Title: Pyar Aur Poetry
Author: Roopa Menon
Rating: 3/5
Roopa Menon grew up in Kerala and
migrated to Amchi, Mumbai at the age of ten. Her love for reading was kindled
by her grandfather’s library where she passed countless hours poring over a
variety of musty smelling, dog-eared books. She believes in learning from the
best; the likes of Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, and J. K. Rowling have
inspired her to write, and work hard at the craft. A published writer, Roopa’s
short stories and poems can be found in Femina, Asian Age, Skyline
publications, sulekha.com and sawf.com.
With a masters’ degree in English
literature and a diploma in journalism, she has worked as a reporter and
sub-editor with newspapers such as The Times of India and Mid-day Metro,
followed by a stint as a copy-editor in a UK-based publishing house, Routledge
India.
When she is not wrestling with the
nitty-gritties of life, this self-confessed Sylvia Plath addict also loves
watching movies, going for long walks and dabbling in tarot card reading.
Currently she lives in Dubai with her husband working as a copywriter. You can
contact her at roopa.raveendran@hotmail.com
Publisher:
Indireads
was started with the aim to revolutionizing the popular fiction genre in South
Asia. With edgy, contemporary and compelling fiction by new writers and its
digital-only publishing model, Indireads is breaking new ground in terms of the
reading experience and giving voice to new writing talent.
College beauty Arundhati Basu would
rather stick her head in the proverbial oven than host this year’s Founder’s
Day event with tongue-tied nerd, Nikhil Menon. Compared to the brilliant but
elusive poet, D. G. Beckett, Nikhil is a green toad.
As Arundhati gets to know him,
however, she finds herself oddly drawn to the shy geek, and he, in turn, grows
in confidence as he spends more time with her. His hopes for a lasting
relationship with Arundhati seemed to be within his reach.
If only she could forget D. G.
Beckett!
Now for my view:
Reading novels, or in this case
novellas, is a great way to begin Mondays. Of-course it’s not possible to do it
every day. But sometimes things do work out in support of that. Like suddenly all
applications remain inaccessible for over a week and continue to be so when you
walk into office the week after that. Well alright not so suddenly. Though odds
in favor of this happening are not always high but still these things do happen
sometimes.
As you might have guessed by now it
did happen to me (and I’m thankful for it because who doesn't want a break!). And
‘
Pyar Aur Poetry’
is what I finished reading thanks to this extended lucky coincidence this
Monday morning.
A west meets east story covering the
realms of literature and romance. That’s ‘
Pyar Aur Poetry’ for
you. Arundhati and Nikhil, the protagonists of this tale, are so different yet
so similar to each other with literature being their first love. But while
Arundhati is only captivated by western writers Nikhil appreciates the Indian writers
as well. They meet in college and get to know each other better when they are
forced to work together for their institution’s Founder’s Day program. Nikhil
who is already head over heels in love with Arundhati takes this opportunity to
win over her. And his efforts seem to work. But the only thing or rather person
that comes in their way is D. G. Beckett. Who is he and why is her a concern to
both? Well, that my friend you will find in the book.
The author spoke to me through
Arundhati’s love of English literature. I don’t know if that’s how she feels
bur for some reason I felt the author was baring her heart out through those
lines about authors and their works. So much depth and knowledge on the subject
the story revolves around definitely is a plus.
The plot too had a nice real touch
to it. And I liked the fact that Arundhati and Nikhil’s saga is not just
another college love story. Yes, there were some clichés but then who doesn't love
clichés. I think every love story should have some.
There’s one thing though. Somehow I
felt that there were layers to this tale which were left unexplored. But as
always I think the author knows best about his or her story. Here too I think
Roopa has told the story she intended to and I for one had a nice time reading
it. I always wanted to know what would happen next. And thus ‘
Pyar Aur Poetry’ is
definitely worth a read.
And if you decide to pick it up
then click
here.