Destiny of Shattered Dreams

Summary

“The monster I run from is in me.” Atul is ambitious, passionate about his work and is in love with Roshni. But the sudden turn of events, change everything. It is hard to find love, harder to commit to love and hardest to sail through the journey. For Atul, finding love was easy, even committing to it was easier but sailing through was definitely not the easiest. ‘Destiny of shattered dreams’ is a story that exposes you to the hardcore politics of the corporate world and the personal dilemmas of life. This is a story that portrays the emotional turmoil of Atul- both at professional and personal front. But some decisions do not prove fruitful and that is what shapes Atul’s destiny too. This story is all about the dreams and the efforts required in the process of making them come true. You might lose some and win some but it will never be a win-win situation.

Grab this book to have a sneak-peek into Atul’s life and experience the trauma that he goes through every single day.

My Opinion

‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard

Some do it with a bitter look

Some with a flattering word

The coward does it with a kiss

The brave man with a sword.’   -Oscar Wilde

‘Destiny of shattered dreams’ is a poignant tale of Atul and his miserable life. Not that his life was miserable from the start, but the decisions that he took, proved out to be upsetting. This purpose of the story is not to entertain to be didactic but it is pure narration of events. And the author has maintained the uniformity in the content throughout. Starting with the cover – it is abstract and catchy. The title serves the purpose and matches the storyline. The blurb is not suited for first-time readers. No doubt the vocabulary is exemplary, yet the language might be a problem here. The typesetting, font (size, style) and the overall layout are perfect. Kudos to Rupa!

Coming to the plot: The story is strong. The build-up of characters, in a perfect chronological order, is commendable. But I wished only if there had been less number of characters in the story, it would have been clearer. At time I found myself confused with the people and their roles. For an instance, Babulal appears once or twice in four – five chapters and when after a long time, his role came again, I had to stress my memory to remember who he was. The character sketch is very balanced and they have been portrayed really well. One can mind map the physical appearance of the characters automatically. Even in the office there are too many characters (again, not good). However, the author has successfully maintained a correct poise between depiction of professional front and personal front. The inclusion of Roshni in the story actually had a positive effect because the readers are bound to be left wanting for more- reading her side of the story too.

Some things that I did not like are:

       Mention of eagerness or necessity for love-making was not required time and again. This was probably done to emphasize on the character of Atul, but it was not required

       Despite finely tuned editing, there were some missing commas which changed the meaning of the sentence. Other than this, there are missing quotation marks (Pg. 85)

       At times readers can come across redundancy in the content, like- “They dated for two years before they tied the knot”- this line has been repeated twice on a same page (Pg. 18). Similarly, there is another line that has been repeated- “Atul had been full of life once” (Pg. 21)

       I did not quite understand the reason for split between Atul and Roshni. If the reason was the less of time that Atul gave Roshni, then there was no need for inclusion of this dialogue- “Married to whom, that bitching wife of mine, who has made my life a living hell? You call that marriage?” (I would really be glad if the author could clarify this doubt, for I want to know the reason)

       The ending is good- indeed, a well deserved ending, but with such an ending I wished if the character of Atul was shown more responsible towards relationships

       Too much detail about the corporate sector might act as a turn off

It is not necessary that every story ends on a happy note because every story does not originate in cloud cuckoo land! ‘Destiny of shattered dreams’ is one such story that can make you jump out of your skin. The plot is gripping and the lucid narration acts like a cherry on the cake. There are no lengthy descriptions and the use of vocabulary is splendid. The best and the most striking feature of the book is the ‘crisp and short chapters’ and the appalling (but expected) climax.

Overall, this is strong, emotional and intelligent piece of fiction which will definitely touch your heart.