Fiction
Story Mirror
October 29, 2017
Paperback
280
With You; Without You is a novel written in Hindi which tells the tale of three friends who complicate their relationship when love is introduced in their lives! Pyar wali dosti aur dosti wala pyar!
With You; Without You is the debut novel written in Hindi by novelist Prabhat Ranjan who hails from Patna, Bihar. Bearing an English title, the novel is purely a production in Hindi language and well within the ambit of common readers’ emotions that makes it so much enjoyable by any reader whatsoever who wishes to read the same. Prabhat Ranjan, in his very debut, has come up as a well-versed juggler of words and his jugglery has helped the plot a lot, which is somewhat limited only to three or four major characters in the novel out of which we get to read most of the lives of the three – Nishind, Rami, and Aditya.
About the plot, it’s a complicated tale of redemption in love. Nishind, who is our character-important and also the narrator of the novel and thus, the mouthpiece of the novelist Prabhat Ranjan, wears a guilt of separating two people who were ‘about to fall in love’. Later, he gets the chance of redemptions and he gets the salvation from a mental chaos and also gets much more than he could have wished – he gets his love!
The story begins in a flashback and we are taken to the contours of Lucknow where we get to know the most of Rami, the lead female character and a strong voice of feminism, latter. We also get to know about Aditya, a very handsome and good person (illusionary). And the most important thing, Nishind also tells the readers about himself. The tale of childhood, college life and early youth are told by the narrator and we also come to know his sin!
When the story moves back to the present day, we are confronted by the various instances where we get to know the views of the author on modern life which has become so fast that we seldom have spare time to spend with our families and relatives. Everything, including the human emotions, is almost artificial elements now with the least of genuineness about them. Prabhat Ranjan, in his long soliloquies, laments the same. Nevertheless, it increases the length of the novel and somewhat makes the storyline a little dragging!
One thing which is very important and I must underline it in the review, the author has done the best he could do in highlighting the youthful ambitions of love and the realities of being in love once we are actually in love. What Nishind does was out of his personal interest in Rami but he couldn’t ever tell her about his love. What he does later, by trying his best to unite Rashmi Desai with Aditya, was out of true emotions that he had within him! Strong comments made by Rashmi Desai are also the fuel of the novel. She talks openly about love and physical relationships and modern ways of living. She expects genuine relationship and she isn’t a naïve girl to be fooled by the mankind! Through Rami’s dialogue, the author, Prabhat Ranjan, speaks his mind about love and women’s perspective according to him which sometimes seem overrated and forceful!
With You; Without You has suspense in the storyline and vividness is seldom found because it moves along the track of love and friendship. Pyar wali dosti aur dostu wala pyar! This is the line which describes this Hindi novel the best and to conclude the review, I would say that a very fair attempt by the author has been made in his very debut! The readers who want to know about the problems and queries about love and friendship in the modern days will have a very good reading waiting for them! Go for With You; Without You by this debut author!
Amit
November 27, 2017Very well written. The author has never used any unparliamentary language in the novel. That is surely a rarity in modern novels. Bravo!