Stars from the Borderless Sea by Shalini MullickMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"It felt as if he had taken a piece of her with him. A piece she hadn't known existed. A piece that had been hidden deep within her, waiting to be found only by him. He had unearthed it, caressed it lovingly and tenderly, and walked away with it. It would now forever belong to him."
-- "Stars from the Borderless Sea", Shalini Mullick.
There was a time when I loved reading love-stories as much as watching romantic Bollywood movies. Love, once upon a time, seemed a rosy, glossy kind of emotion to me. With age, came wisdom and the love-stories that I used to savour earlier lost their sheen to me. They all seemed too perfect to be true.
"Stars from the Borderless Sea" is a book in the romance genre, a genre that I explored after quite a long time. The book piqued my interest solely because it has been written by Shalini Mullick. I have been reading Shalini's writings for quite a long time and being accustomed to her style of writing, I know that she always creates thought-provoking content. All I can say is that I have not been disappointed after reading the book.
This book is a collection of three romance novellas. None of the stories has a predictable storyline with a conventional happily-ever-after kind of ending. Shalini's protagonists are strong-willed, their love as strong as them. In these three novellas, Shalini has explored how love need not always culminate in a lifetime of togetherness. Love, even if it lasts for a brief period of time, can be healing and can nurture a person's soul for a life-time. "I discovered that, in love, each moment can be a lifetime. And a lifetime of togetherness was what we found with each other. Those moments were so precious to us that we couldn't allow them to be tarnished by the reality that our love would be unrequited." How true!
The first novella is titled "Sayonee" which means soulmate. It's the story of Geetika, descendent of an erstwhile royal family and Shekhar, who dreamt of joining the Indian army. They were college sweethearts. As fate would have it, both didn't complete college and life took them in divergent directions. Yet the love between the two never died.
The second novella is "Humsafar" meaning companion. Rachna, the protagonist, is a paediatrician. When her marriage hit a rock bottom, she found love outside the wedlock in a man named Venkat, her teacher and mentor.
The third and last one is "Humraaz" meaning confidante. In this story, two persons, Mahima and Sanjay, who were both trapped in unhappy marriages, found love and solace in each other.
All three novellas are well-crafted and makes the readers think about love from different perspectives. Shalini's prose is lyrical. Her one-liners make the readers pause and reflect. Like, "...life is the sum of choices. And often, the choices in one's life are made by someone else." Appropriate lines of Rumi's poetry add to the beauty of the stories.
Another thing I must add is that I haven't come across such personable male characters in a long time. Be it Shekhar, Venkat or Sanjay, each one is the epitome of kindness, compassion and determination. They are the kind of men any woman would fall in love with.
Do read the book and discover the magic of love.
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