Book Review: A Maverick Heart: Between love and life by Ravindra Shukla

 

The book’s blurb reads: “Resonance – We often use the term, “frequency matching” in our daily life to define compatibility. Our frequency does not match, we do not get along? We are not in sync? We are not on the same page etc.?

When people of similar frequencies (wavelengths or within the same range) come together – output is not a simple sum of individual work, but exponential. In science we term this phenomenon as resonance. Output at this stage is beyond any logical limit.

Three young kids, with different family backgrounds and outlook meet during their graduation days at IIT-Bombay campus and become close friends. Although, individually they are in sync, but the same is not true for their interaction with the world.

How will their relation withstand the conflict of family and society pressure?

How do their characters shape out, as they traverse from an educational environment through the corporate world to the realm of the socio-political world?

Inspired by the real events across the globe from the last decade, Ravindra Shukla brings you the characters based story – struggle and triumphs of a young generation and their relevance in the current socio-eco-political era.”

The book deals with the lives of Rahul, Richita and Neerav – three students at the prestigious IIT-Bombay who enter the engineering college with big dreams in their eyes and wanting to make something of their lives. During their academic sessions, Rahul and Richita get attracted to each other and fall in love. Neerav and Rahul become best buddies.

The author has described their interaction well, in addition to painting a realistic picture of the campus as well, including the famous lake where Rahul and Richita spend a lot of time discussing about their dreams and their future.

Do Rahul and Richita come together? Will they convince their respective families for this alliance considering they are barely qualified engineers? What importance does money play while deciding a career vis-a-vis wanting to contribute to society and make a change? Can both these meet at a common point? Does having a lot of degrees make you a better person? Can you truly forget your first love and move on with your life? How do you measure success – by your material possessions or by the impact your work has made on your surrounding environment? These are some of the questions Ravindra seeks to explore in this book.

His writing style is easy-going; the three main characters have been well-developed and you are interested in knowing more about their lives as the book progresses. Since the author himself is an engineering graduate, he has written quite in detail about the technical aspects.

The only negative for me was that I felt the book resembled the movie Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi a lot – it, too, talks about some of the points I mentioned above including the critical decision – to sell your soul for money or to enter the social sector without any financial concerns.

This book review is a part of "The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program". To get free books log on to thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com.