The picture of a sweet girl in a sepia
background, holding a photo-frame in her hands and her forlorn lost and lonely
eyes adorns the cover of the debut book of Jaasindah R Mir, The escaped
moments. Yes, I was confused and didn’t know what to make out of the cover once
I had the book in my hands. I had spent a lot of time in thinking about the
cover and I am sure that the cover is such that it will be in the mind for a
long time. When I turned to read the blurb of the book, here is what was in
stock for me…
According to the blurb- Aatirah Rohail Kazi, a fifteen-year-old small town girl of Kahsmir,
has only seen the grey shades of childhood since her mother died. There are a lot
of things Aatirah hates about her life: her cruel step-mother, her dad and her
moronic step brother. For the past five years Aatirah has hidden her troubles
from everyone. It’s only when she finds Mysha at a social networking site, she
confides into her. But now things are getting complicated: Mysha wants Aatirah
to solve a complex love triangle between Mysha, Sahir and Tamanna. To top it
all off, Aatirah has taken to smoking out of stress. Would Aatirah be
successful at grabbing the freedom of her heart by opening up to a distant
person or does the desire of having a friend to confide into have a bigger
price to pay?
Social Networking ever since its beginning
has been the cause of many things good and bad for a person. When some people
just intend to have fun there, some people make friends there and who knows?
Maybe they become their only friends for a life! Through this book, Jaasindah
has brought in view the aspects of social networking. When one girl takes it to
be their confidante, you might never know who exactly is on the other side of
the computer and what the real intention is.
Coming to the characters, I would say that
the character of Aatirah had a very earthly feeling with it. Any fifteen year
old girl having problems in with her dark childhood might relate to the
vulnerability that the character has. Coming to Sahir, Mysha and Tamanna, I
would say that their characters also can make an impact on the readers making
them think of their ‘once upon a time’ friends on social networking times.
The way the descriptions have been made, is
very proper and you can actually transport yourself to the place of the characters
of the book and feel Kashmir from your heart. That is something most people are
not capable of doing. The character descriptions, place descriptions have been
wonderfully done making the readers want more. Thought the main characters of
the book were quite numbered, the side characters at times might confuse the
readers.
For the negative parts of the book, I must
say that there were grammatical errors of the book. The thought behind the story was nice,
narrating style even better but I felt that somewhere at some point, it
could’ve been better. For the end, I thought that the ‘something new’
‘something else’ thirst was there. The prologue was nice and so was the
epilogue. I loved the lines used in the poem at the end of the book. A
promising writer, a nice work in place of a debut and I wish to read more from
the writer in the future. For me, it is 3.5 out of 5.
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