Brinda By Deepthi Ayyagari | Book Review

I consider myself lucky to be a part of Team ThinkerViews. Being a professional reviewer associated with a team of genuine and unbiased reviewers has its own perks. One of them is getting a chance to know about the comparatively lesser known talents and getting a chance to explore their amazing works. It was around Diwali 2019, when I got a chance to know about author Deepthi Ayyagari. “Love On The Everest” was the first book by Deepthi I got a chance to read. And, I found the book a simple love story blend with the sport of mountaineering. You can find my views on the book at the link below:

• Love on the Everest by Deepthi Ayyagari | Book Review

It also gave me a chance to interact with Deepthi when an author interview is worked out. I found her a simple, humble, down-to-earth person. Eventually, I got curious about more of her works. Fortunately, I also got a chance to read Brinda: The Extraordinary Story of An Indian Girl (Femme Fatale) which is a dark thriller. It explores the dark side of society, but, the most important aspect of the same is the way it ends. It is a story of inspiration and positivity.

The world is binary and almost everything has its counterpart. If there is light, there is darkness; if there is a day, there is a night too. If there is matter, there is anti-matter too. The list is endless. And, that is the beauty. It keeps things in balance.

So, yes, the society is not perfect. But, it has positive elements too. More often than not, you will find people who are so generous and selfless that they are ready to help and support others, even at the cost of their personal losses. And, yes, you must have to have strong will-power and courage to overcome the situation when things are not moving as desired. “Brinda: The Extraordinary Story of An Indian Girl (Femme Fatale)” conveys this message quite effectively.

Let us take a look at the book cover.

Book Cover:

The book cover is expected to reflect the book title and the story in the best possible way. Of course, it should be attractive too. Because we know the fact that what attracts is what sells.

“Brinda” and “Femme Fatale” segments of the title reveals that it is a story of a female protagonist. The girl is from the rural area of Rajasthan. So seeing a girl in quite a traditional lookup with dark cloths is expected. Also, when you get to read the book, you will come to know that “the eyes” of the female protagonists are praised at many places. So, I consider choosing a facial snapshot is a wise decision the cover designer has made.

The cover page doesn’t use many cheerful colors to look it attractive, nor it has the shades of black to give a feeling of dark times.

Overall, a decent and moderately good cover page which could have been more attractive.

Book Plot:

In a distant village (or better we call it a helmet) of Rajasthan, there lives a family. Brinda being the youngest member of the family, expected to be living in a lovely and cozy environment. But, the truth was far from it. It says that the reality hits harder than anything. And, the family living in a very humble economic situation require the family members to work hard. If that is not enough it was a typical orthodox family. Even more saddening part is Brinda’s mother is expired and she has only her father and granny to call a family. The girl child was not warmly welcomed in the family due to various reasons, mindset of the family members being the primary factor.

So, the childhood of Brinda was nothing to be envied in any way.

One day her life was changed when one of the traders, the regular buyer of the weaving work of Brinda’s granny saw Brinda. He approached granny for Brinda to be sent to a local MLA’s place as a maid. She needs to stay there in the bungalow of the MLA and will be able to come and see her family once in a year. The family member can come and collect the monthly salary of the girl once a month. Brinda’s granny and father considered it the only possible solution considering their own financial situation. And, Brinda has no say in it!

She was hopeful for a better future.

Jasvant Daya, the MLA was looking forward to progress in the field of politics and he has all the qualities(!) required to move ahead in that direction. Moral, ethics, genuineness, and other similar words have no place in his dictionary. Not only his toes but his head too was buried in the work considered as illegal, unethical, and what-not.

Virender aka Viru, Jasvant’s son is good for nothing. The power and money spoilt him to the point of no return. When he saw Brinda, he wanted to have her!

Payal, a young maid living in the same house is Brinda’s senior and she loved Brinda like her younger sister.

Granny used to come and collect Brinda’s salary but never attempted to meet Brinda! And, once when they met, there was no cordial conversation between them! But, anyway, her father and grandmother are the only family Brinda has.

Will Brinda be able to come out of the prison (Daya’s house)? Will she be captured again, and face the even brutal consequences which other people with similar actions met with? Will she have a normal life? And more importantly, will Daya, Viru and other wrongdoers will ever pay for the harm they did to many? All these questions are better getting answered by reading the book. On the course of the story, you will meet Brinda, Viru, Minister (Jasvant Daya), Payal, Abhi, Masterji, Kamalaben, Kanhaiyah, Mira, Lisa and others.

Views And Reviews:

As said earlier, the book falls in the dark thriller genre and is intended for mature readers only.

Deepthi impressed me with this book, as I know her through her book “Love Story On the Everest”. This book falls in a totally different genre and the characters of this book are very much different than the other. Of course, “Brinda” was written before “Love Story On The Everest”. But, writing two books falling in the almost opposite genre and so much convincing manner shows the versatility of the author.

Another thing you will notice in the book is the research work done by the author. The life in the villages of Rajashthan, especially the helmets near the dunes and dessert is explored very convincingly. Emotions remain the same around the entire world, of course, but, the ways of living, circumstances and surroundings keep changing. And, exploring those attributes convincingly is a challenge. See how beautifully the following lines not only explores the surroundings but also utters a deep philosophy.

The desert winds blew away their footprints, and the grains of sand continued their journey. The facade seemed as if nobody ever come to that place before. Strange how temporary our existence is, in the sands of time!

The author also has explored the high-fi lifestyle, the trauma the drug-abusers go through, the way powerful people behave, and many other segments convincingly. Some parts of the book will remind you of some of the exotic areas and lavish lifestyles too.

The book has some fantastic conversations regarding women-empowerment (without mentioning those two words) which are ideal, realistic and inspirational. While so many pseudo-feminists misjudge uncontrolled lifestyle, skimpy short cloths and adulteries as women-empowerment; this book does it quite properly. The way the character of Brinda is explored through her entire journey; is a perfect example of an empowered woman. So does the character of Payal. Watch out the character of Mira and you will get a surprise. Masterji, Abhi and Kamalaben are among those positive characters who stand for the rightful stuff in their own way. They don’t wear superhero costumes, but they support the female protagonist in their own capacity.

The strongest part of the story is while the story has some genuine characters from both the genders, the female characters are no way dependent on their counterparts. The book itself says at a place:

A man is only as strong as his woman can be, because she is his other half, and partakes in his project of life.

So yes, one can be liberated and empowered even by respecting the social tapestry and relations. That is what the majority of middle-class people do in real life.

The author is good at coming up with fantastic one-liners. Here is one which is quite superlative.

A woman on a mission can become as venomous as a cobra, if not more.

Here is another one:

God is famed to be crazy.

The author is good at exploring the persona of a character. Here is an example:

Some things just get tagged with power, position, and political life automatically and are difficult to shrug off, although perhaps they may not be impossible to do away with. It is the spoilt ones that fare better in this wicked world, and the best way to learn the ways of the world is to have some liberty with one’s value system.

Her thoughts about life are explored in an interesting manner at various places in the book. Each of the below-mentioned lines adds to the positive impact of the situation being explored in the respective scene. You will also find it interesting that we interpret things differently in different situations.

The good thing with life, sometimes, is that we get to do much better with ourselves if fear was to become our companion for a while.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Life is all about rewards and retributions – in his line of business, particularly.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Life is all about making adjustments and giving space. A marriage is more so about it.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Sometimes, the ironic thing about life is that it is wildness alone that might do to tame the wild.

There are some real-life lessons the book explores:

Your marital bliss or lack of it, depends upon how your relationship has taken off in its earlier stages.

You will definitely agree withe author’s thoughts when she says:

Human suffering has a miraculous way of erasing all boundaries and differences. People no longer look for caste, creed, nationality and colour when they undergo hardships together. Then, humanity binds them together.

The book explores some tragic situations in effective ways:

How ironic it is that people may have to sell the very skin they wish to save.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The problem with even the most beautiful dawn of a day is that it throws the light back onto people’s problems. The trials and tribulations that a restful night had seemed successful in putting away, came back with full fervour.

Many aspects of the system and society are explored in the book and I am trying to avoid almost all the spoilers, so I cannot talk much about them. But, I cannot restrain myself from mentioning the interesting and realistic stuff about the placement agencies and how they affect the lives of hopeful candidates from the over-populated world. Of course, it is not generalised and doesn’t try to say that all of the placement agencies are among them. Some of them are definitely genuine and do what they claim. It is a very important issue but is found rarely talked about in a book.

.. there were hundreds of placement companies making their bread out of the crores if innocent job seekers. many of these agencies were crooks, who just knocked off thousands and lakhs of rupees promising candidates of good placements – including ones in foreign lands and in the government sectors. …

I also like the exploration of a beautiful and pure love story. Again it is rare to find reference of love-letters in this era where we are hyperconnected with each other. It feels nostalgic reading about them.

The glamour of storing precious letters in gilded tin boxes is simply unbeatable.

There are some lines in the book which could have been written in a better manner. They are very few in numbers. Here is an example:

She loved dancing with all her heart, but all the same, Brinda wanted to teach in the local school when she grew up.

If I had to pick only a single block of text from the book, I will settle for the following:

Terror is when somebody attacks your dignity and your right to life. Terror is when you bow down to the perpetrators, and let them have their way. Terror is when you give away your freedom to live a life of fear, slavery and helplessness…

The book reminded me of Hindi Film – Kaanchi.

The book starts in dark times, it explores some blissful moments in the middle and then it is a mixture of both of them. Definitely not for light reading. It is a thought-provoking book. It is only for those who can read with an open mind and don’t want to run away from the facts found in our surroundings. Just closing an eye towards something wrong doesn’t stop it. Someone needs to stand against it and often, someone needs to offer his/her sacrifices. And then also, remember:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते माफलेषुकदाचन ।
माकर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोस्त्वकर्मणि ।।

Summary:

A dark thriller that ends on a positive note. Not for light reading. The shades of darkness and hopeful rays of light are weaved quite nicely in the book. If you can read thrillers with an open mind, you will enjoy this book. Strictly for mature readers only.

Around 7.5 to 8 stars out of 10.

Quick Purchase Links:

• Buy Book From Amazon India – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon India – Paperback
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Kindle EBook
• Buy Book From Amazon US – Paperback

Over To You:

If you already have read the book do share your remarks and thoughts via comments below. Does this review help you in making your decision to buy or read the book? Do not forget to share this article with your friends over various social networks via Twitter, Facebook and others. And yes, you may like to subscribe to our RSS feeds and follow us on various Social networks to get latest updates for the site to land right in your mail box.