Book Review #65: Surrogate Author - Authdas Journey of Nine Months Book Delivery By Santosh Avvannavar and Shilpa S.Patil

Title: Surrogate Author - Authdas Journey of Nine Months Book Delivery!

Authors: Santosh Avvannavar, Shilpa S. Patil

Publishers: Hoeffen

Genre: Non-Fiction/Writing

Pages: 40 odd pages

Source: Review Copy by Author

This is a short and sweet book I must say. It has a great material inside that could actually help the budding authors with its creative ideas and narration. It hardly takes 20 minutes to read this book, but, the idea it inculcates among the readers is exceptional. As an aspiring writer myself, I had gained a positive insights into the writing and how to build and propagate an idea of writing.

This book has a conversational type story. And, the conversation has been adopted on the lines of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s hit movie Devdas, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit. There are changes to the names, the themes and the props. Devdas has become Authdas here in this story. And just like Devdas finding his lost love with Paru. Here, Authdas tries to bring his lost interest of writing his unfinished novel Paro!!

The Authdas (Author-das) here in this novel finds inspiration to write his unfinished novel Paro. However, he seeks the help of Chandramukhi. He tries all his might to write it short, in a periodic time frame to finish his novel. But, Paro was moved into a different house!! Dejected Authdas lost his cool and seeks help from anyone to find his lost love.

The book has 2 sections in it. The first section speaks about the conversation of Authdas with various characters and his never dying intentions about writing his unfinished novel Paro. In 2^nd section of the book, there are some tips and tricks for every aspiring author on how to write. It has some good information about how to start a character, how to develop a character, how to imagine the surroundings and how to write the associate character etc… 

The authors have juxtaposed Authdas with that of a surrogate mother who has to bear 9 months to give birth to a child. This horrendous task of Authdas writing his unfinished novel Paro is as difficult as giving birth to a surrogate child!

It is surprisingly impressive to write such a short book, yet make an impact to its readers. Though this book is short and to the point, the movie style narration of Authdas juxtaposing with Devdas is a cracker. I enjoyed reading it. I was kept on reminded about the movie Devdas, while I read about Authdas. This book is a total fun to read! A must read!

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange of an honest review.

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My Rating:
4/5

Book Review #64: Black, Grey & White - "No one is spared from it" By Santosh Avvannavar and Santosh I. Biradar

Title: Black, Grey & White – No one is spared from it

Authors: Santosh Avvannavar, Santosh I. Biradar

Publishers: Hoeffen

Genre: Non-Fiction/Social Awareness

Pages: 90 odd pages

Source: Review Copy by Author

This particular book by the authors speaks about the AIDS and its misconceptions. It particularly creates awareness with the conversational type stories that themed around dealing with AIDS infected people and normal beliefs around it. This book has 5 short stories that deal extensively on this subject. I am impressed with the authors and their research on this subject. They have gone an extra mile to fetch the details that normally wouldn’t come across in a mainstream society.

I liked the title of the book and its tag line. Yes, “No One is spared from it”. The book has passed its message clearly with the stories. We all know, at least in India that, how the people who are infected with AIDS are treated. They are almost treated as dirt. They not only lose their social status, but also, they lose their fighting spirit to begin with. Rejection by the society upon their illness has added additional suffering to their already traumatized life. So, what this book does after all? This book has tried to break those barriers and creates a positive atmosphere and tries to “educate the educated people” to treat the HIV infected people with the same amount of affection and respect as they treat the normal people.

As I said, there are 5 short stories written in this novel. Each story debunks an associated myth of AIDS infected people.

In the very first story, there is a story of Anjali a.k.a Neha who is infected with HIV and tested for positive. A journalist Shahid, who works in a newspaper, receives letters written in blood in the name of Anjali regularly. So, Shahid sets out on a mission to solve this case. He travels to many cities tracing the origin of this letter. Later he finds out that, the person who was writing this letter is killing the innocent children who were born on a particular day. Now, here is the actual stuff that the authors try to break in. The person who was killing those innocent children is an HIV infected person, he believed that, by killing these innocent children that were born on the particular day and offering them as a sacrifice will make his AIDS disease get cured!! This particular practice can be seen among many places even today. Authors tried to educate people here by saying that, offering sacrifice and AIDS are nowhere linked to each other. In fact, what they need is a counselling and few helping hands.

In next story, there is a tale of a little boy Chintu. He was infected with HIV at the time of his birth. The virus got carried into him by their parents who were infected. He was treated by the society like he is an outcaste person. Little chintu was not sure why he was treated in such a way, where there is no fault of his. This particular story is very touching and gives us a reason to not to judge people. It passes on a great lesson on how to treat an HIV patient, so that, they can lead a normal life and can live little longer.

The next story speaks about the exploitation of young girls in various industries. This particular story exposes the insider casting couch kind of story where a budding model was forced into casting couch. The fate of this young girl was ruined by few hungry criminals, which abused her in every possible way. The end is quite heart breaking. The young girl, now infected with HIV positive will start taking revenge against these hungry predators and infected them along with her. This story speaks about how not to use a situation and persons just because you can wield power.

And, there is one more story where a young girl Savita was married to an older person. Her parents didn’t even find a detail about the person with whom their daughter is getting married. Time is very short for Savita, as she was infected by AIDS through her husband. She didn’t scare at the beginning; she went on building positivity around her through counselling and taking timely medicines. This story goes on explaining about how an HIV infected person can actually build a positive life around them. It is inspiring to many who are suffering from HIV.

The final story is of Cain and Abel. This particular story has deviated from the AIDS themed stories. However, this story particularly explains the need for care and affection that parents have to give their children. Abraham being the father of Cain and Abel treats both of his sons in equal way. However, Cain turns out to be a rebel with the influence of Lucifer, the demon. Cain starts to go astray early in his childhood resulting in losing his social status and respect from others. Whereas, Abel the good son, listens every word from this father and gains the trust and respect of the people. This is a simple, yet strong message oriented story. This particular story has been adopted from the Holy Bible.

This book certainly helps to break some taboos that are surrounded with AIDS and its misconception. This book must be kept in every high school, college libraries to teach young kids. I highly recommend this book to be read by everyone. Those who have read already must put a word to their friends and near one’s to spread the awareness.

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange of an honest review.

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My Rating:
5/5

Book Review #63: Title Is Untitled By Santosh Avvannavar and others

Title: Title is Untitled

Authors: Santosh Avvannavar, Kundan Srivasatava, Rajashree Ghosh and others

Publishers: CreateSpace Independent publishing platform

Genre: Non-Fiction/Social Awareness

Pages: 120 odd pages

Source: Review Copy by Author

Finally I’ve read a book that kept me thinking for a while. The book made me to realize what is right is not always deemed to be right. This book covers the most important aspects of the modern Indian society and its flaws. It is more accurate to say it as flaws, since, this book covers some of the most serious happenings in our society, and be it on the male or female populace. The atrocities, the crimes, the extortions, abductions, scams, etc… has been covered in a greater detail in a conversational type. Yes, this may be a work of fiction, but, only the characters are made to be fiction, but, the story is simply straight forward.

This book "Title is Untitled" is on the category of “Social Adult Book” because it covers majorly the aspects that are mostly related to the problems that are faced by the adults. At the same time, the readers have to be reminded that, these kind of criminal offense are happening against children too. There are 11 stories that the authors have written in this novel, while each story has covered a topic, mainly, child marriages, sexual fantasies, marital rapes, suicides among men, domestic violence, prostitution, abduction, blackmailing, abuse of power, retirement scams, education scams etc… It is a serious book and it gives the readers a chance to ponder over few things. The title of the book “Title is Untitled” is very apt for this book.

Each story in the book speaks of a social evil, and the victim may be either men or women. Authors have not shied away from speaking their mind about some of the topics which are considered way too taboo in a conservative society like India. For instance, a particular story speaks about a man, who gets abducted by a group of thugs and abused him and forced him to a marriage that he was not at all consented with. This is popularly known as Groom abduction and it is quite rampant in various parts of India.

In another chapter they talk about a woman who has abused the domestic violence laws and made it as a business. Her sole purpose is to marry a gullible man and force him for divorce citing some unacceptable reasons and get alimony from him and search for a new victim.  

Another story speaks about a person who is not at all qualified for even a degree finds an institute that offers Ph.D. degrees for negotiable fees. This institute is not a legit and not even government approved. This person pay a hefty amount of money for his degree and without even doing a zilch of research of his subjects, he ended up getting his Ph.D. This particular story tells us that there are scams at even higher education level.

One more story is of a sexual fantasy of a young woman, who is all but cared for her unusual expectations when it comes to love making, which actually resulted in a more serious damage mentally and physically. And, like this, there are many stories from the book, that each speaks about a certain social evil. There are little facts at the end of every chapter that gives us the statistics about the problem that they’ve discussed in the chapter.

The writing style is a commendable job. They’ve avoided too much adult content and focused more on the issue. Grammatical aspects are quite satisfying. Content wise, it is rich and as I said it before, it is pure message oriented. In this age of money making race, several other authors try to write some garbage to make some quick money, but, these authors are an exception to that case. They have focused more on the content, more on educating the society and less on the money front.

I am highly impressed with the designing part of the book. The front cover image looks stunning and appropriate fonts helps the readers to read the book comfortably.

Towards the end of the book, you can read little profile of all the authors, through which we will come to know that, they’re working towards a better society, motivating people towards a better living and educating them.

Rating this book is a little tedious job. You don’t get to see this kind of book often. It’s short, crisp and contains a bundle of information and facts that can be used widely to teach the masses. A must read book at any cost. I highly recommend it.

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange of an honest review.

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My Rating:
5/5