Book
Name – Harlet and the one-eyed monster
Author – Siddharth
Publisher – Frog books
Number of Pages -254
Publishing Year -2016
Edition – Paperback
Price
-275
-275
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Rating : 3.5
My Review
The plot begins with a beautiful introduction of a woman who is standing waist deep in water. The way author portrayed the scene is exemplary. Once the plot unveils readers experience a quite different scenario from the boy meets girl love stories. The book belongs to a multiplicity of genres. It has romance, history, art, mythology, fantasy; Everything that interests the readers can be seen in the book.
The real story starts with Aysu’s life. Aysu, a little girl belonging to low caste, who was brutally beaten for the crime of sitting on a Brahmin’s boundary wall. Aysu, who had been subjected to caste discrimination, revives when she ties the knot to the man whom she admired, a soldier. While keeping herself busy with making beds and other products out of hay to ward off the loneliness when her husband goes to serve the nation, Aysu confronts a special person-a one eyed monster as the local folks called him. Aysu realizes that this person is not what the mobs claim him to be.
The discussions between Aysu and the one-eyed monster is informative and enlightening. The narration is the highlight of the book. The poetic and literarily rich narration hooks the readers who are looking forward to a substantial work. Nevertheless at some points, the tale is unduly dragged. The book is all about Aysu and her friend. As the title suggests – The harlet and the one eyed monster. The cover image is reflective of the mood of the book. The book is definitely not an easy read. Author has subtley portray gruesome reality of life.
The plot begins with a beautiful introduction of a woman who is standing waist deep in water. The way author portrayed the scene is exemplary. Once the plot unveils readers experience a quite different scenario from the boy meets girl love stories. The book belongs to a multiplicity of genres. It has romance, history, art, mythology, fantasy; Everything that interests the readers can be seen in the book.
The real story starts with Aysu’s life. Aysu, a little girl belonging to low caste, who was brutally beaten for the crime of sitting on a Brahmin’s boundary wall. Aysu, who had been subjected to caste discrimination, revives when she ties the knot to the man whom she admired, a soldier. While keeping herself busy with making beds and other products out of hay to ward off the loneliness when her husband goes to serve the nation, Aysu confronts a special person-a one eyed monster as the local folks called him. Aysu realizes that this person is not what the mobs claim him to be.
The discussions between Aysu and the one-eyed monster is informative and enlightening. The narration is the highlight of the book. The poetic and literarily rich narration hooks the readers who are looking forward to a substantial work. Nevertheless at some points, the tale is unduly dragged. The book is all about Aysu and her friend. As the title suggests – The harlet and the one eyed monster. The cover image is reflective of the mood of the book. The book is definitely not an easy read. Author has subtley portray gruesome reality of life.
This review is in return of a free book from the publisher
About the author
To my readers, I feel hard to put down some words here and that feels pretty strange, especially after writing this book. What I mean is that I was able to write a whole story but still find it difficult to introduce myself. Probably it’s the anonymity factor. We mutually don’t know each other and that is the only common point. And therefore, I feel it’s a good start to tell something about me, this book and what I mean to say in it. I am a resident of Mumbai and I done my Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. After that, I have worked in the engineering profession for almost 8 years. I took a sabbatical to write this book from my full time job. I am happy the way it has turned out with the help of my friends and editors. I had an inclination towards writing from a very young age; but I was too shy to voice it or present it for publication. I had this idea to write or just scribble some thoughts when I was working for an engineering firm in UAE. Staying away from Mumbai, where I was born and bought up was difficult. I missed my friends and the usual hangout points where we used to jam on weekends. International phone calls were expensive, so I was obviously disciplined to make a few calls in a month. In my leisure time, when I used to stroll inside a beautiful garden near my residence, my mind would be filled with a lot of thoughts – about life, future and the world in general. Soon I started scribbling things down – some random thoughts; like we sit down to chat with our friends and usually end up having a good time. There, in UAE, in that garden, my note pad was my good friend. Soon after a year when I reached the last pages of my book, I had become pretty comfortable in writing. What initially started as few lines had now became pages of written material. I felt that these thoughts could be put into a book or something but that was just a feeble thought; I did not have enough motivation to leave a good salary and pursue an unknown field or to write along with a job. Work was demanding and I have very little time to sit and focus on a book. Another year passed and I was part of an interesting engineering project in my firm, which was drawing to a successful end. After that success for my company, the management decided to lay off the majority of the project team as they did not have any further projects in the pipeline. Many were given their final pay cheques, including a good colleague with whom I shared a very good rapport
