Durjoy datta is one of the authors who has worked his way to the top. One who follows the author can definitely see his progress from a very average writer to a fairly good one. Although he still has a long way to go, he is in a right path. Many know him as a symbol of modern love story writer. He has given hope to the new generation, of finding love and keeping it. This is another book by the author to reinstate the faith in love and follow it.
Cover page
The books Durjoy Datta has written have interesting titles and they seem to overpower the pathetic book covers that come along with the book. But here unfortunately the title does not stand out. Looks like the publication has to work harder on the cover page now. The cover page is very boring. One can definitely pass this book as another romance novel without looking inside the book.
‘Books make us better people, Archana. It made me into someone who could forgive you for kissing that boy in the classroom, and it would have made you a person who wouldn’t have kissed that boy in the first place. Books make you rectify the mistakes even before you make them. I am not blaming you, for I understand it was your right to find love elsewhere if you didn’t find it with me. Books taught me that. It also taught me that it’s important to empathize with people, because people are complex and beautiful and often irrational and hard to understand, and so are you. And my anger over that “face-eating incident” shouldn’t change what I think of you as a person. It should only make me try to understand you better. When you’re dead and I’m dead and the boy’s dead, we can still live because we become a part of them as much as they become a part of us,’ I say and I’m panting. I am a pretty stupid Hulk; Stan Lee would be ashamed.
Characters
The book is a sweet love story of a boy named Deep. He is a below average looking boy. He is a book worm and aspires to be a writer some day. Deep has been given a good depth in the story. One can smell the desi down to earth boy in him. Ahana is his love interest in the book. She is extremely beautiful and someone whom anyone will fall in love with instantly. The only upper-hand that Deep has got over her is that he has a pair of well-functioning eyes. Ahana is a blind girl in the book who is always bitter. She goes to sleep hating her life and wishes that she never get up.
Story line
Deep is looking forward to go to Hong Kong where he has been called to design a book cataloguing software for a library. This is the first time he is ever going abroad or flying. He is very excited about the trip and very nervous too. Reaching Hong Kong he realizes that he is not needed at work all the time. so he has a lot of time to kill. There he meets Ahana and finds the protagonist of his next novel.
Concept
It is a sweet story of two people falling in love and how different it is when one of them is blind. The two of them roam around in Hong Kong visiting different places. Since Ahana cannot see, all the places need to be described to her. During the time spent together they fall in love. But Ahana hates herself too much to fall in love with anyone else.
And you will never be a conquest. I’m like Alexander the Great and you’re India. I end with you,’ he mumbles.
Language
People do not read Durjoy Datta for quotable lines in his book or because it is some great literature. But this book has set a new high in his writing. The books are filled with lines that you would wish someone says to you. Or you meet someone for whom you feel so strongly. Durjoy Datta writes emotions very well and this one is no different. You will laugh and live like the characters in the book when you read them.
Good points
The concept of the book is definitely worth mentioning over here. something very different. the characters are very well designed. The humble nature of Deep and the bitterness of Ahana are all relatable and well described. The story is not great, but it is sweet. Boy meets girl and they fall in love. The language is simple and very gripping.
Bad points
There are parts in the book that one will get bored of reading. The trips to different places that Deep and Ahana take are very tiring for someone to read too. It is very uneventful. There is also an overkill of dialogues from Ahana where she mentions her blindness. I am sure one will find it in every paragraph. I know blindness makes people bitter but…
Overall
Overall the book is a sweet read. It is by far the best book that I have read by the author. And I have my hopes high now. Looking forward to read his new release!
Quotable Quotes
If all libraries combined to make a country, we would be the first family of that country. And I was going to add another feather in its cap.
I always end up associating people with characters from books. The professor is boring, he is the kind of character that dies in a Robert Ludlum book and no one misses him.
‘If I were to buy new clothes and wear them, and type on a new laptop, and live a new life, I will start feeling new and shiny, and I want the book to be old and rugged, poor and earthly, because after all, I am the book.
I am the book. The four words are running in my head even as I am reading The Silver Linings Playbook, the book whose movie made the Academy Awards jury jump up in childlike joy. Though I think the book is infinitely better, incomparable even. Maybe the book was the author and the movie was the director, maybe the author was poor and earthly and the director was new and shiny.
‘You’re what?’ I ask, not sure if I heard her right and to confirm that it is not just an excuse she uses to ward off strangers. She licks her lips. ‘I’m blind. I have Leber’s congenital amaurosis. I feel so good about myself whenever I can pronounce it correctly. It’s such a big word.’ ‘I know bigger words,’ I say. ‘Like Pneumono-ultramicroscopic-silico-volcano-coniosis. It’s the longest word in the English dictionary.’ ‘That’s impressive!’ she beams.
In the shower, where all great ideas emerge, I’m thinking of H.G. Wells’s The Country of the Blind where everyone’s blind and the concepts of beauty and ugliness are obsolete. But people do smell. I empty another bottle of bathing gel.