Book Review
Stories of Us by Bobby Sachdeva
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| Stories of Us by Bobby Sachdeva |
Author: Bobby Sachdeva
ISBN: 978-9389109023
Genre: Short Stories
Length: 254 Pages
My Ratings: 🌟🌟🌟ðŸŒ
Order your copy right now: https://amzn.to/3hdAbt5
About the author:
Bobby Sachdeva is a storyteller by choice and a businessman
by profession. He writes stories to highlight the problems with norms and
standards in our changing society and believes that these perceptions can
change. In all his writings, Bobby Sachdeva engages with the problems in the
lives of common people and the ways to resolve these. In the last two years, he
has written more than a dozen feature films, web series, and tele-serials and
his popular book of short stories titled Stories of Us. Apart from writing,
Sachdeva has produced nine short films in Hindi and three feature films in
Punjabi and started a fully equipped studio, Ajab Productions, in his hometown
Amritsar where he lives with his family. The production of his first
full-length Hindi film will begin in 2021.
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| Bobby Sachdeva |
Instagram: @ibobbysachdeva
Twitter: @iBobbySachdeva
REVIEW
Summary
Stories of Us by Bobby Sachdeva, a collection of 41 short
stories exploring a broad range of lives belonging to diverse social groups of
varying wealth, power, status and race where the author directly questions the
status quo regarding social, political and economic issues to make readers
contemplate about the pressing subjects such as blind faith, discrimination,
acquisitiveness and modern-day relations with some brilliant plotlines and some
nebulous and abstract stories; strongly condemning our ways while sometimes
offering values and ethics you may want to cultivate in your lives.
Narration
Stories of Us: The Common Man by Bobby Sachdeva depicts the struggles of the common man who has to constantly fight against the
unscrupulous system. All short stories are narrated in third-person POV except
a few. There is one symbolic illustration at the beginning of each story.
At the end of the stories, Bobby Sachdeva asks thought-provoking questions to no one in
particular but the society. The language is very easy and thus anyone can enjoy
the book. The writing style is straightforward and consistent throughout the
book.
Setting and Characters
Each story is set in different premises that are pretty much
contemporary. The locations include India’s metro cities, villages and a couple
of times a foreign country as well. Basically, the book captures the flaws in our
society that we Indians intentionally or helplessly allow to exist. Many of the
stories seem to reflect the oversimplified images of some characters just like we
see in movies or TV shows but cannot be denied completely. There are many
stories that follow families blindly adhering to godmen and superstitions without
much rational thinking. While there are characters who share a complicated
relationship with their families. Some characters are very focused on chasing
money leaving behind their families and dreams. There are: fanatic leaders, RTI
activist, parents, the only son of the family, eunuchs, daughters, rag pickers,
garbage collectors, weak and poor, wealthy and powerful criminals and so on.
Theme
Based on the various themes, these stories can be
categorized into 4-5 sections including faith & beliefs, family &
relations, wealth & economy and discrimination & harassment.
Maximum
number of stories were only focused on the godmen, blind faith, superstitions
and unnecessary belief systems. Some of them are brilliant, delivering a strong
message and addressing very specific affairs, whereas other stories are poorly
executed with the same logic as others.
The second group of stories talks about
relationship dynamics, hasty decisions, suspicion, work-life balance, internet
affected families, parental expectations, unrelenting children and so on.
The
third group involves stories regarding class consciousness, acquisitiveness,
social responsibility, unlawful activities and other issues. Here, the author
criticizes the government for abrupt implementation of laws after which the
people are left alone to bear the consequences.
In the last group of stories, the author throws light on pressing issues like manual scavenging deaths (Do their
lives don’t matter?), the life of eunuchs, molestation, threats to the safety of underprivileged
& mentally ill people and so on.
My Opinion
Stories of Us raises the voice for the common man but on the
contrary, some of the stories are very short and vaguely expressed that it fails
to be effective enough. However, there are many stories that stand out from the
rest having suitable and realistic plotlines to broach the subject we are turning
deaf ears to. I would definitely recommend this to every Indian as it has the power of initiating the change.
I would like to share a few stories that moved me:
The story about attacks on RTI activists.
The story in which an exploiter financially debilitates a
retired woman.
The story of humanity prevailing at the risk of a job.
The story depicting that a stray dog’s life is more valuable
than an underprivileged girl.
Happy Reading!
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Thank you for the review.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure 😊
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