jhunia. When Jhunia is pregnant with his child, Gobar runs away to the city to escape the wrath of the villagers. But then Jhunia is taken into care by Hori and his family. Because of Jhunia’s issue, the village Panchayat orders Hori to pay a penalty amount for his son’s deeds. Thus, Hori again takes the loan from moneylenders.   ...