The Angel Of God by Jyothi Menon – Book review

Picture from the Author’s site(link at the end).

 

A pretty ‘warm’ book and a lovely story. Something about it makes you feel comfortable,maybe becuase we Indians already have heard about people,whom she has created . This book would have welcomed more superlative appraisal from me, if not for a few places where the ‘ HR ‘ sticks out.

The story has three main characters , the first one being a  underworld  don called Moosa . The character is someone who you would like to encounter in real life,in fact you do wonder where are such good , kind hearted people, but then you realize that something is not right and well he is ‘ bastardised by the circumstances’ – his childhood in the world famous Dharawi and the various illegal things he gets into make him into a black sheep,but a sheep never the less.

The second is a character called Bhaskaran who is from an ancient family in Kerala. He grows in a place a close to Dharawi where he happens to meet Moosa during a row. He later goes on to achieve ,thanks to Moosa Bhai’s help.

The third is a orphan called Abubacker,in Khozikode,who , with the help of Moosa become a ‘Muthalali’. The book has vivid descriptions of the illegal businesses both in Kerala and Mumbai. Moosa helps in the making of two men,both different- one educated in MIT(Bhaskaran) and the other educated by experience in the underworld. The book also moves a lot – Kerala,Chennai,Mumbai, Libya,Middle East ,Nagpur etc.

As I said,the book seemed to have bit too much of the HR angel. This being fiction, every paragraph helps in molding the story and the reader being a person who picks up this book from the best seller stand,is bound be at loss,when he is faced with description of running a business,it catches you out ,when at about 1 0r 2 in the morning between a nice story someone talks about business.Also if it were so simple,then everyone would be a entrepenuer . But maybe that is the cynic in me,rather maybe it is a reaction to the fact that a particular part towards the end , seemed to add a certain degree of reality to it and rob it of the ‘cho cho sweet why can’t this be a feel good movie/ wah wah a fairy tale at last’.

I never like to reveal the story,except maybe the main characters,because my belief is that,reading a detailed review,takes away a bit of the charm of reading a book. I would say,read this book,if you want a something light and feel good(there are a few bits of harsh reality,which seeing other stories now days,would make into a fairy tale anyway) .It also gives you an insight into a few places and ways of living(ya well I guess it is better than travel and living).  Though I just criticised the HR part,there are a few messages which have been put in with a bit of euphamism which we all can use,when we deal with people( Okay, I am not know for my patience when dealing with certain type of people,so yes,maybe I should learn). I might be over rating this book,but anyway..

 

Rating – 8/10. Makes a nice little quick read.

Author’s page.

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