Tejas Rao

The initial and final parts portray starting and conclusion of a beautiful love story, while the middle part focuses on a practical part of life: the part which, at one or two points, some may feel a little bored about the bitter truth of real life. As a whole, the novel focuses on the PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF AN IDEALISTIC LIFE and politics in health sector. The MOST BEAUTIFUL ASPECT OF THIS NOVEL is that a paragraph on a beautifully fictionalized village Aaladahalli(literally, village of banyan tree) is repeated in three milestones of the plot, each of which brought out different feelings in me. I was swimming in the sea of thoughts by taking around 24 hours to complete the reading, by taking breaks at points where either pleasure or pressure was building up. The last three chapters are MOST APPEALING FOR THE ZOOMERS' GENERATION, where a non-central character, Neha, is the one who gives conclusion for the sea of thoughts. SUDHA MURTHY MA'AM, AS ALWAYS, HAS PROVED THAT SHE IS THE BEST CLIMAX WRITER. To summarise without giving a spoiler, the middle part I was referring to is about what Mridula and Anita find out about their respective husbands Dr.Sanjay and Dr.Alex and about what decisions the four people make during turning points of their lives. I was in tears at two-three points, because of joy (during points which a person having no belief in individuality in a marriage might feel sorrowful).Though most of the story(House of Cards) is set in real places, like Bombay, Bangalore, Mysore, Goa, Mangalore, T.Narasipura, England, etc., the fictional Aaladahalli of North Karnataka has left so many readers under admiration.