Book review: Meant to be Together by Faraaz Kazi

Title: Meant to be Together

Author: Faraaz Kazi

Published by: Srishti publishers & Distributors, 2019

Price: Rs. 195

Pages: 218

Rate: 4/5

The Blurb says:

“Preeti Thaker moves to Mumbai to run away from herself, to put behind a painful childhood, plagued adolescent years and the recent death of her only support system – her brother. She is on the verge of ending it all, succumbing to her depression, when the doorbell rings. Little does she know that answering it will change her life forever! The guy on the other end of the door will offer her solutions to all her problems, but in the process, she will end up losing the only thing she had never lost till date – her heart!

Inspired by the true story of an artist who found that love was the only colour missing from the palette of her life, 'Meant to be Together' is a tale of love, friendship, courage, determination and above all, hope. Hope that makes us look for the rainbow when it rains and for the stars when it is dark.”

Book covers attract me first then the blurb on the back. The fascinating book covers instigate my creative thought process to accumulate all the imaginary components to reckon the storyline. When Faraaz extended the blurb of ‘Meant to be Together’ with a request if I could review the book, my reply was affirmative as I liked the story line. Honestly the book cover didn’t reach my expectation ( as the cover tuned to me cinematic) but the story did.

Preeti Arora, the protagonist had a challenging childhood. Preeti’s childhood projected in front of me the thousands of girls who had complications and that suffering led to psychological trauma. But few turns Lucky like Preeti to get a super supportive brother to pull her up, fearing off her woes to boon. But Preeti’s tragedy struck fate turned out to be too cruel when it took away Preeti’s most favourite and loved person, her brother. From her childhood Preeti loved to pour her heart out to her paintings. The colours on the canvases were her soul friends who silently bore all the secret stories, the stream of thoughts and her sufferings. Those were not mere paintings but each cried out the inner agony of Preeti. Being a financially Independent lady she had chosen to lead an independent life style staying alone, confining all the paintings rather her secret talent only in the bedroom. But suddenly like a dream one day a magician entered in her life who gradually started to change her life with the colours which were totally throttled in her paintings but not in her life. Sameer Arora, the hero, remained the rain man unless he himself fell in love with Preeti head over heals and Preeti too. But this love story didn’t turn out that easy as it looked like. The love story of the duo was articulated in such a way that one would drawn him/herself in the stream of emotional upheaval. Sameer’s appearance with the gang of his friends injected the life that was totally missing in the lifeless life of Preeti. The fun that she had missed in her college days almost returned back. Sameer’s extreme jovial nature, for a moment, didn’t let anyone feel the pain he had gone through, only one would keep on speculating - was Sameer hiding something!! It has a rhythm to flow you down till the end and then let you take a breath. One need to wait till end to know if the duo will become one soul or not. 

I found a very interesting point after finishing the book. Though the storyline and the book cover project to a mere love story, that has two love birds with differences. But ironically it spreads the truth of life. Preeti and Sameer are the epitomes of life. One shows the pessimistic side of life that dejected people to live in hell and the other one always tries to spread happiness around him suppressing all his grief. This philosophical aspect of life skilfully penned down by Faraaz. Even the epilogue at the end was quite new to me how the writer brought himslef as a character to give the stroy a more realistic look. His accomplished flare of writing skill and the dramatic aura of the book will surely hook his readers to keep on reading till it ends.  Faraaz Kazi who is known as ‘ the Nicholas Sparks of India’, fascinatingly ended up his truly romantic novel – Meant to be Together.