Mapping love by Ashwini Iyer Tiwari


 The book opens with Oorja, who has returned to India seeking answers and desperate to understand the meaning of her life. Its not very difficult to imagine ourselves in her place-- we have all been through phases in our life where we have doubted the purpose of our very existence. We look back at our lives and suddenly all those regrets buried under years of oblivion rises to the surface. It is something we can't let go of-- we learn to trade our sanity from time to time to bask in the warmth of what could have been.


Oorja's character held a lot of promise. The beginning of the book actually held my atrention and I was expecting something along the lines of an immigrant coming back to India and the wave of nostalgia forcing her to rethink the choices she made in life. The mystery surrounding her father's disappearance and her setting off to look for her father so she could make amends were written in exceptional detail giving attention to the storm blowing inside Oorja and her desperate need to make up to her close ones whom she had so willingly abandoned some years back.


The plot took a whole new turn with the introduction of Anang and I just felt it unnecessarily complicated the story. Anang's story felt a bit out of place and Oorja's falling for Anang within few hours of meeting seemed a little unbelievable considering her previous experiences with men. The story quickly picked up pace and somehow along the way, it lost the depth which the first half had promised. Oorja's character changed from a mature, sensible woman with knowledge of the world to that of a clingy, pathetic woman in the matter of a few pages. 


If I was asked to rate the first half of the book I would gladly rate it 5 stars. Nevertheless the author's writing holds promise and I would be more than willing to try more books by her.


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