Promotional Book Review of ‘Clandestine Waters’ by Sumit Vanjani (3rd Review)


** Thanks to our reviewer Ms. Anwesha Ghosh for doing a promotional review of the book on behalf of Literoma. **

Thank you, Literoma Publishing Services and the author, for providing with the review copy. A debut novel by the author, I had a rather mixed review while reading the book. The title of the book is good and goes with the theme. It’s a short novel of only 105 pages so you can have a quick read of the book.

The plot reflects realism and there is a vivid description of the city of Kolkata and the changes it has embraced with modern urbanization. The unconventional love story of Atul and Neha offers a fresh change to the readers. The art of characterization is good. The characters are quite real and exist in the day to day world. The character of Neha, her bold and outright personality brings a freshness in the concept of the typical notion of Indian women (which we get to see in the character of Simran) as a rather plain-Jane. That she is not put in a negative shade is a good relief and also breaks the stereotypes. We see the strength of her character as she asks Atul to lead a normal life if she dies. The broken marriage of Barnali stands in sharp contrast to the platonic love of Atul and Neha and shows the juxtaposition between romance before and after marriage. Also, we see the strength in the character of Simran whom we believed to be a stereotype when Atul confesses about his clandestine affair with Neha to her. She acknowledges his honesty and the fact that she will not come to know the truth from some third person post their marriage shows that she too has a mind of her own even if she is not ready to drop the suffix ‘ji’ while addressing her would be husband and ready to follow him like a shadow all her life.

There is a space for improvement in the narrative technique and the language of the novel. There are also few editing errors which, I feel, could have been easily avoided. The climax of the novel is good and the author keeps the pace till the end. Actually, the last few chapters draw the interest to the story. 

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