Love Sutra: Secret to Happily Ever After
By Urvashi Pahwa
Review By Ila Garg
Love Sutra: Secret to Happily Ever After is a series of short stories by Urvashi Pahwa, published in a kindle format. The cover has a nice gold font for the title and combined with black, it looks really rich and exotic just like love is. There’s a heart shaped pendant reflecting love and of course the sutra—love ties. Overall, the cover has a royal feel to it. It looks impressive to me.
Urvashi was born and brought up in Ludhiana. She completed her bachelor’s degree in engineering from Thapar University, Patiala and started working in an Analytics company where she fell in love with her profession. She has over seven years of experience in Analytics. She has written many poems and stories and likes experimenting with different genres. She keeps herself busy with either her work or her hobbies—oil painting, and preparing handmade gifts for friends and family. Her weakness is a cup of coffee.
Love Sutra: Secret to Happily Ever After is her debut novella.
The blurb reads as, “What happens AFTER falling in love? Is there a happily ever after or love fades away?
It is hard to find love but even harder to keep it strong. Sometimes, little things that we overlook matter a lot.
Through a series of short stories, uncover the secrets of happily ever after. Take a ride into the lives of these five couples and explore how easy it is to keep dating forever.
•Casanova's Lover - A girl falls for a Casanova. Her heart was bound to be broken but will she ever find love again?
•The Rich Wife - She can buy whatever she likes, but all she needs is time from her husband. Is it her fault or her husband's?
• Love Birds - Young hearts meet in college and start living together but more they get to know each other, more they start fighting on silly things. And then they found a way to solve this forever.
•Miss Belligerent - Her husband was an entrepreneur. As a few challenges popped up, she clutched her claws on him, making his life miserable. How would he escape the situation?
•Mr. Always Right - He considered himself superior to his wife, and did not value her opinions, crushing her self - respect. Will she ever stand up for herself or will she keep enduring it?”
So, I will start by telling you all that why I started with this book on the day when I bought it. The cover and concept are so interesting that you won’t be able to resist yourself from reading this quickly. It seemed a substantial read since the beginning. I was glad to read the blurb that managed to make the book look promising, especially the five couples.
This is a collection of short stories as clearly stated in the blurb too. It has five different stories based on the five different couples. Each couple deals with a different challenge and through their stories, the author tries to define love in difficult situations and explores the many shades of love. The best part is it’s not designed as a help-book or a guide; subtle hints are rendered through the stories and the footnotes at the end of each story. You can delve on these notes to understand your own relationship and see it in a better light. I will now take you through the five stories quickly:
1) Casanova’s Lover: This is Nisha and Nishant’s story. Both of them are college lovers with Nisha being head over heels in love with Nishant. However, few years into the relationship, she sees the true face of Nishant and feels betrayed at once. What will she do now? Will she still seek true love or will she give up on love?
2) The Rich Wife: Here, we meet the husband-wife couple Shobhit and Aparna. Shobhit is a jerk, who makes a fortune very early in life and then just keeps running after his wealthy ventures. Despite all the wealth and capability to buy anything she desires for, Aparna feels lonely all the time as Shobhit is mostly unavailable for her. What would she do? Will she continue to silently suffer? Will she voice out or will she let go?
3) Love Birds: When two young hearts fall in love, it takes time to reach the maturity level required to handle a relationship. Aisha and Mohit meet in college and fall in love. Soon, the independent Aisha turns into a clingy girlfriend as they both start living in together. Often they kept digging into the past. Mohit feels suffocated and stuck in the relationship. Quite a relatable story! So what can be done here? Do you think ‘space’ in relationships is a necessity?
4) Miss Belligerent: This is the story of husband-wife duo Parv and Riya. Again an uncommon tale wherein Riya is a control-freak wife and Parv is an ambitious young man. Riya kept finding faults in her husband and never really supported him. So what will happen to their love at first sight story? Will they be able to have their happily ever after or will they fall apart?
5) Mr Always Right: This is the story common to every Indian household. Sushil being the man of the house keeps dominating his wife Vasudha. He wants Vasudha to be an obedient wife. Will Vasudha remain submissive? Will she raise her voice? How will this husband-wife relationship see its happily ever after?
The plot for these tales is quite realistic and relatable. Each one of us can see the reflections of our past or present love, relationships or marriages in one of these stories. They successfully portray the deep and intricate emotions that we all have to deal with in the journey of desires and pursuit of love. The language is simple, lucid and easy to comprehend. Nowhere will a reader feel any disconnect. It’s so well-written that once you pick up, you cannot keep it down without finishing it off. It took me a couple of hours to complete the book. I found it quite engaging. The subject is tackled beautifully by the skillful author.
Further, this 170-page book is a light read and overall a compelling book. It brings to light the importance of choices in one’s life. How one decision can change our love life is important to note. Whether you want to be a clingy girlfriend or a cheerful, participating girlfriend is on you. Whether you want to be a dominating husband or an easy-going one is again your choice. But these choices will shape up your love life.
The book is highly recommended. It gives you food for thought and if read and understood, it will help you change your attitude towards your partner and will aid your happily ever after.
Ratings: 4.25/5
Buying Link: Amazon
Lovely book
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