An old small time singer
actress is long forgotten, until the protagonist Aditi, who is a
journalist, decides to write a feature on her. Aditi starts getting
threats not to follow the story. This leaves her more determined to
delve deep into the whereabouts of the yesteryear actress Purnima. A
young boy, who shares his name with Aditi’s deceased brother, hangs
himself. Aditi is covering that story too. Plus there is a gruesome
murder of a calligrapher. Whether all these incidents are
interconnected? Where is Purnima? Who is threatening Aditi and why?
To get answers to all these questions you must read Tracking Purnima
by Usha Kathir.
What I liked about Tracking
Purnima is its plot and setting. The book shelves are inundated with
commercial novels, which like bollywood films, make us believe that
the Indian society resides only in Mumbai and Delhi and has a big fat
Punjabi wedding. Tracking Purnima is set in Bangalore. The
protagonist Aditi is a Tamilian and hails from Chennai. The names of
the characters, the places where they stay, the food they eat,
everything is authentic. This is refreshing. Which was the last book
you read or movie you saw where the second lead was named Shankar or
Reshmi (not Rashmi)?
Secondly this book is not a
cheap clone of Dan Brown’s books. Tracking Purnima with all its
flaws is a brand new story. Unfortunately these are the only good
things which I can speak about the book. The way in which Aditi finds
out that the woman pretending to be Purnima is an impersonator is
utterly ridiculous. Same stands true for Reshmi pretending to be
working for a company which converts old mansions into luxury hotels.
The thread of Deepak’s suicide starts in the beginning, gets lost
in the middle and resurfaces at the end. How can a calligrapher teach
a person to forge another’s signature? The writing at some places
particularly in the opening paragraph of Chapter 3 is confusing.
Again why Ravi and Suresh are given a clean chit remains a big
question. Their innocence and Chinnapa’s act of murdering is not
explicitly mentioned.
Yet Tracking Purnima is
refreshing read for sure. I congratulate the author Usha Kathir for
coming up with an original plot and a unique setting.
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