Sayantani Maity

As the title suggests the book is a love story with an insight into Anushka, the protagonists' dairy. The book revolves around her and Ayush, whom she meets at her office. But life had surprises in store for her. They meet up again after 4 years but now they are different people. Ayush is a now divorcee and their love is put under societal barriers. The story is sweet. The language is simple and the book is quite a short read. I like the journal format that has been used. The pace of the story has been rushed which wasn't really needed. The storyline could have been more interesting and the transition between the timelines could have been better. Even though I like cute love stories sometimes this was a bit too cliched for me.

Reading the title my mind said the book must be based on the Pokhran nuclear bomb test. Well though I wasn't exactly wrong but I was in for a surprise(and a great one too). Just if you are unaware, Pokhran is a village in india where successful nuclear bomb test named 'Smiling Buddha' was done in 1974. The book does have the Pokhran nuclear test as its backdrop but the real story is based on the possibility of nuclear fallout and it's side effects on people and generations to come. The story potrays Chaitanya a person with physical disabilities, an aftermath of the radiations of the Smiling Buddha Nuclear Test. After striving hard he finally gets into MIT, and a step closer to his desire of exposing the truth about the damage caused by the nuclear test, but as we all know life is not 'happily ever after', Chaitanya's life takes some disastrous turn and that changes everything... The book is well researched and has an unique and interesting storyline. I loved how the author put forward Chaitanya's character. It was also great to see how the author targeted quite a few sensitive topics such as discrimination, racism, religion, democracy and communism system.