Book: The Crosshairs of Life
Author: Rimli Bhattacharya
Genre: Fiction/Anthology
This is the second book by Rimli Bhattacharya that I read. Like its counterpart, the book revolves around relationships, love, and emotions that cover almost all life aspects. The anthology might play a flashback in your mind as you might find yourself as the central character of some stories. It beautifully depicts that not all relations work out, and not all relations last for a lifetime. Falling in love is not a choice but staying in love is. After reading the book, you would realise that you might have been in the same circumstances, be it your first love or abiding goodbye to someone you thought you would spend the rest of your life with.
Like its counterpart, “The day it rained and other stories”, this anthology also focuses on mental illness and the importance of having a sound body and mind. But this book also shares a subliminal message that it is important to be independent as most of the people in your life would say goodbye sooner than you might have expected; relationships are temporary. The book is written from a female perspective and what different stages and emotions she goes through in her life, be it scarifying her career or changing her religion. The book gives a realistic picture of our society and relationships. E.g. in the story “The best friend”, it is beautifully shown that childhood friendship might change over time but is never forgotten. The open-ended stories might make you think about all possible scenarios of what might have happened in the protagonists’ lives. What would their life have looked like post the incident in their lives? If you read the book carefully, you might realise that money would not buy happiness, but it can save your life; two contrasting stories in which one patient was moved to another city for treatment and another one, perhaps, did not have enough resources to transfer the patient to a bigger hospital.
Rimli has done a beautiful job of transcribing the harsh reality of society on paper, and the title aptly justifies the stories in the book; we all are in the crosshairs of our lives.
Overall rating: 4/5
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