Arzoo Arshan-Mukul Kumar

Book: Arzoo Arshan
Author: Mukul Kumar
Publisher: Self Published

What is your take on love?

Arzoo Arshan is the story of Arshan, an anti-hero who is a neuroscientist in the making, has radically different ideas about love. Blessed with swank, good looks, and a penchant for ladies, and an aversion to commitment. His aversion is tested when love comes to him in the form of Arzoo, a small-town girl who aspires to be a model, and he rejects it with an unforeseen force.  When he is unable to get over the love in him, he decided to create a potion that will ensure his continuing desire for ‘chicks’, as he dismissively calls them, and the ability to walk away from them without looking back. Arzoo-Arshan is a psycho-romantic thriller, an unusual tale of love, lust, obsession, ego, jealousy deceit , and revenge with a gripping suspense.

The plot of the book is crafted quite superficially, and the story actually did not work for me. The concept of the book is based on the nature of the protagonist who seems to be extremely dismissive of women, and while it actually sets the theme of the book for the second part, it is quite derogatory and seems to derive itself from the patriarchal perspective. The conversation between Arshan and Shourya forms a major part of the book, and personally, it did not seem to fit into the overall idea of the story. However there are things that are good about the book. The language of the book is quite good, and the narration is interesting. The tension between Arzoo and Arshan is well developed and adds a good flavor to the plot. The climax of the book was quite sudden, and made no sense to the story, but it seems to be a fitting end to the tale.

Coming to the character, while the author has described the characters physically, their development over the course of the story is almost negligible. There is a long list of characters, but none of them add much to the story in the overall context. We discuss about Arshan’s aversion to love, and attraction to women, and Arzoo’s reaction, but that is all.

Overall, the story could have been treated well, and it did not work for me. The book scores a 2.88/5 for me.

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