Sudha Murthy's latest novel.

Having read Sudha Murthy's "Wise and Otherwise" and "The old man and his God" and enjoyed them, when I saw a novel by her in a bookstore I did not hesitate to buy it. "Gently fall the Bakula" is a novel written by her almost 30 years ago, although it has been published only recently. Here's what the synopsis had to say --

"Written nearly three decades ago this novel remains startlingly relevant in its scrutiny of modern values and work ethics. It tells the story of a marriage that loses its way as ambition and self –interest takes their toll. As the story of Shrikant and Shrimati unfolds, we learn how every step of Shrikanth’s corporate climb is laid with Shrimati’s sacrifices and then, it makes one stop and reconsider the priorities that we set in our life."

The book is about 150 pages and chronicles the lives of Shrikant and Shrimati from their school days when they are competing with each other for the first rank, through their courtship to marriage , the intial years of struggle followed by success and then the "different" struggles again.

The story is very close to real life, the career progression of Shrikant in the IT sector and the accompanying wealth and stress and the cost at which these come. The book will defintely touch a chord with wives who invariably have to play second fiddle to their husbands whose careers always take precedence. The friction between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law,also very typical of indian middle class families is brought out well without turning it into anything ugly.

The setting for the story is Hubli, a town in North Karnataka and the families that Shrikant and Shrimati come from are typical middle-class families. As such it will be very easy for most of Indian readers to relate to the environment. The bits on history are very informative.

Though the story is a simple narrative, it often seems to be told from the point of view of Shrimati. Shrimati's character is more developed with her feelings and emotions being brought out strongly. She always gets to take the higher moral ground with all the sacrifices she makes. Shrikant's character on the other hand though is half-baked and other than portraying him as a very smart, intelligent and ambitious husband, the author does not delve too much into his emotions and feelings. The story would have been more interesting if his side of the story would also have been explored in greater detail. Their relationship also could have been developed a little more.

The writing style is very straight forward and comes from the heart. It reminded me very much of all the stories one reads in magazines such as women's era.

All in all the book is a good read, although I would like to classify it in the short-story genre rather than a novel.