~*When a Lawyer Falls in Love*~

Don't find love, let love find you. That's why it's called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. ~ Unknown ~

I think most of us will agree to some extent on this quote. Love is like playing the piano, first learn to play by the rules, then just forget the rules and play from your heart. For me, Love is an untainted commitment for a person for the whole life with whom I would like to share everything my decisions, my goals, my aims, my every desire, my joy and of course my pain.

But when you fall in love with your closest friend, then you are in danger. Happiness or Sorrow?? Lucky or Unlucky?? These are the only probable result when you fall in love with your closest friend. Once you fall in love with your friend, things can never go back to the way they were. Although one may wish for her friend’s happiness, and be lucky enough for his/her wish to come true, they won't always get it. Exactly same feelings floated through my mind when I was reading "When a Lawyer Falls in Love", a book by Amrita Suresh..

Plot: The plot of the novel was formulated around six friends (Ankur, Sonali, Souvik, Jaishree, Vyas and Pavan) and their journey through the final year of their Law college life. Keeping college life in backdrop, the main plot evolves around two love story, the first one between Ankur and Sonali and second one between Souvik and Jaishree.

Ankur and Sonali were best friend and Ankur was falling for chubby Sonali but somehow she got engaged with one spoiled brat Rohit and left Ankur as a moping covetous aficionado. Souvik Bose was inarticulate and shy guy who is man of written words not of spoken silently loved Jaishree, who falter even while proposing. Vyas, Ankur’s roommate and his best friend is a charming lad whose girlfriend emerges from graveyard and some times from almirah of their hostel but finally left him for her rich cousin from Dubai and Pavan who is always fail to do right thing on right time. This novels talk about their journey not only in academics but also in professional and personal life and how they find their perfect love in the last.

Characters:
Ankur: a cute chubby Arian with diminutive baby face, whose cheeks were pulled by everyone (and yeah, he don’t like it) and the one who is deeply in love with Sonali (Sonali Shah, in a word was his life") but he knows that if he was too shabby in his approach, his lioness was likely to roar. So Ankur is always confused bout his love life and his punch line is "a woman's love should never be trusted...since it has no empirical evidence to support it"

Sonali: the Leo, portrays a lady lawyer with a strong interest in Astrology (you will love her when she talks about "A person’s star always correspond to the bio-rhythmic process of the body, that affects thought". She is a topper who is confused bout her relationship with Ankur (her best friend) and Rohit (who helped her during her Internship) and wanted to be wooed in style.

Vyas: a lanky, loony, moody and inquisitive Aquarian who is confused bout her girlfriend Caroline’s swings between him and her cousin from Dubai

Pavan Nair: whose Ambassador has been the source of public transport for all the friends, is always confused bout which girl to eye when and whose family speaks fluent hindi with malyali twang as pro-blum, bo-eez, curry-er, larn to aarn and kaapi.

Souvik Bose: Who wants to get out of his family tradition and wanted to marry a girl whom he love and finally he fall for Jaishree Subramanium, a Tamil Brahmin for whom marrying out of her society was just impossible. But being a person of actions not word he always fail to speak out his heart (when Souvik was with Jaishree, silence was the only thing that did all the speaking) but the way he expressed his heart to woo the lady love was just awesome. See

In life if one is fortunate one knows
Beauty of both body and mind
And in the little I have seen of the world
That’s the rarest blend one can find
I am just one of your silent admirers
And you’ll meet others along the way
Whose life you’ll touch in the manner
More than words can say

The Author: This book is written by Amrita Suresh, a 23 year-old Hyderabadi writer who is at the moment pursuing her M. Phil from University of Hyderabad (As far as I know) and this is her first novel which has been kept very low profile (I don’t know the reason). The best thing about her writing is austere allegiance with the common everyday slangs and phrase of young graduates. See the example
Ankur questioning Vyas when he was busy searching for a gift from her strange girlfriend in gloom ridden graves "What did she gift you...a space in this grave yard?" or be it describing the starting of a Kick starting of a session with a lengthy formal speech by the Dean, which the collective crowds wanted to 'kick stop'..." or A bulb is easy to fix A male ego isn’t it”

My take: "When a Lawyer falls in Love" is a delicate jovial fiction that brilliantly untangles the ins and outs that makes a base of human contemplation and deed. Though there are around four stories going on together but nowhere they are unrelated. While reading this one, one can easily associate the characters with someone you have already met during your college days and will rejuvenate the memory of every little happening that make you smile. Before changing the ritual bound Indian culture one needs to change his/her feeling, and have to trust his/her relationships and author fabulously conveyed this message. A nice read for a lazy afternoon………
To say good bye, to the college I’ve knownAs the time gradually nears
I am left with nothing but memories ,Of my life’s finest years