Love on 3 wheels - book review

Love on 3 wheels had a promising premise. Sargam a young girl works with a private firm in Delhi. Her parents want her to get married at the earliest. They have chosen one Dr. Abhigyan Kukreti, a divorced doctor who is doing well for himself for her. Sharib is an auto-rickshaw driver from a village in Azamgarh. He ferries Sargam from her house to her office and drives her back to home. He is in knee deep love with Sargam. He hails from a small village, where his neighbour is Ameena. His parents want him to get married to her. Even she loves Sharib. Sharib refuses to marry her for he is blinded by love for Sargam.

Ameena migrates to Delhi to win his heart. She gets a job at Dr. Abhigyan’s clinic. Junaid is a swindler who desperately wants money for his mother’s operation. One day Sargam’s boss gives her an envelope to be given to one of their clients. The envelope contains one lakh rupees. Junaid steals it. Sharib, who drove Sargam to the hotel where she met the client, is accused of stealing it. He lands up behind the bars. Abhiygyan tries to rape Ameena. He is arrested too. Junaid has deposited the money with Abhigyan for his mother’s operation. Now that he is behind the bars, his mother is left to die in front of his clinic. Sargam is happy that she will not have to marry Abhigyan.

This story should have made an excellent novel. But unfortunately it doesn’t. Anurag uses a unique format for this novel. Each chapter tells a story devoted to one of the characters. The stories though inter-related do not gel with each other and remain separate entities. The characters are insipid and banal. Except for Junaid’s character all other characters are flat. I am a great fan of Anurag’s writing. I had liked his previous book “Birth of the Bastard Prince” a lot. But Love on 3 wheels simply doesn’t work.

There are couple of mistakes in the book too. On page 116, Junaid suddenly becomes Jamal. On page 90 Sethji asking Sharib “About?” without recollecting their earlier conversation is confusing. The writer hasn’t distinguished the present conversation between them from that which they had in the past. On page 11 he is mis-spelt as His and his as her in the following line. “His sounded as though Sargam had just informed him that his wife had eloped with her driver.

I had lot of expectations from Love on 3 wheels. But it disappointed me.