Vultures of Paradise-Atulya Misra

Book: Vultures of Paradise
Author: Atulya Misra
Publisher: Rupa Publications

Do you think that waste generation is an issue worth pondering?

Vultures of Paradise by Atulya Misra is a story of greed, love and sacrifice narrated in the backdrop of a crippling human tragedy. The story follows the life of Neha, who, at first, is driven by blind ambition. The heights she achieves in business dissipate once she starts spiraling in the opposite direction. Just when she appears to be an abysmal failure in the eyes of everyone, Neha creates a corporation to counter the biggest threat to the planet—the human propensity to consume endlessly and create more and more waste. Her enterprise becomes so large and successful that it becomes a danger to the very people who created it. Humanity has been a parasite for long enough on this planet. It’s time we become vultures and clean up our habitat.

The plot of the book has an interesting premise, and the concept of the story is well thought of. The author has taken up an issue of importance and uses the story to highlight the issue of waste generation and waste management in the world. The storytelling is nice, however there are some elements of the story that seemed redundant. The story moves at an erratic pace because of the details, and the initial part of the story was quite long that takes time to set the plot. There were instances where the author digressed into a long knowledge sharing session which seemed irrelevant to the story at hand. The last part of the story draws inspiration from the epics but goes to lengths that seem improbable and impractical. While the story has a good intent, the execution could have been a bit better.

The characters are well sketched, and they propel the story forward. The author has taken his time to set the characters and make sure the backstory holds till the end. The story of a self-made tycoon is nicely sketched, and it sets a nice tone for the story. The character of Chaudhary baba is interesting, and I would have loved to see more of him.

Overall, a good book that I would recommend for its message. The book scores a 3.94/5 for me.

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