Trapped In Love Again
By Yogesh Achtani
Review By Ila Garg
Trapped In Love Again, a novel by the debutant writer Yogesh Achtani, is published by Mahaveer
Publishers. The cover designer Sunill Kaushik, has well portrayed the element
of humour and unusualness in the cover. It'll give the readers a slight glimpse
of a typical modern day love story. The title is attractive
too. Use of bright colors and a funny cover image, add to the reader’s interest.
The blurb talks about few people and the turning points in their lives and what
all happens in the entire journey with clarity.
The blurb reads as, “Miserable and dejected, Sameer lights up a cigarette despite Arnav's
warning about the ill effects of smoking including impotency. He just wants to
blow his worries in smoke. 'Who's bothered of impotency when you can't even
manage to get a girlfriend?'
Arnav, alias Mac is a 'happy go lucky
guy' pursuing his graduation in Pune. Fresh into college, he feels a splurge of
energy gushing through him on seeing the free life. With emotions running high,
Cupid strikes the very first day of college and for Arnav, it's love at first
sight with Sally. Despite hitting off well from day one, their relationship
isn't a smooth ride.
Trapped in Love, Arnav finds himself in
lurch after being ditched by Sally, and finds succor in his new friends,
Sameer, Atul and Ronit. Sameer has a penchant for Sally's friend Aspree but
just like Arnav's case, it's a one sided affair. Thus just as him, his new
friends too are a bunch of losers in the field of love.
All their attempts to woo their beloveds
fail in quick succession. The turning point comes when they embark upon a
social service camp to a village under the aegis of NSS.
Now what would be their future plan?
Would they continue to woo their beloveds or would they work for a social cause
for the village?
Will Arnav's one sided love story
continue, or he would be “Trapped in Love, Again”.
Would they be successful in whatever
they undertake? Or would their cruel fate follow them everywhere? And most
importantly, will they ever find love at all?”
Trapped In Love Again, revolves around a
young group of boys and girls namely Arnav, Ronit, Sameer, Atul, and Aspree,
Smita, Sally. Love strikes on the very first day as if a scene straight from
Hindi Masala Movie. Arnav falls for Sally's beauty and from there on a love story
starts to gather momentum but with a few speed breakers in the process. As soon
as their love had blossomed, it declined with a faster pace. Few
misunderstandings lead to an end of their love.
However, not further revealing the plot, I would like to mention
that this isn’t a love story purely. It has so many subtle plots woven in it. Apart
from romance, it has given a balanced space to fights, misunderstandings,
friendship, naughtiness, and the intricacies of teenage group, & ofcourse
the desperation to explore the unexplored.
The book has more to it than meets the eye. Initially there is
nothing different that Yogesh Achtani offers us in the book. It’s the same old
tale with slight twists. But gradually it captures. The first half is a usual
college love story but later on the story changes track. Characters, their
visualization and the sensitive village matters have been sketched to
perfection. Although the second half gets a little too serious, yet it retains
the romantic and humorous flavor.
The too many failures of Arnab’s life and dejections, is just
one of the reasons you want to keep turning the pages to find out what happens
in Trapped In Love Again. Another
reason that would keep you glued to it would be whether he finally could help
the villagers or not and gets his true love.
This 240 page book is well written and moves beyond the regular
romance novels. The book has a few grammatical errors, punctuations missing and
several spelling errors too. Apart from this, it is very entertaining and
brings to forth some real life problems too which haunt few parts of our
country with a different touch to it. It’s a light read, however the subject is
sensitive. At some points it becomes dragging (the conversations, mainly) but
at others it is fast paced too. For me it was a quick read, as I completed the
novel in some 2 hours.
To find out whether he survives through the incessant
sufferings and moves on with his new found friends or not, will he be lucky in
his love life despite the rejections and turmoil, how he sets everything
right towards the end; you will have to read the novel, Trapped In Love
Again.
Ratings: 3.2/5
After the success that First Step Publishing received for Minds @ Work 1 which was a compilation of short stories and poems, First Step Publishing has come up with Minds@Work 2. This time though Minds@Work 2 is a collection of poetry by 25 poets.
