‘A boy and girl fall in love with each other in school, but the girl decides to ‘A boy and girl fall in love with each other in school, but the girl decides to let go of her only true love when her small world falls apart and… she decides to crash it even more making her life and every other person’s life that crosses her path miserable, including the boy!’
Well, that’s exactly what I felt when I finished the book.
‘When Time Stands Still’ is a contemporary drama about familial bonding, love, friendship, jealousy, abuse, broken hearts, and an insipid marriage. It also shows in agonizing detail how a broken home, failed parenting, and a traumatic childhood affect kids as they grow up and distort their personalities.
True love exists and it can be as fierce and passionate even from the not-so-fairer sex, who, as per the societal conditioning, are considered the stoic lot unable to express their affection as much as the opposite sex. But no, this male protagonist outdoes the female here and the female, of course, broods over the lost love for her entire life later.
Also, true and loyal friendships may happen with an unspoken and underlying condition and may come with an expiry date.
It is a slice-of-life tale of how the centre character, Rukmini, wades through the challenges in her life, her emotions raw, real, and relatable at every step that she takes. With all the difficulties she goes through, she resigns to her fate, simply moving on with a spiritless life as time throws in more drama relentlessly. A very thoughtful and apt title at that and an even more significant cover. Kudos to the author for that!
Apart from Rukmini are her 2 friends from the past and present, Vidhi and Gopal, who play a significant role in her life until the very end. I only wish I could say more about the book but that would probably be a spoiler.
Some lines from the book that I liked:
“Sometimes it depends on how you view them. (Good) memories don’t change because of how things ended.”
“There are always choices. You just have to make the right one.”
“If something is denied to you, then you wish with your whole heart to possess it, and in this process, sometimes the lines between right and wrong, good and bad, hate and love, all get blurred.”
“You enjoy playing the victim. Nothing is more important to you than the fact that you think you were wronged at a point in time. No other sin is bigger or more sinful than those which you think were perpetrated on you. So you…piteously wallow with only one thought – ‘poor Rukmini, how much she has suffered.’” - (From Gopal to Rukmini. This very line comes after about two-thirds of the novel and makes a lot of sense to the reader wrapping around the whole drama in her life, which she has so carefully sculpted on her own!)
“Regret is a sadistic and parasitic ally. It takes great pleasure in using your imagination against you to show how wonderful things could have been. It leeches on your happiness and makes you ignore even the greatest joys that are being offered to you in the present.”
“Sometimes, nothing uplifts the spirits more than knowing that someone else is in a more unfortunate position than you.” (How very true! We are humans after all, with the flaws in our halo shining much brighter than our virtues.)
The most striking aspect of the book that I found is that the author has fleshed out each character so meticulously, every quirk and facet of even the auxiliary ones brought out very well along with their background. The novel flows with each passing chapter almost seamlessly that you are literally taken into their world feeling the pain and joy that each character feels every moment.
What could have been shown better was the relationship between Rukmini and Gopal. Given that he plays a pivotal role in shaping her life, their conversations and blossoming of friendship seem rushed up and blunt. At one scene, Rukmini hates him for his carefree life and easy-going nature and a little later, she goes for a jog with him! The author could have paced it slower and described it in a little more detail.
‘When Time Stands Still’ – the story of a woman’s endurance; how long, how worse, how much, and how much more until she decides… to actually live her life.
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