"Of Aakash and Aarti" is our 4th Book by Dr. Govind Sharma. All of his previous books were read and reviewed by my wife. So this time I gave a try. The book was like a Diwali gift to me. I have taken it to one day journey from Surat to Mumbai. The 200-pages-long book gave me a good company for 8+ hour of the journey (though actual reading time was around 4-5 hours only)
Book Blurb
A compelling, heart-touching story of a drug addict.Aakash has so much emotional pain inside him that he can breathe only because of the escape that comes from the hits of smack. He looks for succor in his school sweetheart Aarti but she opts for the fast lane to come out of her impecunious situation in life. She manipulates the top industrialist Basant Somani into a relationship entirely on her terms. The industrialist’s wife Rajeshwari Devi is a kind-hearted woman of religious mind-set who makes several attempts at cleaning up the mess from Aakash’s life, but he fails her every time. The turn of events takes Aakash and Aarti to Haridwar where they rediscover their emotional connection but Aakash has already gone too far down the road of addiction. Can Aarti bring him back?
As the name suggests, Aakash & Aarti are the main characters of our story. Aakash belonged to a modest priest family but he had lost parents at an early age. He was being raised by relatives, which was also changed from time to time. The situation led him to loneliness. The directionless teen-age made him take the path of drugs. On the other side, Aarti belonged to a very poor family and she was the youngest of her four siblings (all sisters). She was shrewd and practicle. She knew there was no future if she stayed dependent on her parents. She understood the bitter truth of society and willing to go to any extreme to get herself out of poverty. Characters that joined these two are Somanis. Basant Somani was an established businessman and his second wife was Rajeshwari Somani, a 29-year-old lady. Rajeshwari had shown great care towards Aakash. Aarti wanted to take a shortcut to success by amoral actions, so she was using Basant Somani. Things got bitter, and Aakash-Aarti got separated. Destiny brought them together again in Kashi, by that time Aakash was already a slave of Drugs. The second half talks about it.
When I narrated the story to my wife, she said Govind Sharma is improving with each successive book. This book has crossed bar set by "Break Up Clinic". I also found that many authors in process of attracting young readers add too much "Love Sex & Dhoka" and "Sutta Daru & Drugs", but very few shows how their lives become victim/slave to those bad habits. The story shows the bitter side of today's young generation traits. Especially drugs, the situation of Aakash reminded me situation shown in Sanju movie which was faced by Sanjay Dutt.
Positive points about the book
- Simple & Gripping Tale
- Easy language usage
- Short & ideal light read
- Cover - 3.5/5
- Characters - 3.5/5
- Concept - 3/5
- Overall - 3.5/5
Reviews from other readers can be found at GoodReads
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