It was "not" Lakshmi Prasad All Along - The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad

Welcome to my first post on this “book blog”. Since I am not a professional at this, expect this to be a bumpy ride (I surely expect to laugh at myself after a few years when I read this again). Have fun.

Although I am not truly a beginner to reading per se, I took the list of best books for beginners from BookWritten, one of my favourite sites and go-to’s for book recommendations, and picked “The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad” written by Twinkle Khanna. Why? I don’t know. There isn’t much explaination to what I do at times.

I went in the book completely blind, had no idea what this was about. I assumed it would be a story about some guy called Lakshmi Prasad. Boy was I wrong.

So I started the book, and it started with stories about an Indian Village. Hmm, interesting. The stories were about female infanticide in villages, and then the titular protaganist “Lakshmi Prasad” comes, who is a girl. I dont know why I felt that this book was about a man named Lakshmi Prasad. Ah assumptions aside, I started reading the story.

The story was an interesting one, it started with how Lakshmi’s sister gets married and her father has to give a lot to her in-laws who are never satiated in their hunger and send her back. Then their assumption that the birth of a son would make them call her back, but fate had other things in mind. She has a daughter and suddenly the discussions about how having a daughter is a burden began. There was something off about this, no not about the plot, about the book. I felt this was moving too fast. Anyways, then Lakshmi thinks of an “idea” and tries to convince people about the same, and I thought hey that’s the “Legend” the book is going to be about, when suddenly in a couple of pages, they reveal it, everything becomes great and the story ends? I checked the completed % on my Kindle and it was roughly 20%. So then I finally went and googled about the book.

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad is a collection of 4 short stories. The stories are named, “The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad”, “Salaam Noni Appa”, “If the Weather Permits” and “The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land”. Since the Legend of Lakshmi Prasad ended, so will my post about it will end.

Haha, just kidding, lets talk about the other 3 stories. Although I did feel duped, since the whole book was not about Lakshmi Prasad all along.

The second story Salaam Noni Appa seems is about an old woman falling for a younger man, who is also married by the way. They say the story is about their love story, but I found it equally about the love between the two sisters Noni and Binni, whose relationship I wish was explored way more than it was. But the part about finding happiness at unexpected places (like Anandji finding peace in Noni Appa amongst his chaotic marriage) is quite good. This was a nice decent sized story (weirdly, it was longer than Lakshmi Prasad’s story).

The third story If the Weather Permits is a story about a girl marrying 5 times, where 3 times it was the guys she chose. This story about how a person wants to control their future life and how certain times parents try to pave a path for you. Being conflicted in who she is and who she wants to be, things do not end well for Elisa, but she did belong to herself.

The fourth and final story, The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land is based on the true story about the inventor Arunachalam Muruganantham (I’d suggest you read up on him, its an amazing story about an amazing man). But I had already seen the movie Pad Man which is based on this story as well. So for a lot of times, I kept imagining Akshay Kumar in Bablu. That being said, eventhough I knew the story and knew how it will end, I loved how Twinkle Khanna has written the character of Bablu, his “never give up” attitude in doing something good for every woman. His journey is fun, and I think this is the longest story in the book, and it takes about 40% of the book.

So what now? I feel all stories are quite good in their own regard. They arent connected, and the first 3 are a really short read, can be finished super fast. Though taking on deep topics about relationships, they are not heavy and “usually” leave you with a smile (except If Weather Permits). The language is simple and this truly is a good book for beginners.

I did feel that the story If Weather Permits didnt really use the theme of the weather and a lot more could have been done in the stories, but it was cut short. Although what could have been done? I dont know, I am not a writer 😋.

Although I had already seen Pad Man, the end to the last story The Sanitary Man from a Sacred Land felt a bit human, especially Bablu’s emotions about how his family left him in his time of need, why should he go back to them, and then realizing that he is indeed incomplete without them. From a fictionalized narration of a real story, that was one of the most human parts of it.

And I think thats the gist, these dont seem like short fictional stories, these dont transcend you to a different world, a different setting. These stories seem realistic, something that you must’ve heard from your friends over a cup of tea or watched it on the news. And I think that’s the selling point of the book. Should you read this book? I think yes. Its a simple book, in an easy to understand language, and the stories always leave you yearning for more. Its a fun short read and is great for someone just beginning to read books. Although if you’re like me, and Pad Man spoiled the last story for you, this book might not be a great pick, since that story itself takes a nice chunk of the book.

I do feel duped that the whole book is not about the titular Lakshmi Prasad, but I will definitely recommend it to someone who is just starting on reading books, and can grab this from a local library or stall (or from Amazon (not an affialate link)) for a short train journey type of read.

Thanks for reading my post. Feel free to share your opinions about this by contacting me on my socials @mitesh_1612 or post an issue on the GitHub repo of this blog. Hope you had fun, and see you next time! 😀