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Blurb View:

“When Aryan Roy stepped into college life to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a successful engineer, little did he know that he was in for a journey of a lifetime, Anushka and Kaira turn his sojourn into a memorable one – in both good and not-so-good senses.”

The Storm in my Mind… is a collective narrative of events, habits, stereotypes and idiosyncrasies revolving around the contemporary society of Kolkata. It is a story of love as much as it is of hatred, passion, friendship, trust, misunderstandings, nostalgia and love for his city. It is the story of Aryan, his Kolkata and his mellowing heart that makes confessions of the times he has seen.

Review:

The cover. Oh, yes. It instills nostalgia into misty-eyed Calcuttans. I had, like a seasoned Bengali reader, expected helluva book from a fellow Calcuttan (or Kolkatan as they call themselves these days). But, I’m royally disappointed yet again.

Ayaan Basu had promised in the book promotions that it is going to be a great one involving the city. The first doubt which crept into me was the volume of the book. It appeared quite lean to be classified into an engaging read. But who knows, the times they-are-a-changin’ and it could well have been interesting. I braced myself up for a journey with Aryan Roy, the  protagonist, through a phase in his life. It became stressful after a few pages as the writing is quite incoherent. The sweet bonding between consecutive sentences and paragraphs is missing. It seems as if Aryan was captivated and asked to blurt out few details about his high school and college days.

The plot is loose and average. It is the one-boy-two-girls story and you can predict the incidents. I think almost all of us have read at least one book with the same plot or watched a similar movie. It doesn’t have much to offer and the story ends rapidly which indicates that there’s probably a sequel coming. Another big disappointing factor for me were the little Wikipedia type entries of different landmarks which define Calcutta. The author has made them look like mini-wiki posts instead of describing their background and history in a more lucid way (if he really had to).

Adding woes to the worries, the editors have done some really bad work. I wish I had better things to say about the book and author, with a self centeredness of being a fellow Calcuttan. But I can only hope that he does a better job next time.

My Rating: 2.25/5

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About the Author:

Book Details:

Language: English,  Genre: Fiction/ Drama

Author(s): Ayaan Basu

Publisher: Srishti, Year Published: 2013

Binding: Paperback, Edition: First, Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9789380349992 , ISBN-10: 9380349998

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Reviewed for: Author

This review is also shared with the Indian Quills Reading Challenge  and Debut Indian Writers Month – Readathon 3 at The Tales Pensieve.