Monika Arora, Advocate, Supreme Court of India pens down a heartfelt review about the book “How Gourango lost his O” to its author Mr Sanjoy Ghose, Senior Advocate, Delhi High Court
*Spoilers Ahead*
The book is as interesting as its cover, Sanjoy……
Sumptuous reading — This is how I describe the experience of reading the journey of Gourango. The cover exuberated the lightness of the book and promised to the reader that it will not be a serious, monotonous, boring work loaded with too many facts.
You see the cover again and again and the smile on your lips widens with a self promise that you have to read this book.
- Gourango — His hostel, his father losing his job, the tears in his eyes, the fire in his belly to perform and to prove himself and ultimately getting the best campus placement — the reader lives through all these moments -speedily reading not sentences but pages.
- And yes, that monotony of the office with no challenging cases is so very familiar to us advocates.
The number of advocates and their 24×7 dedication to the legal profession, with no time left for their families and passions, the reader is nostalgically transported to the world of ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ and remembers the exhaustion of a lawyer and how he goes to Himalayas to get back his youth and life. - You have kept Gourango in the background with a number of characters unfolding in different chapters and yet you have weaved them together so beautifully to show ‘the slow progression in life wherein all events are ultimately tied to a seamless thread which we can see only when we connect backwards in time.
- But what hooked me to your first masterpiece is the romantic, inspiring, out of the box thinking — “I don’t care attitude”, “My life on my terms” attitude of the heroine of this book. All of us know whom you are talking about, but her charm, her confidence, her cases which takes her from the District Courts to High Courts to the Lords in India sitting in the Supreme Court-offff….she is not only the Indumati of this book but seems to be the Indumati of your life too! *sic*
- How you lovingly resort to the details —her moods, her cases, her revolts, her sarees and the quiet Gourango who holds to her chamber for years.
- In the last, I must say that the whole court either does not understand you or envies you when you are seen reading fat old books between cases in courts, while others are gossiping.
- All these readings have turned “Gourango” into a readable and interesting author apart from the fact that he evolved into a well-read and great lawyer in Delhi-THE STATE that he always detested.
- With senior designation, I believe new life and new experiences will bring to the readers new titles in the ‘Gourango series’ of books. Waiting till then. Happy Reading
A copy of the book can be purchased on EBC Webstore and Amazon.