Author: Roopa Menon

Rating: 3/5

Roopa Menon grew up in Kerala and migrated to Amchi, Mumbai at the age of ten. Her love for reading was kindled by her grandfather’s library where she passed countless hours poring over a variety of musty smelling, dog-eared books. She believes in learning from the best; the likes of Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, and J. K. Rowling have inspired her to write, and work hard at the craft. A published writer, Roopa’s short stories and poems can be found in Femina, Asian Age, Skyline publications, sulekha.com and sawf.com.

With a masters’ degree in English literature and a diploma in journalism, she has worked as a reporter and sub-editor with newspapers such as The Times of India and Mid-day Metro, followed by a stint as a copy-editor in a UK-based publishing house, Routledge India.

When she is not wrestling with the nitty-gritties of life, this self-confessed Sylvia Plath addict also loves watching movies, going for long walks and dabbling in tarot card reading. Currently she lives in Dubai with her husband working as a copywriter. You can contact her at roopa.raveendran@hotmail.com

Indireadswas started with the aim to revolutionizing the popular fiction genre in South Asia. With edgy, contemporary and compelling fiction by new writers and its digital-only publishing model, Indireads is breaking new ground in terms of the reading experience and giving voice to new writing talent.

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If only she could forget D. G. Beckett!

Reading novels, or in this case novellas, is a great way to begin Mondays. Of-course it’s not possible to do it every day. But sometimes things do work out in support of that. Like suddenly all applications remain inaccessible for over a week and continue to be so when you walk into office the week after that. Well alright not so suddenly. Though odds in favor of this happening are not always high but still these things do happen sometimes.

As you might have guessed by now it did happen to me (and I’m thankful for it because who doesn’t want a break!). And ‘Pyar Aur Poetry’ is what I finished reading thanks to this extended lucky coincidence this Monday morning.

A west meets east story covering the realms of literature and romance. That’s ‘Pyar Aur Poetry’ for you. Arundhati and Nikhil, the protagonists of this tale, are so different yet so similar to each other with literature being their first love. But while Arundhati is only captivated by western writers Nikhil appreciates the Indian writers as well. They meet in college and get to know each other better when they are forced to work together for their institution’s Founder’s Day program. Nikhil who is already head over heels in love with Arundhati takes this opportunity to win over her. And his efforts seem to work. But the only thing or rather person that comes in their way is D. G. Beckett. Who is he and why is her a concern to both? Well, that my friend you will find in the book.

The author spoke to me through Arundhati’s love of English literature. I don’t know if that’s how she feels bur for some reason I felt the author was baring her heart out through those lines about authors and their works. So much depth and knowledge on the subject the story revolves around definitely is a plus.

The plot too had a nice real touch to it. And I liked the fact that Arundhati and Nikhil’s saga is not just another college love story. Yes, there were some clichés but then who doesn’t love clichés. I think every love story should have some.

There’s one thing though. Somehow I felt that there were layers to this tale which were left unexplored. But as always I think the author knows best about his or her story. Here too I think Roopa has told the story she intended to and I for one had a nice time reading it. I always wanted to know what would happen next. And thus ‘Pyar Aur Poetry’ is definitely worth a read.

And if you decide to pick it up then click here.