Saturday, July 06, 2013

Book Review: Romi and Gang

"Romi and Gang", as the name suggests is about a group of friends and their life and situations they face together. It's a story about their school and everything that's a part of school - including Cricket. The books starts with the prestigious season ball is hit out of the park and argument over who will compensate for it! If you had anything to do with Cricket in your childhood, you will know what I am talking about. Even the book cover shows a group of boys with their bags on their shoulders running towards what can definitely not be termed as a School. Its a life after school that matters!


Target Audience:
1. Cricket crazy fans as there are umpteen cricketing terms you can relate to
2. Readers whose life revolved around cricket especially during childhood

Plot: During your childhood, have you ever hit a cricket ball so hard that it flew out of the ground and your own team-mates, instead of applauding you, start criticizing you because you lost the only ball the team had! Have you ever enrolled a new member in your cricket team by asking him to buy a ball as a "goodwill" gesture? Have you ever got up in the morning just to run towards the 'maidan' to play cricket? Have you ever got up late in the night (say at 02:00am) just to see India - West Indies test match? You will find all this and more in this book! The story is about 4 friends (Romi, Sunny, Sukhi and Golu) and their life in school, on the cricket ground and around each other. Life moves around cricket for them. This book is about how they react to things changing in the school, how to win the next match and the likes.

Writing: The book is a series of events happening - some related and some not so related. A memoir of sorts. It can be classified as a diary written by a young boy about four friends and their childhood. For this, I must commend the author who has described feelings that only a child will go through. I personally went back to my childhood while reading this book and co-related those cricketing days and days of friendship that revolved around Cricket! This is the main reason why it took me long to read this book which, based on the size, should have been completed within 3-4 hours. Also, the cricket commentary in the book is nicely written. You can feel that you are actually present and watching the match. The things that I would think while batting were almost identical to what the protagonists went through. So much for co-relations! Special mention about the sketches in the book - awesome.

I would strongly recommend this book to those cricket fanatics to relive their childhood days again and maybe think of how life changed with responsibilities. However, if you don't fall in the target audience I mentioned above, you can give this book a miss as you will not be able to understand the nuances of cricketing terms.

My Rating: 3.5 / 5 (considering the broader reading audience)

4 comments:

  1. I am more interested in having a look at the book, enjoying it virtually than reading it. May be, boys will associate more with it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its more to do with Cricket terminology and hence, I think its more to do with boys than girls. However, its about childhood and in that sense, anyone and everyone can relate to it Saru :)

      Delete
  2. Thanks For Your Reviews.
    I always Like to Read Books Like Diary Or Experince & Biograohy.

    ReplyDelete

All yours..

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