Book Review: When Fate Fits

Kashmir these days is flooded with new novels and poetry books mostly written by young boys and girls. It seems that every one is in hurry to get his or her work published as soon as possible to get the tag of an author. In this hurry the books are not up to the mark which satisfies the thirst of readers and literature lovers, instead it creates bad taste and disinterest among the readers about the self published books published from the valley of Kashmir. The book under review is written by a young boy of 19 years of age who hails from Anantnag (Islamabad) district of south Kashmir andthe book is published by Liper Publications Srinagar. The book is about a boy who was a lone son of his parents who went along with his father and mother to a voyage in a ship. In the middle of the sea the ship got struck in a strong storm, which caused havoc and ship start sinking into the deep waters of the sea.When the boy regained his consciousness he found himself in a camp. He starts looking for his parents but he found him nowhere in the camp. As the story goes on the boy starts looking for his parents and travels from one place to another in search of his parents. In his journey he met a man who gave him some advices and secrets of life. On the way to find his parents he found a house, half broken in which an elderly woman lived all alone. The boy asks her for food and job which she politely gave him. The lady was so gentle and generous. One fine morning the boy left the house of the lady and starts his journey again to find out his lost parents. He travelled far and wide to get a glimpse and whereabouts of his parents. While travelling he passes from one town to another, and met different people, who advice him and taught him different things. One among them was a man who the author named as Master and who taught the boy fighting skills and defending oneself and others in extreme difficult situations. The important thing the boy (main character) holds hope and determination.
The story in the book is a wonderful and would have been attracted the attention of the readers if the author would have devoted much more time in describing the characters and story of the book. Though the book is the debut book of Hashmat, I hope he would take all advices and criticism in a positive way and polish his writing skills, which would definitely help him and make him a big name not only in the valley but beyond the boundaries.
Writing and expressing ones ideas in the fiction writing and creating thrill and immaginaton is very important. Each character should have to be mentioned and expressed in a well lit form. While writing his debut novel Hashmat Javid failed on many fronts. It seems that the author was in hurry to get his book published. In his book the author fails to characterize the characters in the story. The main character throughout the story was the boy whose parents were teachers and taught children and other people without charging anything from them but the boy, their son (the boy)could not attend as his parents (teachers) could not afford. The character of lady mentioned by the author was so generous and kind but the behavior of the boy towards her seems that the boy doesn’t have manners despite the son of the teacher (parents). To quote from the book “Lady: what job can you do exactly” she said, “Anything you want me to do. Boy: Look I want money to find my parents”. The word “look” while in conversation with the old lady seems rude behavior. The story in the book is a wonderful and would have been attracted the attention of the readers if the author would have devoted much more time in describing the characters and story of the book. Though the book is the debut book of Hashmat, I hope he would take all advices and criticism in a positive way and polish his writing skills, which would definitely help him and make him a big name not only in the valley but beyond the boundaries.
(The Author is A Ph D Research Scholar based in Srinagar Kashmir. Views are his own)
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