That Kiss in the Rain (Book Review)

That Kiss in the Rain (Book Review) 

‘That Kiss in the Rain’ is a novel published in 2009 by Novoneel Charaborty. The story revolves around three central characters, namely, Pallavi, Swadha and Haasil. As these three search for what love is for them in their life their worlds collide bringing about a series of unexpected events that may or may not lead to the culmination of their search.

Pallavi Vimani was Sarita Nehra at birth. She was born into a poor family who struggled to feed their children. The Vimani family was quite rich but they lacked one thing – the gift of a child in their house. Sarita was handed over to the Vimani family in exchange of two lakh rupees. Thus, Sarita Nehra became Pallavi Vimani. Pallavi was spoilt and her semi-parents would gift her with the best of clothes and toys. It was as if she had the world at her feet. Pallavi had grown to be a very talented young girl with a congenital intelligence.

But, Pallavi experienced a change only when she fell in love for the first time. It was at Shweta’s, her best friend, birthday party that she had first met the love of her life. Dino was Shweta’s new neighbour whose parents were familiar with hers. Pallavi did her best to get Dino’s attention whenever she had the opportunity but was soon heartbroken when she got the news that Dino was already committed to someone else. However, this event helped her in her adolescence years as she would always be there for her friends to help them out in their various relationship problems. She grew to be a feminist but of the wrong type, that is, the ones who think men are only objects of pleasure. Her various sexual encounters with the male gender led her to almost getting into the blue film industry but her never-back-down attitude pushed her to move beyond this and join the airline industry. However, her attitude towards the opposite gender did not change that was until she met Haasil.

Swadha, on the other hand, was born into the Kashyap family who were into business. The Kashyaps were expecting twins. They had a generational history of male offspring. But to their surprise at the time of delivery, one child was born dead while the other was born a female. Swadha never experienced her father’s love no matter what she did to please her father. This was what engulfed her as she began to harbour the desire to become a boy. But, that was not to happen. Her innocence had almost led her to being sexually abused by her uncle but she was saved by the maid.

During her adolescence years, she tried her best to find love. She would do so usually through online chatting but would reject proposals in which she would be made only an object of pleasure. Her first experience of a person who would respect her was bad, as the boy turned out to be gay. The second one she loved was ready to get married to a girl that his mother chose for him. With these two failed experiences in love, Swadha had almost given up the hope of falling in love again, but that changed when she met Haasil.

Haasil was a businessman. Along with his childhood friend Nitin, they founded the company NH Consultants. Haasil had also married his childhood sweetheart Palki and the two felt like a couple that could never be separated. However, fate had other plans when the two met with an accident. Palki was presumed dead since her body could not be retrieved from the scene. However, Haasil was rescued but he was in critical condition. Due to the accident, Haasil had lost his memory so much so that he could not even recognise Nitin. But as he slowly recovered he tried discovering the various parts of his life with Nitin’s help as the two always shared secrets with each other. As he begins to gain back some of his memory, he begins to enquire about Palki who he recognises in his wedding photograph. His concern for Palki sets him on a collision course with Swadha and Pallavi where new surprises await.

The story overall is quite entertaining. Novoneel excellently brings out the issue of how one’s past can affect one’s future and present also. However, as the story builds up quite nicely at first, it begins to drag and get quite predictable towards the end. However, the epilogue really does turn things around. This book is definitely meant for a mature audience as it contains a lot of sexual references, which personally I thought was a waste of paper and ink. Moreover, there were quite some typos and formatting errors that could put the reader into confusion. I personally had to re-read that sentence to understand what it meant because it felt like I had lost the flow in the middle. I also had to make sense of some sentences because the typos did change the meaning of the sentence in such a way that it had no connection with the preceding sentence. Nevertheless, the book is quite a good attempt at writing love stories though the author has put way too much effort to impress the readers.