When Corinne, a dear friend and a blogger who I hugely admire (http://everydaygyaan.com) pinged me one day and asked me as to whether I would be interested to review Rohit Gore’s latest book Guardian Angels, I immediately jumped at the opportunity and agreed to do so. After all, if Corinne thought that this author and his books were worth reading and reviewing that meant something, and man, was my decision correct or what.
The book blurb makes it eminently clear that this belongs to the romance genre and goes on to clearly describe the personalities of the main protagonists Aditya and Radha. He is the son of a billionaire; she is the daughter of a socialist, he is quiet and unassuming; she is a firebrand and spirited. And given this kind of background, the reader is immediately piqued as to how love blossomed between these two diametrically opposite people. I know the old cliché, opposites attract, but we all know that is not quite true in real life
In any case, the book begins with how Adi and Radha become friends when they were twelve years old due to a bullying incident which changes their lives forever. Right from the get go, both of them feel a unique connection with each other and even at that young age realize that this was just not friendship. As time goes by and as they get to know each others’ lives better, they clearly see that they populate entirely different universes. But fate and coincidences manage to conspire in a manner in which their parallel universes intersect each other. And on more than one occasion both of them end up saving each others’ lives (at times literally).
Shuttling between Mumbai and Michigan, the story takes us through Adi’s and Radha’s lives from when they are twelve years old till they are thirty years old, almost two decades. The author has managed to subtly weave multiple events from the social milieu of the time period in which this story is set in. The beauty of his craft is that he manages to weave these events happening in India very subtly but very strongly into the narrative. He could have chosen the easy path of making it a normal love story like any other, but the fact that he chose this period and he chose these events speaks volumes for his smarts in capturing the audiences’ imagination.
And another thing which speaks volumes for the craft of the author is the fact that he shifts the narrative between Adi and Radha quite equally. Almost half the story is told in first person where Radha maintains a journal/diary where she records her feelings. And given that she talks to the diary in first person means that these parts of the story unfold from her viewpoint. That to me is a masterstroke which Rohit Gore has achieved with this book.
Although I am not a huge fan of the romance genre of books, I would still go ahead and recommend this as a one time read. The structure, the social milieu in which the story is set, the strength of the main protagonists are surely worth reading once.
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