Book: You Are The Best Wife
Author: Ajay K Pandey
Publishers: Srishti Publishers
One look at the title of the book and a little jealous wife in me wanted to read what this was about…. I mean who really tells his wife that “You Are The Best Wife”?
When WritersMelon sent the book for review, curiosity got the better of me and I finished this 240 page book just in a day.
A tragic true love story, it is a narration straight from heart by Ajay Pandey. As the story gradually advanced page after page, I was taken back to memories of my days at college, the hostel life, helping friends in playing out their love stories, the days of ragging. And having grown up in various town and cities of Uttar Pradesh I could identify the language and tone of the story and could almost imagine the young couple stealing meetings at shops, coaching classes, riding different vehicles to prevent nosey neighbours from opining…. I can understand the caste and community differences that are much prevalent in small towns of Uttar Pradesh, the inhibitions of parents and their emotional preconditions for inter-caste marriages.
The story seems simple about girl meets boy in small town, their struggle of love and acceptance of their relationship by each set of parents but then the story throws a twist where instead of an end that is happily ever after, is the life threatening medical emergency. The struggle of meeting the expenses, unconditional support by friends, the bonding and reliability of family members, the desperation of a husband, his fight to stay calm are easily pictured through the narrative.
I liked the optimistic and positive attitude of the girl, Bhavana, who believes in cherishing and enjoying smallest of event and day-to-day life to the fullest.
“There are two kinds of personalities. There are those who have everything and still complain as if they have nothing. And there are those who lose everything and act like life has given them everything…..”
The desperate husband’s plea to his dying wife “Fight for me Bhavna. Fight for your husband” brought a little tear in my eyes. Every wife would love to hear her husband say that she was the best wife and author gave that happiness to his wife in her last moments.
The story of “You Are The Best Wife” was indeed heart touching but the writing style was quite ordinary. It was more like a person recounting the tragedy to a relative or friend.
I mostly prefer reading romance and tragedy novels by Danielle Steele, Erich Segal and Richard Bach and hence I can only empathize with the author and understand the huge loss he suffered, though I wasn’t much impressed by the quality of story-telling.
The book is okay for a quick read.
The best thing I liked about this personal essay was that the author and his family have created the Charitable Trust where the proceeds from the book will be donated for people in need. A very noble and selfless gesture indeed…
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27778898-you-are-the-best-wife
Shoma Abhyankar 