Isn’t it always like this- twisted!
Well, it’s one of those books whose title reflects a half-truth. Let’s find out what the book is really about.
Title: My Twisted Love Story
Author: Arun Singh
Genre: Romance-cum- Self-help
Publisher: Srishti Publishers & Distributors
Pages: 168
Price: 223/- (amazon)
My bio-note on the back cover of the first book I wrote, reads, “He finds as well as loses himself simultaneously while writing romance fiction”. I don’t know why I removed the sentence later when I wrote my second, perhaps, due to losing trust. Around the same time, I also stopped writing about love.
Nonetheless, it does exist and I do believe in it. People of literature look down upon love stories as inferior pieces of work (due to certain authors gaining popularity for their not-so-meritorious work) but isn’t it true that the feeling of ‘love’ gave birth to an abundant amount of literature, in which some of them became the classics?
Thus, in order to revive my interest from the onset of the new year, I took this piece which was lying quietly on my bookshelf for almost two years. The story of coming across this book is also very interesting, which I’ll discuss toward the end.
This book combines two genres, romance and self-help but it’s largely self-help after a short love story ending on the break-up. The remaining part of the book is about overcoming it. The theme of the book is very relevant to teenagers where love and separation are universal. However, love is an eternal feeling that leaves no one untouched irrespective of their age. I also could relate to some of the parts of the story and the pain that comes with it. Usually, a romantic novel ends either in union or in separation but this book goes beyond it. It deals with the phase that comes after the latter, which needs to be addressed.
Author Arun has detailed a series of steps that if taken, could really help a person to overcome and find the lost self. However, none of those events deal with the process of healing in the surroundings you’ve to live in. One can’t escape or travel to places whenever one feels sad or disappointed. Moreover, it’s a costly affair. And after this much travel, when one returns to the usual space, one may find caught in the same. One has to cope with this feeling while staying in usual surroundings. This is the part that most of us struggle with. It would have been better if the author had focussed on it too.
Nonetheless, it is one of those books I came across that combines the two genres to deal with the real issue. I would suggest the readers feel it at least once.
Talking about the book, I got it due to the ‘Books on Palm’ initiative. The idea was to keep the book somewhere on campus to be picked by somebody, who after reading will drop it somewhere to be found by the others, thus facilitating the reading process without any cost. A good initiative but most of those who found the book seldom returned it because they didn’t read it.
After all, do we value the things we get for free?
Hence, I gave it to the lady who was preparing coffee in the cafe where I was writing this review. To my surprise, she started turning the pages of the book enquiring what’s it about ‘enthusiastically’.
©Shashank
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