Sense of a Quiet by Deepak Kripal – Book Review

Rarely there are books that stick with me even after finishing and sending them back on the bookshelf. However, when I meet one such book, rarely, this becomes a wonderful memory particle for me. I remember all those books that remain with me after being read. Deepak Kripal’s long, abstract and tiring novel, Sense of a Quiet, is one such novel that I will remember for long. This novel took me days to finish because I did not want to rush the reading process in order to understand the predicaments of the leading characters in the best possible way. I did. 

Let me raise this subject at the very beginning of this book review article. The novel is not for readers who are taking books as sprints and finishing an odd book every alternate day. Sense of a Quiet demands exertion, mentally and emotionally. Give it time if you want to understand the novel. On the other hand, the novel will demand time from you because it is not of those casual crime thrillers that can be finished within a few hours. 

The Storyline in Brief: 

Readers will meet Diya, Milind and Rohan. Rohan is struggling as he is on the verge of a divorce. Diya and Milind, wife-husband, are happy with their own issues to take care of. Milind is a man of principles who learns early in his life that befriending the shark is better than making it angry when you are in the ocean. Diya is a doctor in a big private hospital and Milind works for the government in a government hospital. Rohan comes to Haridwar to live with his friends Milind and Diya and they both welcome him with open arms. Sapna, another important character, the housemaid of Diya and Milind, develop closeness with Rohan and vice-versa. Rohan also gets aesthetically close to Rakesh, a rickshaw puller who takes him to places in Haridwar. Someone dies. Someone has deep remorse. Someone is purged. Someone is guilt-ridden. 

Observations: 

Though one can say that Sense of a Quiet is a slow novel, it could not be written in any other fashion. It has to be slowly unfolding in order to let the readers get a complete sense of what Deepak Kripal, the author has to offer the readers. The novel has many pages and many chapters. It has many internal conflicts and compared to external conflicts embedded in the storyline, internal conflicts are more in number and more intense in quality. It will be up to the readers that they will have to acknowledge the courageous act by the novelist to work on such a theme in his second fiction book only! 

The novel unfolds gradually. The external conflict with the local politician is described in a visually appealing way and readers can easily identify the causes and the effects. However, what goes inside Rohan and Rakesh, what goes inside Sapna and Diya, what goes inside Milind are also wonderfully described by the author with the help of imagery and allusions that we often find in the conversations between different characters. The conversations between Rakesh and Rohan are the most vivid. 

Verdict: 

I will not say that this novel is a must-read for all the readers. However, this is a sure read for the readers who want to understand human psychology, human emotions, the ways human beings react to certain things and many other aspects of being human… fragile and breakable! Sense of a Quiet reaches its semi-baked conclusion quietly and leaves it to the readers to find out what they found out amidst all that happens in the novel. This was good! 

So, if you are a lover of movies like Aanand or The Sea of Trees, you will surely love reading this novel to the end. You can get a copy from Amazon India in the Kindle or paperback format. Click the link below: 

Purchase the book from Amazon: Click here 

Review by Sarthak Mishra for Indian Book Critics