Review of And We Remained

Author : Asad Ali Junaid

“And We Remained: An absorbing story told differently” is a facile story which offers a ride to college days, from crush to love and lust ,bunking to CR elections, friendship to remembering those golden days of life(college days) which has been narrated by five friends reminiscing their college days.

As the front of the jacket says ‘ It is Bangalore in the late 1990’s. There are tremendous socio- economic and cultural transformations taking place as a result of liberization.How would these changes impact the thinking of a group of friends in their late teens? How would they cope, find opportunities and what of their original identities would they be left with, after western ideologies are brought in and bombarded into their awareness by cable TV?

Told through emails and first person account of events , And We Remained is a light and entertaining read of these friends as they experience love, heartbreak, prison, politics, drunken binges, strip clubs,sexapades, US and Europe during their journey into adulthood.’

As the synopsis of the book goes ‘ And We Remained was a story which needed to be told.The story though,wasn’t a short one.How it had to be narrated had to be very different as well.

And We Remained is a 51,000 word novel, with an absorbing storyline and a unique narration style. In the 1990’s , India is going through tremendous socio-economic changes.Set in this era, it is a coming of age story of five engineering friends- Sahir,Sandeep,Gopal,Anand and David – and the women in their lives, especially the beautiful Wardha.Their intertwined story is told by these friends through first person accounts of events in their engineering college contrasted in alternate chapters with their lives a few years later when they keep in touch,narrate events in their lives and share their experiences in India and abroad through emails.

And We Remained takes you on their entertaining journey through college, love, heartbreak, prison, politics, drunken binges, strip clubs, US and Europe as they hang on to sanity and their identities in a fast changing society and a nation in flux.’

The cover design is simple, and it itself works as the blurb of the story,reflecting all the core words the story would revolve around.I actually liked this very way of giving readers a hint of what the content holds.As the author narrates his own college’s story, his book was able to create a live impression on my mind and it went in a nice flow.

In the email conversation,mostly they conversed about hot babes,love and it seemed like their mind stuck to only one thing.This kind of conversation seemed fair initially,but later on when the same thing continued to revolve, it gave lewd impression.Instead of that,if they could conversed about their past or some more twists or if it can create any suspense juxtaposing present and past,this story could do something more entertaining.

Writing style is different and it took some time to adjust with it ,as in the beginning it created some confusion ,but as it paces up,confusion vanished and smoothness followed. Dialogue delivery or witty statements to creating humourous scenes,this book gave a good-feel while reading.I was laughing out loudly at some places.This book acted really hilarious and amusing at some places.Despite of having a simple and common story, this book didn’t bore me.About editing of the book, it is good, but could be done much better.Also,I felt that story could be sprinkled with more spice, and if done it could serve altogether a new taste which could enthrall more.Although, being a debut author, author has tried his best to make this book entertaining.

All in all, this book offers a light-read which couldn’t serve something new in the story, but for me, it was an entertaining reading journey.

Rating : 3.5/5

Reviewer : Shweta Kesari