Au revoir, CalcuttaKrishna DuttaAu revoir, Calcutta is a story of a girl adventuring the whole of Calcutta and narrating her story from time to time of, why is she is present in Calcutta in first place.
Au, revoir Calcutta is an adult fiction of mystery thriller genre written by Krishna Dutta. It is a book for adult and not for young adults as for there are strong sexual feeling and conversations which are present in the story. From the title of the book au revoir, Calcutta one might think it is a fun comedy kind of book inspired by the lifestyle of Calcutta civilians and by the look of the cover one might think it is a very simple and typical story of a middle class Bengali man, who lives in Calcutta as for the cover contains a picture of a rickshawala pulling his rickshaw and a middle aged man is sitting on it but the story of the book is totally different from what it looks but the title is little bit related to the context of the story as the main character leaves Calcutta at the end. The story revolves around round a 30 years old female protagonist named Miranda, her cousin and lover rana, rana’s best friend rabi and rana’s mother stated as ‘kakima’ in the story, it was revealed that her name is sudhama in the climax. There are other side characters too like seema, rekha, Reba, Reba’s husband sudhir, rekha husband Kamal, seema’s fiancé sona and Susan, who is the main antagonist.There are strong feelings and emotions in this story as for Miranda who have loved rana from the bottom of her heart so much that the fact that rana is no more alive devastated her completely and lost her mental balance, same reactions goes for rana’s mother when she continuously avoiding the truth, which is that her son is no more alive cause she believes that he is alive.
Strong feeling was also shown for Susan, who was obsessed with rana in such a level that she couldn’t bear to see him with any other girl and just because rana supported Miranda, Susan got into an argument with rana which made her kill rana out of rage. The story at the beginning gets interesting and catches the attention of readers when Miranda visits rana’s mother in Calcutta to share her grief of losing her lover and rana’s mother losing her son, then the story gets consistent and monotonous in the half way through when Miranda keeps giving her opinion on the people and their lifestyle of Calcutta, also when she keeps on narrating her quarrels and conflicts between her and kakima, also when she keeps repeating her daily routine in the house but the climax is heart pumping when everything gets revealed in front of everyone and the way kakima reacted is truly thrilling, for that reason Miranda leaves Calcutta at the end. There are also many things which get reveled like Susan killed rana out of rage, rana’s real father is his uncle and not the man who we have knowing about throughout the story. One thing is interesting about this fiction is that there are many side stories going on with the side characters simultaneously with the main story, some side distractions involve like about how Lela’s life gets tormented by her husband Hari, who is a small town mafia who earns black money for living, by the way he dies at the end of the story.
There is an involvement of seema’s story too, rana’s youngest sister who has an intention to marry a guy named sona, who holds the green card of the states, so she continuously tries to woo and impress him despite of him being a playboy, her wish is that she would go to the us get permanent resident by marrying him and then ditch him. Subsitutely also follows the story of rekha, the younger sister of rana and Reba, the second younger sister. Rekha lives a luxurious life with her three sons and husband Kamal who travels all over the world and does illegal businesses to earn black money to live a life king size while on the other side Reba lives a completely opposite life, as Reba’s husband sudhir who is a middle class honest man suffers from weak digestion while Reba suffers from malnutrition herself. Love is an important component in this story as there is a strong love bond is present between rana and his uncle, aunt, rabi, Susan, his sisters ad especially his mother and Miranda, rana’s mother had loved him so much that she couldn’t bear to face the truth that her son is no more alive, the stringed love bond which is present in this particular story is perhaps the relationship which had grown between Miranda and rana, at first it was love for a cousin and then it became erotic love, which some people might be okay with but again some would find this very awkward, it all depends on the perspective of different people. Violence is a theme which is present in almost every line of this story, from the start till the end of the book, it’s all filled with vocal war and at the end of the book, there is a physical conflict between Miranda and kakima. Since kakima is accusing Miranda for killing her son by making him fall into her dirty trap and Miranda tries to share her grief with her but she constantly ignores the topic, which makes Miranda mad, she also suspects that she is drugging her food to make her weak and hopeless. In conclusion, the overall story is interesting and it will keep the reader attracted to the book till the end to know the truth, the thriller is moderate but mystery is present in a good amount.
The starting of the book is interesting enough to make the reader decide to finish the book. In my opinion, I would give it a 6.5 out 10 for keeping thriller, mystery up to a level, overall the storyline was adequate for a hungry thriller mystery reader.
