Book:
Love in the Time of Quarantine
Overall, this one scores a 3.25/5 for me.
Author:
Siddharth Gigoo
Publisher:
Amazon Kindle
While the
world battles a pandemic and has gone into a virtual shutdown, what happens to
the common people?
Love
in the Time of Quarantine by Siddharth Gigoo is told from multiple points of view and spans 30
days and nights in the lives of two lovers and a homeless family during a
nation’s lockdown and quarantine.
The book
opens on 22nd March 2020 when the lockdown was announced, and we plunge
into the world of 2 families, whose stories are told parallelly. The lovers
talk in couplets, and we see just one line describing the day, and another the
night. As the days pass, their relationship goes through different phases, and
we see them fight, making up, sharing memories, discovering each other and just
being in love. On the other hand, we see a homeless family, from a child’s
perspective as he looks at everything around him in awe. The people clapping in
the balconies, the exodus pf people, the running after the buss, presumably to
a safer place, and pain of leaving their dog behind. The family describes a prickly
rain, possibly being a sanitizing spray and the conditions of the places where
they are quarantined, where the food is irregular, boxes are made and yet we
see a family staying together with love.
Siddharth
has taken love as the central character and shown how love changes from one end
of the society to the other. While the romantic couple was busy trying to enjoy
life, for the family it was a matter of survival. While the couple made merry,
the family was thinking of their next meal. I loved the way the story was told
and the manner in which the social difference was brought out. The beginning of
the book was a bit shaky, but it balances fairly early. The writing is interesting,
but the substance in the story of the couple could have been a bit more.
Overall, this one scores a 3.25/5 for me.
P.S. The
proceeds from this book will be spent on the welfare of strays in Delhi.
Get your copy here.
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