Unexpected end of formula
Reviewed by Parbina Rashid

The Virtual and The Real A Wild Rose
by Uzma Zafri
Mahaveer Publishers. Pages 263. Rs 150

Love hurts. Not just emotionally but physically too. If anyone has doubts that love, which germinates on Facebook, blossoms on WhatsApp and ends in disaster, has the power to hurt anyone so much, then the answer is ‘yes’. Virtual or otherwise, love when it blossoms has that power. Uzma Zafri, in her debut novel A Wild Rose, tells us one such story.

Ritu Anand, a liberal woman and hot-shot television anchor, is brave enough to come out of a bad marriage and move on in life, but she goes into a coma when she catches her four-timing lover in the act.

Four-timing? Well, not unheard of in this time and age when emotions are easily communicated to the masses through your status bar. Only one has to be smart enough to play it right, which her colleague and lover Anshuman is.

Uzma, a television anchor herself, has brought out the functioning of the glitz world in a language which the SMS generation is comfortable with.

Her protagonist, who is a divorcee, goes on portraying herself as a married woman to save herself from unwarranted attention. But she does succumb to Anshuman's charm and thus her lie becomes of no consequence as her world crumbles once again when she sees the true colour of her love.

The intense emotional pain becomes physical and Ritu gets into a coma in the end but her Facebook account remains active even after two years.

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