Review: From Yesterday by Anupam Dasgupta 0
The book “From Yesterday” by Anupam Dasgupta is the story of Advait a management professional from Kolkata who moves to Chennai for work. The book is partly written in flashback mode, as Advait, abbreviated as Adi, longs for his girlfriend Anita, who had left him nearly six years ago. At a latin dancing club he meets a tarot reader who correctly guesses that he is unhappy. She asks him to unburden himself and he recollects how he first met Anita with the help of a social networking website soulmates. Though Anita, a make up artist is seven years older than Adi, they get along very well, and soon become very good friends and are inseparable as both of them have no close friends in Chennai.
Anita is doing very well professionally and financially,but she has an unhappy past. When she was young she got into a livein relationship with Vanraj who appeared to be in love with her. He was not willing to get married, yet Anita took care of him like a wife so that he became well established professionally. After Vanraj tasted success, he started having affairs with his juniors and also physically and verbally abusing Anita. He also had an affair with the maid servant, and beat Anita for two days after tying her to the chair. Frustrated Anita tried to commit suicide taking pills, however she survived. After a year, Anita had an affair with Anand, who was rich and handsome, however his family objected after knowing her background. Anita also underwent an abortion losing the son, she had with Anand,a brahmin.
Though Adi and Anita enjoyed each others company, Anita was haunted by her past and when people commented or were surprised that she was older, she would get upset. After spending almost a year together, Adi plans to marry Anita, however Anita is filled with self doubts, and repeatedly tells Adi that he should marry someone of his age or younger, who does not have a turbulent past like her. She is also haunted by her past, claims that she is hearing voices. After Adi has purchased a house and car, he suddenly finds that Anita has left a letter for him, saying that she is leaving the city, because she thinks that he deserves someone better as he is young, innocent and affectionate. She tells him to keep her updated of his latest contact details through her assistant Hamid.
The tarot reader then predicts the future for Adi, that he will travel abroad and also revive the romance in his life. Though Adi is sceptical, soon afterwards, he finds that the company he is working for, posts him in Chicago. He also meets a beautiful american Christina who likes him, and expresses her feelings openly. However Adi continues to be haunted by memories of Anita, and rejects the proposal because of his loyalty to Anita. About the same time, he receives a message from Hamid, that he has sent a letter from Anita. To find out how the book ends, read the book.
The book is a reflection of the life of many professionals and young people who relocate to a new city for professional reasons alone and do not have any social network or support system of their own outside their workplace. It is very difficult for both single men and women to find true friends, people who they can trust. There are many men who have no qualms taking advantage of vulnerable trusting young women like Anita and then discarding them. It also shows that in India society, young men dating or marrying older women is not socially acceptable, due to prejudices.
However the character of Anita is too negative, she should not have let those who hurt her affect her, she should have taken revenge on them. For example, due to fraud of ntro employees, the domain investor owning this website has been subjected to identity/resume theft fraud by powerful cunning fraud ntro employees who have stolen the resume for as many as 10 lazy greedy mediocre google, tata sponsored goan sex worker sunaina, siddhi mandrekar, cheater housewives like riddhi nayak and other fraud R&AW/CBI/indian intelligence employees who are now getting a monthly indian government salary though these fraud women do not do any work, or spend any money online. These fraud ntro, cbi employees have also stolen the retirement savings of the domain investor, an experienced engineer without a court order, or legally valid reason.
This google, tata masterminded identity theft fraud has continued for 7 years since 2010 and the indian government refuses to investigate the resume theft of shameless fraud ntro employees like puneet, j srinivasan, vijay, patel, parmar, anish, though financial records, surveillance and bone ossification tests will expose the fraud in a few hours. However the domain investor, a single woman has not lost hope and continues to inform people about her shameless fraud male engineering classmates and other fraud indian government employees who are misusing her name, falsely claiming to know her well, to steal her resume, investment, cheating and exploiting her.
Most people who have relocated to a metro city for a job, will relate to the story, the loneliness, lack of true friends who can be trusted, and the doubts and complexes that often destroy relationships
Author website – https://anupamdasgupta.com/
Available at: Google Play, Amazon.in, Flipkart.com
From Yesterday
Author: Anupam Dasgupta
Pages: 223
Publisher : Frog Books
First published in 2016