Garnets Under My Gulmohar-Chetna Keer

Book: Garnets Under My Gulmohar
Author: Chetna Keer
Publisher: Readomania

I was provided a Media Copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

What’re the family curse and secret love saga nestling beyond a Purani Dilli kothi’s grand Gulmohar? What’re the mists of a mysterious body in bathtub and bare-all book shrouding a Book Club, huddled in the Himalayas under looming clouds of climate change? Lollita‘s back in a suspense saga. Lollita, the fab-fortyish book influencer, climate warrior, saree-a-holic & Netflix-a-holic. The crumbling kothi catapults into a stage for Lollita’s mission to hunt a mysterious bespoke legacy of her Grande Matriarch. This destination thriller criss-crosses colonial-era Kasauli to the Rajput Ramgarh Fort to the culturescapes of Dilli Haat and Surajkund.  Where will a Turkish tarot reader’s clues lead Lollita? Will the Seventh Bibliophile change the Book Club's face forever? Which ‘masks’ shall slip at the Masquerade?

Garnets Under my Gulmohar is the story of the times gone and times present. Flitting between the past and the present, Chetna sets the tone of the book as her protagonist Lollita gets entangled in the search for a bespoke legacy and simultaneously a seventh member joins the book club who becomes the focus of everyone’s scrutiny for his unique sartorial choices. What I liked about the book was it being quite contemporary with social media influencing, news cycles, brand consciousness etc. find their way into the storytelling and become an integral part of it. Another interesting thing about the book is that it also shows a mirror to today’s generation, their quest for fame on social media. Through the storyline of the Grande Matriarch’s legacy, Chetna shows that you need a good and a unique proposition to make your mark on the world. The plot is simple and easy to comprehend and keeps you turning the pages as you keep pace with the book club moving from the hills to the plains and back. While there are things that make the book a good read, there are a few aspects which bring down the reading experience down a notch. The first and foremost is the flowery language and the excessive use of alliterations which, after a point, add no flavor to the reading experience. Rather than the story, the focus moves on to the complicated words and jargons which derail the flow of the story. While I understand that as a writer, Chetna’s command over it is unparalleled, however, I would prefer not having to look for a word while enjoying the travails of the book club. The masquerade at the end was interestingly written and brings the story to a nice closure.

Coming to the characters, Lollita features prominently as the protagonist and her detailing as an influencer has been established in detail. The character eccentricities have been built it beautifully which propel the story forward. Badi Beeji’s character is another one who stood out for me, specially with the way she was blending the past and the present. I feel that the names of the characters should have been simplified and rather than the complicated spellings and the nicknames to make them relatable as well as memorable.

Overall, a decent read that scores a 4/5 for me.

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