The Lost World By Pranay Bhalerao | Book Review

Do you love reading thrillers?

We do.

In our quest to find interesting stories to read and enjoy, we don’t discriminate between seasoned authors and newbies in the field. And, we found some amazing talents in the course.

Pranay Bhalerao is one of them.

We came to know about him through his book The Protectors of Kavaach (the first installment in the Kavaach trilogy). Here is quick link to our review for the same.

• The Protectors Of Kavaach | Book Review

The remanining books in the series are already in our “to read” kitty. However, today we are going to talk about Pranay’s other book – The Lost World.

It is worth to mention that The Lost World did get its share of love and affection from the reader and there is already a sequel available for this book as well.

Let us start with the cover page of the book.

Book Cover:

Being a gateway to the virtual world explored within, the cover page creates the first impression of the book. By nature, we got attracted towards beauty and hence, the cover page plays a significant role in a remarkable number of purchase and/or read decisions.

The cover page of the first edition was basic, but the latest one is more attractive.

As you can see, the latest cover of – The Lost World – is designed with the minimalistic approach.

While there was a scope of showing an imaginary world and natural elements, the designer decided to settle down for the comparatively clean background. We see a man (the protagonist) walking towards an unknown place. He seems tired. Actually, it represents the opening scene of the book. It also remains faithful to the book title.

Comparatively, a simple and decent cover page.

Storyline:

Let us take a bird’s eye view of the book plot.

There is a tired man walking in the desert. The scorching son is testing his passions. He found a few remaining drops of water in his bottle. He found a weapon in his bag and he don’t remember why he has it? Actually, he don’t remember anything!

A passport found in his bag tells him that he is Apporav Upadhyay.

But who is Apoorav? What he does for livelihood? Where do he live? Why he is in the desert? Where is he going? Well, he don’t have answers yet.

When he found a place to rest near a water body, he unintentionally picked in a tricky situation.

He is at the bank of a Jungle where lives a tribe. Unknown to the tribe, in other part of the Jungle a deadly mafia with his team does illegal stuff and rules it. He is well-connected to the authorities. In a tricky situation the paths of tribe’s petrol team and a group of these goons crossed each other. It resulted into death of some goons by Apoorav.

Eventually, Apoorav goes to the tribal settlement and the wisest of the men in the tribe identifies him as their own!

But how?

Apoorav has no idea about it.

And, the things are not taken in good faith by everyone in the tribe.

Apoorav got his buddies and enemies here as well!

Who is he? What is going to happen him and the tribe and the mafia and … others?

Well, you need to read the book to know it and during your course of reading you meet with Apoorav Ram Upadhyay, Surya, Raksha, Pandit Ji, Vishnu, Ramtirtha, People from Jarawa tribe, Naina, Ganesh, Ramtirtha, Shanitirtha, Ranga, Shivatirtha, Satya, and others.

Views and Reviews:

First thing first. The author came up with a fresh and imaginative storyline based on the ages-old “natural way of living” v/s “modern way of living where consuming resources uncontrollably is a part of lifestyle” conflict.

To show you various aspects of the book firsthand, I will quote some segments from the book. This may include some spoilers despite my best try to keep them at the bay. So, please read forward with your consent.

Pranay, the author, seems to be a nature lover himself. It is reflected in detailed description of the jungles, river, desert, the customs of the tribe and other stuff.

The author tried using a layman’s language rather than showing his literary genius (and making it hard read). According to me, it works in favor of the book.

It doesn’t mean that the book hasn’t interesting lines/scenes.

Let me quote a scene from the beginning of the book.

The eagles were flying high above the ground, making their usual sound. As if there was a body lying on the ground.

See, how effectively this segment explores the scene, and shows helplessness of the person caught in tricky situation, and a danger looming over his head.

The book try spreading wisdom through well written lines like:

… We often rush to the last part Apoorav, but forget to live and witness the why of what we have now, …

Very true, right? Often the people live without excessive resources are happy ones. Because, they get a chance to enjoy what they have with almost full potential.

Often we see that people having the habit of buying or getting almost every thing they can think of and afford, eventually forget most of them and they remain unused.

In the majority of cases, most of the tribal people are miles away from mental health issues that people living in urban environment of modern world deals with.

The book, however shows another aspect also. The following passage comes when an NGO group is preparing to visit the tribe in the jungle:

Often with such tribes, there is a higher risk of transmitting the viruses or bacteria to which they don’t have immunity.

When people think beyond their own well-being and put themselves in the shoes of the others, we can surely think of a better world.

The conflict of ideologies amongst various segments of society is explored nicely.

There are two divisions in this world Apoorav, one who chooses nature and another who exploits it.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
we as a human race evolved from animals to so- called humans. But few turned into monsters.’

Through the following lines the book shows importance of a character, his knowledge and its impact on the tribe’s way of living.

‘We need to find his Kundali (A Vedic chart of astrology) first and see who he is if he is bringing any good luck or just a bad omen’, said Shanitirtha.

The book has some interesting wordplays like:

Vishnu looked around and sensed a sense of fear.

And hard-hitting ones like:

‘The communication, we are vulnerable to such communications, we are kind of animals who can deceive others into believing the lies and that makes us unique, …

The cunning way of crooks is mentioned as:

This was the pattern everywhere, impressing the people with hospitality and then exploiting them.

And, the ultimate truth:

The lies always run a sprint, my son, truth propagates slowly.

Most of the times, newbie authors make their protagonist(s) strong but don’t give that much footage to the antagonist(s). The book is a pleasant exception. You will feel frightened by the characters of Vishnu, Ganesh and their accomplishes. They are elaborated in detail. The thriller lovers will enjoy the exploration of growing-up times of the mafia leader’s son.

The story has a suspense element as well. It is well built and some questions remain unanswered even at the completion of the book. It keeps reader waiting for the possible next part (which is already released).

The story follows “parallel threads of event” approach, one timeline belongs to 1980 while the other explores events happening in 2021.

There are some lines which could have been written better. The mentions of phrase like “Vaid Kuti” could have been “Vaid Kutir” or even “Vaid Kutiya”.

The kids kept the bag outside the case, Apoorav opened the chain and…

Here, the “case” could have been written as “cage”.

However, such small things may not disturb the reading experience of a normal reader.

Summary:

Overall, a nicely written thriller that conveys an important message. It has fights and bloodshed, but it never crosses the line of dignity. If you love to explore story with strong characters that have twists and turns, you will enjoy reading this book.

ThinkerViews Rating:

Around 8 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy - The Lost World by Pranay Bhalerao - Paperback - Amazon IN
• Buy - The Lost World by Pranay Bhalerao - Kindle EBook - Amazon IN
• Buy - The Lost World by Pranay Bhalerao - Paperback - Amazon US
• Buy - The Lost World by Pranay Bhalerao - Kindle EBook - Amazon US

Over To You:

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