The Multitudes of Ripples (Valayavividha) by Vaachakmitra is a first person narative autobiographical novel that talks about the struggles and situations faced by the author himself. Here author portrays himself as a character. I got this book from CinnamonTeal Publishing House in return of an honest review. Here I shall analayse it in detail :

Cover- The cover of the book is colorful and has a beautiful mosaic of a man. It intrigues the reader to open the page.

Title- The title of the book makes the reader eager to open the pages of the book. (Multitude in itself is a plural but the author has used ‘S’ which sounds bit absurd but I feel the author has his own logic behind this as well.)

Blurb- The novel is a first person narrative of an entrepreneur who struggles to make sense of his life. He reconstructs his memory while recuperating from a nervous breakdown. The distortion in his narrative is not only the manifestation of psychopathology of his mind but also an exploration of human values. The novel demonstrates how optimism incorporates meaningful semantics even in the face of psychopathology. The dualism of hope and pathos creates a touch of absurd, almost reminiscent of Kafka and Camus.

Autobiographical Novel- I would iterate that this novel is purely autobiographical as we come to know a lot about the author in this novel. The author has narrated his entire journey starting from his childhood to adulthood, from his love life to be left alone, from his mother’s death to his father’s death and the struggle of saving his mother and father. The realistic incidents are added to it and makes us feel that we are living th life of an author.

Plot- The plot of the novel is strong enough to grab our attention. It mainly focus on the life of an entrepreneur who goes through all the ups and downs of life. It has no further clitches and all the incidents and episodes surrounds the author.

Theme- There are many themes in this novel. The main theme is parental love. Here we notice the protagonist loves his mother alot and is not ready to accept her illness so he indulges himself to naturopathy. He discover things and when he finds the cure he loses his mother. The other segment is of his father’s bond with him and his death. This really moves him.

The next theme is of love. These love sequences are not that strong that we should focus on but the love affair with Padma actually changes his life. It takes him a lot of time to come out of her love. Maybe he never came out.

The other theme is philosophical and psychological. We notice the author talking to himself and thinking about the things. Sometimes readers are confused while at times he becomes too philosphical to be understood.

Characterisation- The characters are well crafted. The main protagonist’s attitude towards the other characters is fantastic. The way the author conveys his thought through his characters is remarkable. He has given life to these characters. The characters of mother, father, brother, Padma, Dhoban and many help in the progress of the novel.

Style- This novel is purely written in first person narrative and even the author asks the readers questions which shows even the readers are included in it. I really loved the anecdotes being used. Some sentences just touched my heart. Every paragraph and line had some or the other reference which shows that the author is a scholar. There were some editing errors though and made the writing bit obscure. Else everything is perfect.

My favourites are :

“Catharsis is the end result but the Catharsis is not total, as deep within ones consciousness, one knows that after all, that is not total.”

“Literature is the collective proxy for sadism and masochism.”

More details –

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: CinnamonTeal Publishing (2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9385523244
• ISBN-13: 978-9385523243
• Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.8 x 0.5 cm
• Available on :http://www.amazon.in/Multitudes-Ripples-Valayavividha-Vaachakmitra/dp/9385523244/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471323085&sr=1-1
• https://www.flipkart.com/multitudes-ripples-valayavividha-english/p/itmef7tyd8kvkpaz

About the Author

The author is a research scientist by training. He is technical consultant who works in an advisory capacity to the pharmaceutical industry. He specializes in intellectual property, technology upgradation and information technology. He is a science writer specializing in theoretical and philosophical foundations of modern scientific thought.

He can be reached at :http://vaachakmitra.com/