A Home for Urvashi by Sanchali Bhattacharya

A home for Urvashi by Sanchali Bhattacharaya is a novel based on the concept of afterlife. What is life after death? It is a mystery and anything related to it intrigues human mind. It is around this concept with her imaginations, the author has woven an interesting and convincing tale that my heart wanted to accept it as true.

Storyline

The story is about a powerless spirit Dulari who is at a crossroad. She is in dilemma and have to choose between her dream of rebirth or to save her sister Ujjwala living on Earth from the approaching danger.

Author’s impeccable imagination 

The author Sanchali’s take on after life is marvelous. Her spirit world was fascinating to read. After death, souls could choose between rebirth or becoming a trained powerful spirit who could vest their influence on the mortal world. Do’s and don’t of the spirit world. Her explanation was simple and logical, easy to understand.

The book was written from the spirit Dulari’s point of view. In that way author covered both spirit world and mortal world happenings. While description of spirit world was interesting and something new to read. It was the mortal world which was boring.

Overloaded with Description

Dulari glided me to my hometown city Calcutta, hill station Darjeeling and later Bombay. The description of the city Calcutta was accurate, but tedious to read the minutest details. It severely hampered the pace of the novel and after a while I prefer to skip the descriptive part.

Thriller angle

The book suddenly takes a crime thriller turn. Though it was sudden and I was not expecting it but I think that part was not adeptly written. Readers knew the culprit, so there was no suspense and of course thrill part was missing. But again author’s imagination comes to her rescue. The way Dulari influences the culprit to confess was intriguing and fun to read.

Dulari’s Character

What I loved was the way the author has developed Dulari’s character. She has all the human traits and sometimes want to adopt crooked methods to achieve her objective but quickly corrects her mistakes. Her dilemma was profound, but she chooses the selfless path.

Other characters were also well chalked out.

Social Issues

The Author has also raised social issues of abandoning girl child after birth and how parents themselves push their daughters in flesh trade. These were sensitive issues and author managed it well. Actually, these issues gelled well with the main story. But the unusual marriage of Ujjwala was difficult to digest or accept.

The Verdict

Overall the story line was fresh and intriguing. The novel could have enhanced the reading experience, had the descriptions were trimmed down. Otherwise it was a decent read.