The debut novel by Jayanand Ukey deals with the travails of a young couple just out of college who have landed their dream jobs. Girish Khedekar and Prajakta Chitre are engineering students who have fallen in love in their college days. Both of them have bagged campus placements at enviable companies. They have decided to work for a few years and then inform their parents that they wish to get married.
However, by a sudden twist of fate, Prajakta’s parents come to know about it much sooner and they demand to meet Girish and his folks. The meeting goes well and both the sets of parents agree to their children’s decision to get married.
Just as the engagement preparations are on, by a turn of events, both Girish and Prajakta lose their jobs and their getting married is as stake. In the meantime, Prajakta’s parents arrange to have her married off to another guy – one of their family friends. The reason given is that no father can marry off his daughter to a person who does not have a job. However, the parents are not at all worried about the fact that their daughter also has lost a job.
Priyanka and Girish then set about trying to remedy the situation to their benefit. It involves a long chase scene to a mall in Navi Mumbai and back which seemed straight out of a Bollywood movie. At the end, how Girish resolves the events which have happened and manages to win over Priyanka’s parents forms the climax of the story.
The book is an easy read and can be finished in one sitting.
For me, however, it offered nothing new. The story is as old as mankind itself and there is no new treatment by the author.
In the book itself, there are several grammatical mistakes which could easily have been avoided by proof-reading. Also, there are a couple of logical errors – for instance, the author mentions that because of the global crisis, the Nifty falls 6,500 points in a day which is practically not possible. Also, the author tries too hard to explain the global economic crisis and its effects. Apparently, people are clued to the business channels at every single point in time to take in every negative update which comes in.
The characters are developed on a superfluous level and you do not really feel for any of them. Also, the fact that the company chooses to lay off some employees and then immediately takes them back on a layoff rehabilitation programme is unbelievable to say the least.
I am going with a rating of 2/5. It is a simple love story which does not demand much from the reader. However, there is no novelty in either the treatment of the story or the ending. Also, the title of the book has no correlation in any way whatsoever with what the story has to say.
Disclaimer: A copy was given to me by Jayanand Ukey for the purposes of review.
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