Rewind and Play — by Tarun Gautam
Publisher: TreeShade Books
Pages: 176
Price: Rs. 295 INR(Paperback)
ISBN: 978–81–93642474
Buy here: https://amzn.to/2JJWoPM
Raghav Diwan is living the American dream. A successful career, a comfortable and happy married life. One day, he receives an invitation to an evening get together with his college batch mates. He has not kept in touch with any of them and has no desires to meet them. But the past seems to be calling him. The past wants to reveal something to him. Will he open the door to let his past in. Will he let it change his future. Will he press, rewind and play.
About the author:
Tarun Gautam or TeeGee is a free thinker and a writer with a soul. When not penning books, he is the Regional Sales Head for a leading banking technology firm and has travelled to over 20 countries. He believes experiencing varying cultures of countries such as Latvia and South Africa have given him a unique world-view. An engineer and an executive MBA from IIM Lucknow, Tarun played a key role in the formative years of two consulting start-ups. Tarun is also a keen golfer and yoga enthusiast.
My take on the book:
Raghav Diwan is living his dream life in the US when suddenly his world turns upside down because of an incident, for which he may not be the sole reason. Unfortunately everything starts going wrong and before he realizes, Raghav finds himself emotionally distancing from his wife and kids also. On one such day, he receives invitation for a get-together with his old college friends, all now settled in different cities in US only. After his initial skepticism, Raghav finally decides to meet his friends with whom he had lost all touch in these past years due to work and family commitments.
Thus starts an evening of magic as old friends start playing a game, of remembering, recollecting and narrating one thing from the past, from their college days, which they believe was a life changer. Participating in events they were afraid of, developing code by slogging in the last minute, fashion shows, paper presentations, mid-term exams, ragging, dating the most beautiful girl on the campus — everything that young minds love doing in college days. All those risks one wouldn’t mind taking at that age, the fun they had with their friends, the memories that got buried over the years.
The story starts with Raghav and his family in present day, but quickly moves to his other friends from their college days once each of them start narrating their memorable incidents. The author chooses his characters from different backgrounds and each of them have their own unique interests, qualities and fears.
The story is a collection of multiple incidents that happened in each of Raghav’s friends’ lives, and ends with Raghav remembering what he was when he was a naive teenager, what values mattered him the most and what made him overcome challenges. The story has a simple message for anyone struggling with midlife crisis to look back at earlier days of their lives when they were carefree, ready for taking risks, when compared to their current self which is more calculated but also struggles to cope with issues. The solution might just be to look back at how you started off and reached the current position before giving up on life for minor hurdles.
The book is targeted more at young people, but also intended to those who would like to reminisce their college days especially those spent with friends and in hostels. For those who have already read couple of books around this theme, might find few sequences redundant. Overall, a fun, light read, which can be read once.
“I got the book as a part of the review program in Outset” https://rakhijayashankar.blogspot.in
My rating:
4/5.