Karma, Cupid & I - Book review

I like the works of RK Narayanan. Who doesn't? I am proud of his Tamil ancestry. I wondered if there were anyone after him who were as good as him from Tamil Nadu. I googled and started going through first few links but left it there to attend to other works at home. I have still not resumed. I am a believer in karma, but I was never able to articulate what it meant precisely. I get haunted with inquisitive questions in social media by my friends with opposite opinion whenever I speak about karma. Probably I must have googled the word too for scholarly explanation, probably by someone from Ramakrishna Mutt and the likes and must have read first few links and must have left it half the way to attend some work at home or office as usual. I don't know how the search engine works. Whenever I had to buy something online, Karma, Cupid and I kept appearing in the recommendations (Indian author + Karma). The name was catchy. I googled and found out that Cupid is Greek mythology equivalent of our love God, Manmadhan. I immediately ordered the book. That's how I ended up with the book and subsequently ended up writing a review too. I don't write reviews, as I am not good at it. I've never been able to say all that I wanted to say, nor have I been able to express it the way I wanted to, so I generally refrain. So this is my maiden attempt and here I start.

You can't say it's the author, Nethra Ram's first book. The story line was obvious right from the time she met Raghu & Aditi, somewhere within first several pages of the book. So if you're expecting any suspense in the book, you may not find one but for the petty ones here and there. It was easy to guess how the story is going to go from thereon with all the personality admiration of Anand and from the narrations about how she (the heroine and the narrator of the story) sucked at relationships. The only think which I expected but not found was the oodal (ஊடல்) (its English equivalent? Possessiveness/misunderstanding/small conflict? I give up.). That saved it from being conventional romantic cliche.

Even with a predictable story, I was able to relate myself with Madhu very much. I have many sharp differences in character (she has an extrovert exterior) compared to her's, but feeling insecure, feeling paranoiac, feeling left alone, refraining from expressing are very much mine too and many other soup boys like me. So I could enjoy this and so can others like me, I believe. The writing style is fresh. English, vocabulary and flow are good too (too good for a first timer IMO., given that she's just a year younger to me.).

I used to have a good reading speed. I realized that I had started using books as sleeping pills off late. I was really starting to get concerned about this. However, I could complete this book in a week, after approximately a couple of years. I hope this to be a resumption of my reading habit. I have already ordered Sita - warrior of Mithila by Amish Tripathi. Let's see.

Conclusively, this is a great book for a casual page turning read. (Is that called racy fiction, the genre?) The narration style, the familiar south Indian semi conservative environment, simplicity and gripping story (though predictable) makes the book an interesting read. I definitely recommend this!!! My wishes to the author.

Note:
I happened to see the author's profile in ssmatri when we were looking for a bride for me. Our stars didn't match and thus the author escaped. I wish her a happy married life in advance.