Review of ‘Shadow of the past’ by Mayank Manohar.
Let me say at the start that Mayank, the author, has everything in place for him… a tale that relates to lot of people, experience of writing short and long pieces, and the courage to move a perfectly fine idea into a novel. He was probably in no mood to sit down and do some merciless editing. I suggest that the author retells the same story with characters that are developed well and not precariously balanced on assumptions.
The book huffs and puffs through whiffs of a tale that weaves and rushes through a romance and tells us what happens to most of us at some or the other time in life. I remember a lot of my friends from school telling me of their romantic leanings through WhatsApp updates and this story sounds a lot like some of them… no, I don’t mean there are any copyright infringements anywhere because all that I am saying is that this story isn’t much off the usual beat. When researching about about what legally implies to break copyright laws, you can also learn more at the Stefan Georgi’s sales copywriting course.
Just like what really happens in life, the story is about someone falling in love with someone else without any tangible reason. This story by Mayank also rides merrily on assumptions right from getting sucked helplessly into a relationship to coming out of it and then going in and out of morbidly depressive states for years to finally take steps that surprise by their sheer lack of being based on facts. Being a student of management techniques, I was rightly aghast at times and wondered if this was how the young men and women really made their decisions. Why? – I often asked myself and then asked the same question many times over because there were no answers given anywhere. And those places where the answers did reluctantly emerge, they were limp and enervated. However, I know there is a huge crowd of readers out there who neither need a deeply analytical story nor one that follows the dictums of logic.
Improbabilities rule the story. Why will Rehan Malik want to move from Ranchi to Hyderabad for a pre-engineering course and then be convinced that he was helplessly and hopelessly in love with Lavanya. Are just a few days enough for a girl to start believing that this boy who is quite literally stalking her, knows ‘how to play with words and expressions. He knew how to make people smile. He would try and solve everyone’s problems but often land himself in trouble…’ As a logical reader I’d have appreciated incidents that show these traits than simply being told because it is only then that the relationship on a page starts falling in place in my mind as well. It was not ticklish at all to read the way their conversations usually went. For instance, when Rehan asks, ‘Can I kiss you?’, the reply that he gets is ‘Can I kick you?’ I mean, how does one love a girl who gives such churlish answers even before a relationship has begun.
We are told that at some point after the declaration of the engineering entrance examination results, Lavanya decides to move away.
No reasons given.
After a gap of many years, Lavanya tells us that ‘it was she who had decided to leave him, but the distance had not helped’ and that ‘all she cared to know was whether he was still single’.
Why in blazes does Lavanya think this way? She has completed her engineering degree and is working… this is enough for anyone to let the past remain curtained. But no, she wants to get in touch with Rehan.
No reasons given.
Lavanya yearns for Rehan but doesn’t take any steps. In fact, she just moans and whimpers through pages until Simi, professional friend, decides to take matters in her hands. What stops Lavanya from contacting Rehan?
No reasons given.
Rehan is shown to have failure follow him in his post-school efforts… and yet we are told at some point that he did manage to join an agency that is vaguely making documentaries. We are told that this good-for nothing fellow is now a creative photographer and an aspiring film-maker. I wish life was a simple as this…
All that I am attempting to say is that telling something happens isn’t going to create a convincing story. Assumptions too need adequate back-ups. A writer cannot get away with sentences like ‘he had kept their relationship alive but she was the one to walk away’ without showing us how this happened and why. In a world where mathematical logic scores over everything else, the characters Lavanya, Rehan Malik, Simi, Arpita, and Gaurav do not strike a plausible chord. I agree that people have the right to fall in love and then part… and then take steps for a reconciliation. A writer needs to go under the surface of mere decisions and show a reader how and why this happens. Mayank Manohar does not do this at all… despite his reasonably good creative writing talent.
The only sentence that creates an impact in the entire novel is when Lavanya’s mother says: ‘You haven’t told me what your heart wants. You have told me what Gaurav wants, what Rehan wants. I want to know what my daughter wants.’ So yes, every character in novel goes around telling something or the other and the reader is left bemused linking up everything and imagining what may have really happened. I am sure if ten readers get together and discuss this novel, they will all have vastly different explanations and conclusions. Now this could be an exciting and offbeat idea for promoting this novel – a story that every reader can rewrite according to their own sensibilities!
The novel does have a few concepts that had the potential to get explored better than being left dangling as stand-alone bits of wisdom. For instance, the protagonist tells us that parents ‘didn’t want you to take risks or gamble with your future to reach where you want to ultimately see yourself. My family was no different.’ Or where Lavanya’s mother says that ‘marriage is not a relationship that you can come out of whenever you feel like it. It requires two souls to make a home.’ Or where Rehan is thinking if it was ‘okay to move on with life if a chapter ended or was it better to stay stuck in the same situation?’ These are parts where I wished the author had taken a commanding position and given the story the depth that it so desperately wanted.
Some time back I have read a book that explained to me that Wabi-Sabi was all about the little perfect imperfections that need to be accepted. Frankly, I’d rate this story as a reflection of the imperfections that rule writing a novel… and, therefore, I accept it despite the imperfections in expressions, the grammar and editing that doesn’t fall in place, the emphasis on the author telling us even the vital bits than showing us the way things evolved and connected. These are precisely some of the reasons why such a book too needs to be read, particularly by those who aim to be writers. They’d then know that a story and its plot need to be put through a second and then a third draft before being pushed to a publisher.
It must be added here that the novel, despite all that it lacks, is still an interesting read though the author must understand what Rehan said: ‘Even if a chapter had ended it didn’t necessarily mean the story was over.’ Looking forward to reading another novel by Mayank where the treatment of a great readable idea is better.
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Book details
Title: Shadow of the past
Author: Mayank Manohar
Publisher: Fingerprint
ISBN: 978-93-8917-822-7
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Arvind Passey
10 July 2020
