|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Annie Zaidi’s hero is the not one to give up. Even after getting drenched in the rain, getting his suit dirty in the mud of the grave yard, he continues his search only to discover things that he did not know about the girl whom he loved before he married and set up a family in Bombay. People unknown to each other almost discover that they have a common connection. Yet each keeps contesting the connection and claims that others are imagining things. This compellingly written yarn is definitely not about romance. Rather, it is about a girl who might or might not have been a ghost and the many people who love her. It is as much about the people who love the girl as it is about the girl who could be loved so deeply by so many. There is even a woman among those who care for the now departed girl. At every step it seems that things will clear up in some rational, linear manner. They don’t. Rather, just enough confusion is created to persuade the reader to turn the page in the hope of discovering some truth. That, of course, is far more complicated than what mere mortals can imagine.
Parsimonious with words, Annie Zaidi guides the reader into the intricacies of relationships of a love that becomes increasingly eerie. Even the ultimate material evidence of present times, a photograph that is supposed to record reality for posterity, is little help since the images on it keep on changing with context. There is just a wee hint every now and then that the story might turn scary, but that never happens. There is much that is unbelievable in this story. Sequences shift quickly from the mundane to the sublime and back again. The background of a civic disturbance, the descriptions of the graveyard and its supposedly indifferent gravedigger make things rather dark. Will there be some light? Only a careful look through the story will tell you that. The story is touted as that of a ghost. At least one reader really got taken in by that bit from the blurb and its invitation to read a ghost story that was also a love story and discovered that here was a story of a woman who once was many women. Was there also a ghost somewhere, other than in the minds of those who populate this story? That is for the reader to find out. They may even discover that the confused ones in this story are all men. The women, all of them, including the wife of the hero, are rather down to earth. At least one of them also knows that some of the men are plain mad. All that one can say is that the story of Gulab is a really good read. For the lovers of action, there is even a fight sequence!
|
|||
|
|
|||
A
great love story. A man in search of the love that he left behind. The
search is initiated by a stray message. Takes him to a graveyard.
There he finds himself amidst confusion. He could have walked away on
not finding the grave where his love of long time ago was buried. He
does not. Rather, he follows up various leads that come up, trying to
resolve the mystery of the woman who might never have been buried and
whose grave is being claimed by so many.
