Title : Manan
Author : Mohit Parikh
The book simply portrays the story of the thoughts of a 10th standard student, Manan,the protagonist of the story, whose way of putting everything in life, imagining future,living in present, and notes on minute things take you along with the story.
As the blurb of the book goes : ”
He closes his eyes and finds today’s date floating towards him. Shimmering in the darkness, swivelling – like the text on the Windows 95 screensaver. It seeps in through his forehead and gets absorbed. 23-04-98 is now a part of him. Today’s date, a Saturday, when the first sign of what he so eagerly awaited has appeared… It is the summer of 1998 in a sleepy Indian town that is just awakening to the age of information, and young Manan has acquired his first official sign of puberty. The world around him, though, refuses to understand the magnitude of the moment. Instead, it teases him by offering all sorts of temptations, posing all sorts of quandaries. And it doesn’t help that his friends are taller and larger than him, that his parents fight all the time, that his sister no longer has time for him, that the love of his life barely knows that he exists. With an earnest voice that is colourfully candid about middle-class India and the tyranny of family relationships, authority figures and peer pressure, Manan is a tragicomedy of growing pains and the triumphs of a stoic heart.”
At first, I couldn’t understand what the book is all about.But as soon as I start turning on the pages,I was pretty sure that this book would serve me something different and new, so I was all set to experience the new.
Initially I felt like the story is somewhat related to the Bollywood movie,’Taare Zameen Par’, the story of an ordinary but extraordinary guy,but nothing like that happened.When you read it, you sometimes feel like it is you, living your life of age of 15-16 years again. The activities the protagonist does in the story, is very common in the age,but is very exciting to relish those moments again.You’ll many a times find yourself completely connected to the story.
Well,I’m confused whether to call it a story or not.This book is different. I’ve not gone through any such book before,it was a fresh experience, but I’m glad this book come into my sight.Initially, I was afraid to complete it, but when I completed it I felt good, really good, its like someone has opened the old chapters of life.
What more enthralling about the book is , the way it has written and portrayed.I’m happy that author has tried to do something new.The way he has narrated Manan’s tale is so beautifully done that reader don’t feel missing at any place.It feels like the protagonist himself comes to narrate it.
Short,different and sweet!
Rating : 4/5
Reviewer : Shweta Kesari