Distraught  (Paperback, Amal Gupta)

Contemplative, down-to-earth, and abiding, Manoj moves away from his village when he is still a child. But then comes the trouble and the dilemma. He falters, he rises, he admires, he smiles, he fails, and witnesses events that scar him for a lifetime. He is tossed between different people and different ideologies. His conscience fails him as he moves between cities, struggles to earn his daily bread, and makes choices that push him to the extreme and define him forever. This extremely relevant coming-of-age novel is a representation of the emotional state of so many young people in their teens and their twenties. It has a lucid narrative, and yet contains embedded bits of a complex layered commentary on human psychology. Distraught brings forth a story from the times when a lot of Indians had started moving out from their homes to study in different cities, and how they struggled to keep their identity intact. Many made through it, and many succumbed to the ever growing emotional and social burden, and a consequential conflict with their own values. Read this wonderfully promising debut novel and delve deeper into the mind of the narrator. Flip its pages, accompany Manoj on his journey and ask yourself: what would you do, were you in his place?.