India Unlimited – Kulpreet Yadav | Book Review
When I first held this book India Unlimited: Stories from a Nation Caught Between Hype and Hope, I anticipated stories sketched on ‘the Prince and the Pauper’ outlines of India, but rather the anthology contains a multifarious mix of 31 short stories that span a wide range of human psychology across the nation- greed, fear, lust, innocence all forming elements to the story. The proses are developed by author Kulpreet Yadav in simple English, and goes easy on the read. Many of the premises created are interesting (though in parts), and he manages to seduce the reader further into completing his collection.
India Unlimited – Book Review
My personal favorites from the book include The Fish and My Wedding, The Red Woman, The Mother with a Future, The Blind Date and The City of Mirrors. The stories are earthly and form an instant connect with the reader. A few stories have been given a Bollywoody climax, and I’d have preferred an open ending for them. Backgrounds have been sublimely sketched for all stories, though they tend to incline a bit too heavily on predictability. The author pens in versatility as he makes us skip and hop through various moods as we turn the page from one story to another. The variety in all these stories bring up the most common adjective used to describe India- diverse.
I enjoyed the book to a fair extent, and did have occasional laughs in between. The characters sketch is brilliantly done, and there’s a slight hue of ‘someone among you’ that’s present in almost every character. The cover design could be toned down to subtlety, ‘coz no matter what the phrase reads, people do judge a book by its cover. But scratch the cover, and you got yourself a good read.
Overall rating: 3/5
About the Author:
Kulpreet Yadav is the founder-editor of Open Road Review, a literary journal with an international footprint. He lives in New Delhi and his interests include traveling, snorkeling and experimenting with food. He’s also editor to Under the Banyan Tree (UTBT), an online forum dedicated to short stories. He is also a founding member of Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association. We thank the author for sending us a signed copy of this book.You may order this book from Flipkart here:
Aarthi
October 7, 2013 at 6:03 pm
your review on this book has triggered me to read this book.