Virgin Gingelly by V. Sanjay Kumar

The book caught my attention right from the cover and being a hardbound one , it certainly had more charm.

Frankly , i had to re read the first chapter. It was damn good narration and that too from such a  different view point that i laughed at the end of it. So i re read it and thats how I started on the journey of the character Kumar, who is an aspiring writer. More than that , he is a collector of tales and a thinker. A very silent observer. And it is these observations and mesh of his imaginations that is the book in your hand. The people , the tales , the coversations .. nothing is any less than a trippy night , high on life perhaps.

The book shows life in its various colors and shapes. And lot of feelings too. Wrapped in poetic layers and vague references to other people who are a part of each other's stories, this book weaves a plot of a middle class society and its unique residents. The people sometime bore you with their routine. There were pages i felt life came to a stand still. But you can not skip the pages. No way at all. You should not. Sanjay kumar may or may not have based this character on himself but i sure forgot that Kumar was just a character in the book. He was alive and narrating this wonderful story to me as he drank and smoked perhaps !

I just know that this book was an adventure. It needs to be read again. It takes you into a world that you want to just know more and more and yet the curiosity both enyertains and frustrates.

The end is a spiral vortex of all people and events. Something i enjoyed and was too amused with it.

On a lighter note , it felt like meeting a new person and getting to know him. A person like my husband who has a world of his own and one who can entertain with tales about people and things you never notice otherwise.

Virgin Gingelly is not a book or novel. Bit a collection of stories that have a common root and same fertile ground to grow into mango trees. Aam log , khaas kahaniyaan.

All in all , Sanjay has impressed me enough to go buy his first book and read that too. But after i completely understand this one.

Rating : 5/5