Nick of Time by Komal Mehta!!!

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            Reading Love Stories back to back can surely frustrate me to the zenith. But when the stories are from two different kind of writers, the reader within me gives the widest smile possible. I have just completed KOMAL MEHTA's "Nick of Time". The 240 pages book is published by one of the greatest publication- PENGUIN BOOKS. I haven't read much books by Penguin hence I was pretty excited to read this one. The book also has the tagline "Right One Wrong Time". Komal Mehta has always suffered from an overactive imagination and thinks she is good at making up stories. She has been working in the movie marketing field for the past 3 years and has worked for Reliance Big Entertainment and Havas Worldwide(EURO RSCG / MPG India) in the past. Currently she works with Pradeep Guha’s film marketing agency Culture Brandz in Mumbai. Nick of Time is her first novel. And let me tell you my personal view- She looks charming and beautiful. I have checked her image on the back cover almost at every turn of page. :-) My apology for this confession, Komal mam. But this is what your book is all about- Making confessions, right? :-) 

            NICK OF TIME is a story about three characters- Alehya, Vicky and Shagun. Alehya returns to Chandigarh after knowing about her childhood's best friend, Shagun's marriage. She is excited to meet the person with whom her friend is marrying. She is also excited to meet and have lots of conversation with her as it had been 7 years since they met last time. But when she comes to know it's Vicky who she is getting married to, she gets disappointed. She always hated the guy, right from her childhood. She always found him weird and irritating. And she discloses this to Shagun, she doesn't get surprised. She had already planned about making both of them accept each other as Friends. But.... 3 weeks to marriage and Alehya-Vicky spending all the time with each other on Shagun's insistence creates some magical transformation in the plot of the story. As the wedding draws near, the three grapple with issues of love, confusion and guilt to discover what their hearts truly desire. They have to make life-altering decisions in the NICK OF TIME! 

              Komal Mehta is surely a writer whom I would love to read in future too. She has magical writing skills. She makes you get into the journey of the story. For a moment, I myself started thinking as if the whole plot is being played with me and I got tensed at many places. :-) She has great sense of humour which keeps the interest in the book alive. Even when the book turns monotonous in between, her unique description of things made me read the part interestingly too. One writer whom I found similar to Komal Mehta is- Varsha Dixit in her debut novel-"Right Fit Wrong Shoe". Though that book didn't satisfy me much, this has surely entertained me throughout. 

             The initial pages when Alehya and Vicky doesn't pacify with each other gives a curiosity to know what happened further in the story. Because synopsis of the book makes it clear that both of them falls for each other later. And when the whole series of the awaited moments begin, the book goes to a very different level. It takes you to a totally different world of love-getting-over-all-the-fears-and-confusions. It becomes entertaining to read about the marriage preparation of Vicky-Shagun at one end while the development of romance between Vicky-Alehya at another end. The love scenarios that authoress has inserted in the book are original. I have always believed that reading too many similar stories isn't an irritation if all of them are being treated in different ways. And I am quite blithe to say that Komal Mehta has given a totally new face to the story that is so common in our Bollywood movies and TV serials. She has treated it in her own way that makes you excited to turn the pages. 

            The dilemma that each character gets into the book after the conversation of Alekhya and Shagun with mehendi in their hands is the real moment when I fell in love with the book. Every thing that is written after that scene touched my heart directly. It says so much about the different traits of human beings. It makes hard for us to characterize any of the three characters as wrong, traitor or exploited. Every one of them seems to be right according to the scenario that took place with their life. But still knowing the fact that one of them will have to sacrifice gives goosebumps to you almost at every thought of them that is mentioned in the pre-climax and climax pages. The book tells about how one hears to his/her heart and goes in whatever direction life then takes to. How one confesses what one has gone through and brings a transformation towards happiness in life. How one does not get selfish even when one knows that he'll have to sacrifice for a friend or a love-partner. There are many such elements that I noticed while reading the book, but I won't talk of all otherwise you'll lose all the excitement of picking up the book from the bookstore near you. :-)

           Coming to the drawbacks, first I would like to criticize the COVER PAGE of the book with all my heart. It is seriously very dull. Even the face of the girls doesn't match with the description of Alehya and Shagun in the book. The cover page's design is so yellowish that you might consider the book as a decade old. I am disappointed. I hope with next print, the cover page is changed to something bright and lovely. Then, as Chandigarh is mentioned so many times by the authoress while describing the plot of the story in synopsis and sneak peeks, she should have mentioned some places from Chandigarh in the book. The city doesn't get the treatment in the story that it gets in synopsis. And as the book is about marriage, many traditions should have been mentioned in an exciting manner but authoress has again ignored doing any of this. Else, every thing related to the story is COOL. I would rate the book 3.75/5. I recommend it to all who are wanting to read a different tale of love, confusion and destiny. GO FOR IT.

  Thanks.

   ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU