The Night Queen by Birister Sharma

The Night Queen: She starts hunting when her preys are in deep slumber...... by Birister Sharma
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author, a graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication is also a freelance writer.





Storyline:

A happy peasant family of two adults and 5 children, in a remote village of India, who lived life to its fullest. As the children grew, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the ends meet. Owing to severe pressure from the banks and local money lenders, the breadwinner father commits suicide. This event changes the scenario of this happy family. The uncle of the children, Raghu sees an opportunity here to sell off the beautiful eldest and youngest daughters to whorehouses in New Delhi for a huge ransom. This story is narrated by the youngest, named Rani, later renamed as Dolly, as to how she is raped by a client when she first loses her virginity. Later she becomes the Night Queen of sex and power in the dirty world of prostitution. She gains the contacts of best males in the country and abroad for almost ten years only to fall in love with a rich love starved business tycoon, owning a telecom company. Just at the time she was about to surrender to his love, she comes across the brutal murder of her elder sister, Radhima, who was also sold by Raghu, for which she turns violent and absolutely aggressive to kill all those responsible for her and her sister’s fates, including her uncle Raghu. Finally, she discovers that she is infected with AIDS and kills herself under complete satisfaction and peace for she could efface at least some of the agents and touts that are in the business of forcing young innocent girls into the dirty business of prostitution.

Pros: A story right from the heart of a young girl forced into prostitution due to her family’s poverty and helplessness. The reader feels the pain and emotions of a young girl when she is thoroughly raped day and night by strangers and how her mind gets tuned to conquer the dirty sex world owing to her inability to retaliate or escape from the clutches of the dangerous owners of whorehouses. Finally, the author wanted to prove that those who thrive in the crime world would definitely face a similar end and portrayed Dolly’s sudden end in her mid-life. Right ending given to the one who chose the wrong path to gain name and fame within short period.

Cons: The author seems not to have taken much importance to literary grammar, as the narration seems to be like the one from an elementary school. Not very effective when it comes to the story, as it is not very new to a country like India, which is infected with huge population living in utmost poverty and debt, even today, in most of its rural landscape. No mention about the rest of the family after Rani’s entry into whorehouse or what could have happened to them. Felt incomplete.

My rating is 2 out of 5


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The Miracle of Yousef Written by Goncalo Coelho

The author, a Mechanical Engineer by education has chosen writing as a profession through his passion for literature. Basically born in Portugal, in 1978, he lived and travelled across the world to experience the cultural diversity and different facets of the world we live in. This book is his second novel which has been translated from Portuguese to English. The first one is entitled Poker.






Storyline:

Mohammad Yousef, a young boy who is driven by his passion always, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is identified by Sheikh Omar, a wealthy businessman cum patron of the pro-Islamic extremist group, to carry on the various missions of terrorist attacks on American and other Western civilizations. Yousef is imbibed with hatred against the Americans for having forcefully occupied the Muslim geographical regions just like the Soviets in Afghanistan, resulting in countless innocent deaths of his Muslim fraternity. He becomes a Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan and later pulled into Al-Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden against the entire Western civilization. He adopts various identities in different parts of the world to carry out his meticulously planned terrorist attacks under the guidance and help from Omar. Meanwhile, he marries his friend’s fiancée and lives under cover until the dreaded New York Twin Tower attack. She later is killed by Omar as Yousef is too much involved in family life ignoring his mission. Her death results in Yousef’s outrageous behavior in carrying out terror attacks more aggressively. But, one day during his narrow escape from FBI, he gets ship-wrecked in the Mediterranean and slips into amnesia forgetting his past. He lands up in a small island in Turkey where he falls in love with Nefisa, the daughter of the person who saves him. By the time his memory comes back to him, he is captured by the Turkish police and jailed for 6 yrs. He escapes from jail only to be again kidnapped by Omar and his gang along with Nefisa, who is now adamant to accept Yousef as her terrorist lover. Yousef tries to convince Nefisa that he is now a changed man and repents for all that he had done as an Islamic terrorist, pleading innocence due to misguidance and wrong interpretation of Islam by his mentor Omar. Finally at the time when he refuses to blow up the Marmaray tunnel of Turkey, opposing Omar’s orders and just at the time of winning back Nefisa’s love and trust, he loses his life in the hands of a stranger shot dead point blank as a revenge for the death of her loved one in one of the terrorist attacks planned and executed by Yousef, long back.

Pros: An exquisite piece of literature by the author truly portraying the emotions of a young, passionate Muslim lad on one side and a different set of emotions in the second half as a totally changed man in the hands of pure love and total understanding of true Islam. Yousef, a classic example of how one can be mis-guided in the name of religion, only to realize later the countless crimes committed under ignorance and trance. The author successfully elicited the fact that one is brought to justice at the end for all the crimes done knowingly or unknowingly. The sentiments of Muslims have been well protected in this novel, highlighting the life story and best of the teachings of Prophet Mohammad. The Soviet and American dominance in military warfare and political interference in the Muslim countries have been well criticized, tactically.

Cons: I somehow felt that the author portrayed Muslim women as those who want to break away from their orthodox traditional lifestyle and liberate themselves into total freedom like in the West. I don’t think this is true always as the values and traditions of a religion are carried forward more by the acceptance of womenfolk of the community.

My favourite quotes in the book:

“ War feeds war, hatred feeds hatred, violence feeds violence, greed feeds greed. The only way to foster peace is through peace itself. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but rather a greater and more dangerous wrong”

“Passion and Love. The intensity of passion is not linear, but don’t give that too much importance. This vigorous clamor of the flame of passion will not always stay the same, but love will. Love is beyond that flame, it’s what remains after it. It’s what you start to feel once the flame of passion gives way to the soft breeze of love”

My rating is 3.75 out of 5


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