Blame it on Destiny by Soorina Desai

A disturbed counselor who is caught in a violent love triangle, a sculptress looking for an invisible God, a medium for spirits who wants to be loved, a real estate dealer who strives to be a good son and a writer penning an interesting plot are five strangers who never come face to face but influence one another's lives in a manner which alters their circumstances.The protagonist finds herself being questioned about the unpredictability of life. It compels her to explore the possibility of a human link between life and the events that shape it. Is it an intricately woven web of human actions that determine ones future or is it easier to simply blame it on destiny?

My review : Sharmila decides to write a novel , about different people living in her old grandfther’s home. These people are based on random characters she has heard about or knew of from the past. Based on her assumptions about how these people would have fared , 10 years later , forms the basis if her book. Her belief is that the character of a person , and not the circumstances decide how our life turns out to be ultimately.  Engaged to a successful author , Sharmila writes about his ex girlfriend; a friend of her friend who is a medium for the spirits from other worlds ; of a theater couple she recalled since she had a crush on the guy and a rogue character who dated one of her cousin’s friend and supposedly stabbed a guy.  According to her the rogue guy would end up in jail , the theater couple would be happily married , the ex girlfriend is probably the delusional rebel of the society and psychic would never have a normal life . what follows is an account of each of these lives as it happened and as they cross each other’s paths sometimes by name , sometimes in real and how they all ultimately alter Sharmila’s life with Abhishek.

Blame it on destiny , aptly describes Destiny as the Chasm between what we expect and what the reality turns out to be. The beauty of the book is that the relations and relationships between the characters are so beautifully layered that when ever I made one connection between these lives , it kind of made me more eager to read further. The story just pulls you in and doesn’t let you go unless you have closed the book. Perhaps not even then. Soorina has created a fabulous casts and set up a brilliant game of life moving these people like a game of chess ! Isn’t it what Destiny does ? There is love , loss , tragedy , irony , mistakes , death and above all , the human nature to associate with one of these even as strangers. 

I loved this book and now I am going to mark Soorina’s previous book in my to-be-read pile !

My rating : 5/5

What a lovely start to 2015 J