Book Review – Beaten by Bhagath!

Author - S.V. Divvaakar

Publisher – Frog Books

Pages – 193

Price – Rs. 125

Sneak preview from the book –

They went to the same college,

Even stayed in the same room,

One saw his popularity zoom,

The other sank into depths of gloom.

Their books, they had the same grace

They ran together, the same race.

One rose to the sky and became a star;

One crashed and burned, with a lifelong scar…

My View –

We bloggers and writers are a crazy lot – we cherish and adore our writings, almost like mothers adoring their children. Every appreciation gives us a high which spirals our enthusiasm to new heights. Sometimes so high in our dreams, expectations and aspirations, that when we open our eyes, the real world hurts. Welcome to the world of writing!

Beaten by Bhagath was a refreshing change from the boring and predictable stuff floating around these days. Every reader nurtures a desire to write his own story someday. Every writer longs for that one break that changes his fate forever. But is the journey to the top as easy as it seems?

Well, welcome to the world of Mr. BB, an executive in a reputed international consulting firm. A comment by his attractive boss one day introduces him to a talent he had comfortably forgotten – writing. Especially, when the boss tells BB he can write better than Ketan Bhagat, BB’s college friend turned celeb writer, BB’s mind goes googly woosh with dreams of him becoming a famous writer! And so begins BB’s struggle – Skimming through all the reigning bestsellers in the market, then penning down his own story. With his labour of love ready, it seems to BB that battle is half won. Poor soul, few emails later realizes that all is not crisp and clear in the world of sparkling pages decorated with words in ink!

And that’s when the book becomes a real page turner (in BB’s own words!). BB’s struggle at each step – the rejection from Publishers, publicity, readership is a real eye opener for anyone dreaming to see his writings published. A real eye opener to the big world of publishing, where survival is just not about how you write, it’s a lot more about how you promote.

A half fulfilled dream is worse than no dream at all. And BB too falls prey to his passion – to beat his old friend Bhagat, in his maiden attempt. It’s both funny and sad to see the extent to which BB goes, just to give his failing aspirations some life support. His wife though remains supportive throughout and the bubble of her anger bursts only when she figures her hubby has blown up everything to get a failed book living!

BB too realizes his mistake, but only after trying and failing every possible way. Sometimes the extent of damage makes the loss irreparable.

Is he able to get the broken pieces together, is he able to give a fresh life to his dream? Well, then grab your copy now!

The author has maintained a good pace throughout and you can almost imagine each and every incident happening in front of your eyes. Its only towards the last few chapters that you smell a sort of impatience to wind up the book. Plot changing incidents covered in few pages, well that could have been better. But alls well that ends well, and when I flipped the last page over, the book had left me with some learnings about aspirations and our attitude towards them.

Recommended for anybody who writes or aspires to write, for the author has done a great job at taking the readers through the arduous journey a book travels from the author’s mind to the reader’s wow!

About the author 

S.V. Divvaakar, an IIT Delhi alumnous & an international Monitoring and Evaluation specialist also dabbles into music, singing, and blogging. This is his second novel.

The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.