From Where I See - Book Review

From Where I See
By Ajay Yadav
Review By Ila Garg

From Where I See, a novel by Ajay Yadav, is published by Lifi Publications Pvt. Ltd. The cover shows two sides of a tree – one is full of leaves and other is leafless. Just as the title speaks about perspectives, the cover design reflects that very beautifully. It speaks volumes about the plot of the book and manages to attract the readers. The book from the cover and title seems to be all about one’s opinion, the way one sees life and things around oneself.

The blurb reads as, “Ajay meets his childhood friend Shruti on a social network site. He finds her to be struggling with intrapersonal, interpersonal, inter-social and inter-religious conflicts. Eventually the conflicts killed her. Police could solve the case but will it prevent hundreds of Shrutis from getting killed? How long will we aim ‘who’ killed, more important is to find out ‘what’ killed. Till we don’t address this issue and work on it, many Shrutis will keep on getting killed. We need to cure the disease not only the symptoms.
This book is an effort of the author to find the root cause and probable remedies of these conflicts, exploration of hundreds of pertinent questions like “why in one religion it becomes so easy to get volunteers to blow themselves and others for the sake of religion? Does the religion divides or unites? Have the immature and wrong interpretation of female emancipation the reason for 13 times rise in divorce rates in last 5 years?
It’s not only a book; it’s the path to revolution, it’s a journey towards Utopian world. If you are open minded, have courage to accept truth and have a desire to change the world; then be the part of change. Let’s take our first step to build a road to the Utopian Dream.”

Like already unveiled by the cover, the book has characters that give in their real perspectives about issues of real concern. The book is therefore laced with instances of realism and precisely, this is one reason why readers will find themselves hooked to the book despite its length.

The story is about two childhood friends Ajay and Shruti—two childhood friends. Opening on the scene where Shruti is found dead and speculations are on, the book essentially is centered on Ajay. The plot is very different from regular chicklets. In fact, the genre is very different from the ones floating in the market.

Shruti’s dead body creates a lot of stir. It is believed to be a case of suicide and not murder. Investigation begun with immediacy. Ajay is confronted by the police regarding the case, and thus the main plot begins. The story is mainly about Ajay’s childhood and adulthood, how his perceptions change over the time, and then emerges an eye-opening discussion on topics that we all come across but choose to turn a blind eye to—religion, history, women emancipation, etc. In a nutshell, the story is quite relevant in our present lives and also makes us realise how some decisions if taken correctly in the past would have benefited the humanity at large. The story also moves ahead to talk about the measures that we can take today to make the future better.

Nowhere will a reader feel any disconnect as the book brings to light some very crucial topics. People who take interest in such subjects will find it engaging. The subjects are tackled beautifully by the skillful author.

The detailed insight into the controversial subjects like religion and history add to the USP of the book. Also the language is easy to comprehend. Though there are some serious editing flaws in the book which were a major put off!

Further, this 400 page book is good enough to exposes a lot of debatable topics. However, it tends to get boring at places and treating the book as fiction seemed a little wrong as the topics dealt with are real problems.

Ratings: 3/5

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