Review: Key to My Soul

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Key to My Soul Key to My Soul by Probal Mazumdar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book cover tells that Probal Majumdar is “The national first prize poetry winner” of Year 2014. Key to my Soul is essentially a love story. Sample this poem from the book:

“Something has grown wings at last
And was flapping within my rib cage.
I tried to hold on to it fast
But it found its way to this page”.

Sidharth and Hazel study in school together. They are opposites and opposites attract. Sidharth a loner and introvert. Hazel is star of the school. As happens in love stories they come close. Then some tragedy sends them apart never to meet again? Or will they meet?

The story starts in the steel town of Jamshedpur. The town life revolved around the plant. Sidharth is a poet and painter. He has a collection of Indian poets. He was known as a prodigious painter in school. Hazel is an athlete. She won trophies as well as hearts.

The book recollects the famous events from Indian and world history as the story progresses. This helps us to locate the events of story in real time. This is a good technique to ground the story firmly in the time period I noticed the same technique in the Web Series “Sacred Games” where Ganesh Gaitonde character recounts his life with Indian history events.

The story is slow but engaging. The prose is beautiful. It is a good book for lovers of romance. 3/ 5 stars.








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