In wonderland with Suchitra Krishnamoorthi

Remember the bubbly girl opposite Shah Rukh Khan in the Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na? She even delivered hit pop albums Dole Dole, Dum Tara, Aha, and Zindagi. Singer, actor and poet Suchitra Krishnamoorthi has now come up with a novel Swapnalok Society-The Summer of cool.

Written in a breezy style, the story of Swapnalok Society-The Summer of cool, revolves around a ten- year-old girl Chitrangana Varma, her family and friends in the society.

Chitrangana Varma aka Chitty has innocent eyes of an angel. But looks as they say can be deceptive because Chitty is an inveterate liar. Her fertile mind cooks up stories with effortless ease and helps her to get out of every difficult situation. But she doesn’t like her name. She lives with her pretty elder sister Smita and mother.

All Chitrangana wants is to grow hair, have her mother bake an angel cake for her birthday and become a bathroom decorator of repute. But what she wants’ above all is her father. Longing for father is the hook that binds the reader till the end. The narrative revolves around her longing for father and the life in general in and around the society she lives in.

Swapnalok Society-The Summer of cool is Suchitra’s first book and she has been successful in catching readers’ attention by keeping the story tight. The narrative follows a linear path and does not meander into many side stories. Readers are spared of unnecessary “fillers” and “flashback”. The weakness of the book is evident in the fact that the writer hasn’t visualised the characters in details. Most of the time they seem sketchy and hurriedly cobbled up. However, the way Suchitra has described certain situations is really upto the mark.

The novel has done away with the current trend of not having a conclusive end. An inconclusive end raises many questions and reader’s curiousity remains as unsatiated as it was at the beginning of the novel. But Suchitra has spared the reader of groping in the dark. She has written an epilogue, which answers all the questions that raise their ugly head in a reader’s mind.