Love Stories To Be Re-Written And Re-Lived

By: Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee

The novel ends with these lines: “Not all love stories have a happy ending. Some love stories are meant to be re-written and re-lived” and they make the novel insightful and profound. The thought–jerking novel Hide and Seek – the latest offering from talented Mumbai-based author Supriya Parulekar is surely like her earlier five books a coruscating read about a stormy relationship presented from the viewpoint of each character. Life is unplanned role-playing and life seems to be a stage where action-packed thriller-like events occur. Each moment one May go with the tide or against it. Unlike Macbeth’s inability to go back because of the dullness of moving tediously forward or backward it is challenging here to go backward. Is there any retreat possible, a way to repairing or readjusting things, or is it all just finished – all these are a part of our musings after reading the novel in one sitting from first to the last page. It is a tug of war in thinking and deciding the right course of action? This could be the story of anyone’s life.  While Jane Austen wrote about money and marriage theme, Supriya writes about the Marriage and Love theme.

Hide & Seek is creating more waves than ripples. In this novel, Supriya correctly shows that love is not enough to keep two people together. It needs adjustments, compromises, resilience, and a tremendous amount of luck to make the marriage work. When Radhika noticed the flirtatious texts on Abhishek’s cell, she sensed something amiss. With the help of her best friend ‘M’, a one-sided conversation with her semi-comatose mother, Radhika tries to understand where her marriage stood. A casual acquaintance with Omar Rajput makes her realize what she is missing, romance and attention. Radhika’s marriage had begun with a love- story but she had to fight all her life and was not ready to give up. Will Abhishek-Radhika ever be a happy couple? Will Omar influence Radhika’s decisions? Will marriage go downhill? All these questions torment the readers while reading the book.

Here I am not writing exactly a literary critical review but speaking my heart as someone feels after the first rain. Hide & Seek appears to be a beautiful fabulous fictional tapestry woven out of relationship, trustworthiness, and compromise, on a canvas lived by a set of amazing characters. I had an earlier the opportunity to read the works of Supriya Parulekar and I know she writes with a golden pen. An author of eight books including Into the Woods, BFF: Best Friends for Ever, Diabolical, The Gangster’s Muse, Dreamcatcher, One Tequila Two Tequilas and still adding to the list she carves out her creative niche so brilliantly that one-two reviews of her books by critics cannot improve much her reputation as a writer that she already earned for her send over the years from her fictional debut ‘A Soulful of a Lie. It has been a long journey of imagination, the creation of the world which only existed in the far corners of her mind, an urge to tell a story and transform it into a book. She wrote, “Many a time, people around inspire me to write a story, I am more  of a person  who prefer to write fast, racy – pacy thrillers and adventures but with Dreamcatcher’ I experimented  with Romance as a genre and feel it’s very much my forte.”  But in this book Hide and Seek she treads on the path of reality and observes more minutely more critically what happens in love marriage and explores the disillusionment after the illusion something that Keats faced in ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, the realization of reality after the romantic sojourn to the romantic world of the nightingale. Supriya has worked as a Script Editor for TV18 History Channel and associated herself with Xena World and wrote for Yuva magazine for the youth.

Supriya Parulekar whom I knew as a poet for her book of poems Malhar Essence of Life, shifted wonderfully to prose fiction with her extraordinary creative funda. She is Mumbai based writer but she writes with a global consciousness and her experiences of life have a rainbow hue. What is more, she artistically arranges them and in a fictionally orchestrated form presents them to the readers in the books that she wrote so far? Any reader will feel intensely thrilled in this Alice’s wonderland of brilliant books from Supriya Parulekar.

Suhail Mathur the literary agent of Locksley Hall for Hide and Seek’ did his job wonderfully and I bet one cannot leave reading in one sitting because of the magnetic ink of the magic pen of Supriya Parulekar. The story narrates through the married life of Abhishek and Radhika where everything was going on well between them until Radhika discovers those flirtatious texts on Abhishek’s mobile. Their relationship takes a different turn and the pain, unspeakable agony, and challenges faced in between their relationships are thoroughly expressed. Most of the incidents happen also in many individuals’ life, and this makes the book an interesting read. This book rides but never haunts us. It thrills but never goes awry or eerie.  One cannot but like Radhika as in reading Jane Austen, one cannot but love Elizabeth Bennet and the way she tried to carve out a balance in life while also fighting between her relationship, friendship, and family. This was what fascinated me from the first to the last page of the book. The two characters are depicted as what E M Forster called ‘Round Character’ as they are studied from multiple perspectives of life. The readers will be bemused by the little twists they will find in the plot at regular intervals. The overall impression is, is excellent writing, and Hide & Seek is that kind of book which has come to stay for a long time in the world of fiction. The one that makes you feel the reality around too. The readers unknowingly have the vicarious experiences which affect the catharsis of emotions, we will expect her to move on with her creative ecstasy and the woods are lovely and dark. She will go forward for more and more laurels and will love to have miles to go as readers are ready to give her their loving company as their favourite writer when the name is Supriya Parulekar. (The author is an eminent writer and senior academician. He can be reached at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com)