Book Review: Love, Peace and Happiness: What more can you want?

Love, Peace and Happiness: What more can you want? by Rituraj Verma
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book has been a welcome surprise. I received this book from the author Rituraj for a review and hence got a chance to read it. The cover is nice and bright, the title of the book seemed very flat to me and so i was a little apprehensive of what would come my way. The book apart from the cover has a very text book quality of printing. Also the author's introduction seems too contrived and typical - IIT, MBA types who dabble into writing but The Forward by Smriti Verma - Author's wife i think perfectly sets the tone of the book and gets you right into it.

This book is a collection of 9 short stories touching various personality types, relationships but the sense i got over all was that it dealt with today's Urban population, the trials and tribulations they go through, the race and chase for success and material achievement but somewhere lost in the madness and continuously trying to understand where they stand as people in life, in relationships. The Intolerance, the impatience and the constant search. While the urban population always seems to be in the right place trying to achieve the right things but do they really? That's where the Love, Peace and Happiness struggle comes out of.

The author mentions that there will be stories which might sound like your own or someone else's you know and i would agree to him to some extent as there are moments, situations that most of us would definitely relate to at some level. The language is simple and everyday and Rituraj has weaved in a lot of technology in his stories like facebook, smartphones, etc which give the characters a very today feel.

My favourite story has to be A HIGH, LIKE HEAVEN. It's the first story in the book and it's about a relatively newly married couple, a journey they undertake that unravels their true selves to each other, and though for some it might be a sad ending but to me was a perfect one.Apart from that my other favourites were THE PRACTITIONER OF AUSTERITY, THE INTIMACY OF SPACE and THE VICTIM OF MANY LOVES. The best part of this book is that none of the characters are perfect and that makes the stories and its characters so every day and real.

Also an interesting first time with this book would have to be the alternate endings bit, one that pleases everyone. For me, i liked the endings of all the stories as is and didn't really like any of the alternate endings because most of them seemed a bit forced, just to come up with optional endings. But for those who didn't like the endings The author also gives you an option of suggesting an alternate ending to the stories on his website (http://www.riturajverma.com/) and if the ending is liked then it will be printed in the next print run with acknowledgements. It's an interesting way to hook people on.

This book is a good first attempt and barring few issues about the writing which at times does really seem forced and contrived, i do feel it's one of the better work compared to a lot of trash that gets published these days. This would definitely be on my recommendation list.