Anuja Chauhan

This book is a unusual love story of ishaan faujdaar and tahmina dadyseth with unusual war of 1971 between india, east pakistan that is bangladesh and Pakistan. However story starts with our hero being a small kid and running against the train coming in the same track to perform a stunt. When asked why he says I get a kick from it. Who becomes to be a IAF pilot and nicked named as baaz. He is like a Bollywood hero and he is pro in flying the fighter plane or a normal plane. On the contrary, our heroine is a peace and love making girl with a cute small dimple when she laughs. She believes in humanity and despises war as it results in the loss of humanity. Overall its a unusual love story between two contrasting people. Only thing is it should have been a happy ending. Overall it's a very good Goodread...… (más)

The zoya factor is about a girl named zoya where her family members believe that she is lucky for the cricket game. Whoever she supports that team wins by hook or crook. In this zoya factor thing the world of indian cricket team and the girl zoya solanki's life goes for a roller coaster ride. In between this ride there is romance brewing between zoya and nikhil khoda the indian cricket team captain. Storyline of the book is very good and aas usual the language used by Anuja is really good. Liked the book and would be eager to watch the upcoming movie based on this story. Overall i would says it's a worth reading Goodread...… (más)

The author begins the book in a small town named Chakkahera in Haryana. One ten year old inquisitive boy with cool grey eyes, is sowed dreams of being a fighter plane pilot for IAF. Ishaan Faujdaar, the young boy from Haryana grows up with fulfilling his dreams of being a pilot. The year is 1970-71, where he is the IAF academy and he makes friends for life- Rakesh "Raka" Agarwal & Madhavan "Maddy" Subbiah.

This is more of a "coming of a age" story about larger than life persona "Ishaan" & the underlying Indo-Pak War. Ishaan falls in love with a fiesty, independent, peace-loving journalist & accidental model-"Tehmina "Tinka" Dadyseth. Its their individual perceptions about war, patriotism & love of course which collides in the book. The story moves deftly from war to love to the political tension between political parties & back to war again.

The author describes Kolkata, the air force station-Kalina, the fights between India & Pakistanis. the tension in the book is palpable. The ending of course leaves one baffled and shocked. Any other words written about it, will give away the same.

Ishaan is portrayed as a large hearted, life loving, dare devil air force pilot , whose immediate entourage are his friends Raka & Maddy and his team of gnats-Jana, Gana, Mana. This is a mini epic novel. I was completely drawn into it, so much that i was reading at work. At the risk of sounding stupid, i can proudly say that i had fell for "Ishaan" in a hard way. It would've been fun to look into his grey eyes & be mesmerized by it.

Anuja Chauhan does what she does best-gripping storytelling, i had read "those pricey thakur girls", "the house that BJ built" & finally "Baaz".

She has built up a story which is believable, characters which haunt long after the book is over. Moreover, being from a defense family herself, Anuja has clearly set the bar at a greater level. She has definitely done her homework and at a point in novel, there is also a literary mention of "tinker tailor soldier spy".

This is a book, where a male lead takes the center stage and all others follow lead sportively. And In spite of being a main male protagonist novel, Anuja Chauhan pens her female characters independent, strong willed, be it Tinka, her aunt or even Ishaan's sister.

Why is this book worth reading ? Because of the story, of the immortal characters, of the courageous, yet down to earth heroes in the book, the language & the war we fought which was not ours.

After reading this book, i would definitely like to read about non-fiction work on 1971 Indo-Pak War & probably date some uber cool & chic air force pilots : )

Thank you Flipkart for the book and extremely sorry for posting the review so late.… (más)

Note: This review was originally posted in my blogBook and Ink

Not having read the prequel to this book – Those pricey Thakur girls, I was a little skeptic about following the story and understating the character progression. Thankfully I was able to read it as a standalone, thanks to the fairly independent story line.

The story is based on a commonly witnessed episode in our country – property squabble. BJ a retired judge and the father of five beautiful girls, dies leaving behind a high value property in the posh area of Hailey road. Bonita Singh aka Bonu, the protagonist of our story and BJ’s granddaughter from his second late daughter lives in that very house and also runs a successful albeit a slightly fraudulent one. BJ, on his death bed, entrusts his step-grandson, Samar, his first daughter Anjini’s adopted son to sell off the property and divide the share equally among the sisters. Bonu is vehemently against the idea of selling thanks to certain ideologies drilled into her by her late mother. Bonu sees this as a perfect opportunity for revenge. Surprisingly, her revenge is the last problem that Samar faces trying to sell this property. In comes BJ’s brother questioning the paternity of BJ which automatically ensures the girls do not inherit the property. What follows is a high octane drama sprinkled with some romance and a lot of humor. /*I prefer putting it that way. No spoiler policy!*/

The characterization for me was initially a bit confusing as I hadn’t read the previous book. Thankfully, the book had a family tree right in the beginning which helped me immensely in understanding who was related to whom and how. In spite of having a lot characters, typically like a large Indian family, the writer, Anuja, managed to give them all enough attention that they deserved. The characterization was honed enough for a reader to understand the behavior even if the book is read as a standalone. This is not an easy feat to achieve. The book isn’t exactly a literary marvel. But then, it isn’t meant to be that. It’s your typical Indian read with well written story line narrated in a quirky manner!

MY SAY: A good one time read with typical Indian masala.

RATING:

PLOT : 8/10

NARRATION: 6/10

CHARACTERISATION: 8/10

BOREDOM QUOTIENT: 3/10 (The lower the better)

OVERALL RATING: 7/10… (más)