Publisher's write-up
'Stories surround us. Stories about people like us who make
difficult and often complex choices that sometimes astound us. You
must have come across some people in your own life who closely
resemble the characters in these stories. Maybe you have gone through
trying moments in your life too.
For instance, have you ever been bugged enough with your partner
to want to leave? Have you ever had to choose between love and money?
Have you even had to compete with your partner? Have you ever felt
that your family weighs you down when it comes to choosing your
partner?
At times like these, haven't you wished that things happened
differently that you could change how they ended?
Now you will control how the stories in this book end.
Each story centres on the life of an urban middle class character
caught in a set of circumstances beyond his or her control. A Hindu
girl living in with a Muslim boy is suddenly in the glare of global
media in a reality TV show, a divorced cynical man faces the prospect
of committing himself to a prostitute, a highly talented small town
girl must choose between life and death. All must resolve the
conflicts within their beliefs.
Read the way the stories end in the book, but if you don't agree
with the ending, visit the website for alternate endings.
If you don't like the way the stories end there either, write your
own, and if your ending is selected, see it in the next print run
with your name in the acknowledgements.
Hoping to change the word, one story at a time...'
'Love, Peace and Happiness: What more can you want?' is a collection
of short stories written by Rituraj Verma. All these short stories
are centred around people who are seeking the three aforesaid aspects
of life, that is, love, peace and happiness and are having to
encounter a set of problems during the course of the journey.
This book has certainly introduced a very new concept; it is easy to
ruin any good story with an inappropriate ending. Hence, the author
gives you two choices here – if you aren't satisfied with the
ending in the book, you can go to his website and read the alternate
endings. If you aren't satisfied with that either, you can submit
your own, which would appear in the next edition, if approved.
The stories covered the various marriage related issues in its nine
stories – a simple arranged marriage owing to parental pressure,
inter-caste marriage, live-in relationships, love between people from
different religions among others. I also liked the way how, although
it is a collection of short stories, the stories aren't independent
and most characters appear in more than one story and if not appear,
at least mentioned (except for Sneha, a character from the first
story, A high, like heaven, or so I believe).
The author also managed to successfully downplay the importance of
money as being the panacea to all problems and how the above three
things mentioned in the title could not be obtained by these.
From what I could interpret from these stories, the author is to be
appreciated for being forward thinking, something that is desperately
needed in a country where the majority of people are conservative
fundamentalists.
This book would have been better had the characters had also been
from different backgrounds – most of them were similar to that of
the author himself, that is, they went to India's premier institute
(for engineering), IIT and the only story where the setting was
totally different was The practitioner of austerity, as story
I thoroughly enjoyed. At times, I also felt that the ending was
rather abrupt but regarding that, I've been given a choice to change
it myself (which I shall not, since I'm a little conventional when it
comes to books, retain it as it is).
The main problem with this review is the person who has reviewed the
book and in this case, it is I. The author had sent a book review
request via e-mail a month ago but I think the author would have
decided otherwise had he known a little more about me. My answers to
all the questions mentioned by the publisher is unfortunately, 'no'.
I'm certainly not meant to be the book's target as I'm still a
teenager and I was unable to relate myself to the characters and the
issues and could probably understood better by people who are in the
age group of 25 and above and because of this limitation of mine, I
don't think I'd be able to give a proper rating to this book.
Given the option of reading the alternate endings or submitting your
own, I don't think I'd do either of them, I'm willing to accept the
book as it is, as aforementioned. However, I felt that all the Hanif
– related stories, that is, The intimacy of space, The victim of
many loves and The Facebook stalker could have been merged into a
single story but I only have a control over the endings and this has
its own pros and cons – you needn't have to turn the pages and
there'd be a sort of continuity but at the same time, that would
change the structure of the novel as such and short stories have
their own merits too.
I'd end my review here and readers who came here expecting a very
comprehensive review, I'd just have to apologise.
Have a nice day,
Andy
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