Wait.
Give me sometime to breathe.
Yes.
So, as I wrap up Novoneel Chakraborty's latest, Cross Your Heart, Take My Name; I can't help but think about relationships and marriages. Marketed as a slow burning suspense thriller, this is one book is a beautiful amalgamation of both the way the writer is known to write all these years and the way his writing has matured to become. This book is filled with layers and no one will be able to grasp the intensity of the book in one go - I can promise you that.
About the book: Garv Roy Gill and Yahvi Kothari meet at an airport lounge by chance. Six months later they find themselves consumed by the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Bored with their mundane daily routine, their adventurous streak makes them decide, one day, to escape the present and begin a new reality somewhere far, far away. Just that the day they are supposed to meet and escape, Yahvi doesn't turn up. Then she doesn't respond to Garv's phone calls or messages. And mysteriously Yahvi vanishes altogether.
Days later, as a grieving Garv stumbles upon her Instagram profile, which he didn't know existed, he is shocked to realize that her every post is probably a clue to the truth behind her disappearance. Except, the more he unearths the meandering truth, the more he learns about a certain side of Yahvi which changes the way he saw her. And the way he understood love.
Cross Your Heart, Take My Name is a beguiling tale about urban loneliness, fickle relationships and our need for companionship as depicted by the twisted journey of two individuals, caught up in their own emotional plight, blurring the lines between crime and sin.
The main protagonists of the book are, as usual, two girls and a guy - Garv, Yahvi, and Nihira. Each of them bring to the fore aspects of the urban relationship and companionship that we all have either felt within or around us. It's a story we all know but has layers which we fail to admit, even to ourselves. The supporting characters do their job exceptionally well and they come and go gracefully.
The writing style, and I will never be tired of saying this, is flawless and smooth sailing. There is not one point in the book where you will get bored. Be it from the story or the underlying meaning of the scenes or dialogues, you will close the book with a lesson for sure. This book will bring a new side of Chakraborty to the readers which I'm sure a lot of you will come to love.
It isn't a book where you'll be able to picturise something as clear as day. This book will make you think about how your life and relationships are like. You will start questioning yourself and that's the cue to an excellent book, I believe. If you're looking for a light read, this isn't for you, dear friend. But if you're looking for something that can add value to your life - Cross Your Heart and Take My Name - is the one you should pick up.
Amidst all the psychosexual thrillers Chakraborty is well known for, this is a deep rooted breath of fresh air for a very niche audience, I would like to believe. The climax binds the book and hits the reader pretty hard.
As far as the flaws are considered, personally, I would've liked something more towards the end of the book. I can't pinpoint what exactly I am talking about but there was something at the end of the book that was missing. Or maybe, just maybe, the book had me thinking so much that I craved to know and read more about the protagonists by the end of it. I also felt there were a few sections that reminded me of fragments of his previous books but I blame that on my overactive imagination.
Apart from that, there were a very few portions within the story which felt repetitive and I would've preferred them not to be there but they were within reason and didn't interfere with the reading flow at all. Who knows? Maybe you wouldn't feel them to be so at all.
All in all, this is a wholesome read that can bring the truth of your relationship in front of you and make you sit back and think! It's been long that I've forced myself to rate a Novoneel Chakraborty book and the ratings for his particular novel, I'll leave upto you...
