19 July, 2013

#BookReview :: Romi and Gang by Tushar Raheja

Unruly and reckless, thirteen-year-old Romi is the hero of his universe. His great affinity for adventure and the unknown is shared by his gang - the rascal Sukhi, the deadpan Sunny, the naïve Golu and his blood brother, Kim.

When legendary Kim disappears from Mauji, it is left to the four to conquer the maidan with cricket and the world with their wits. Of course, they must prepare for responsibility in between and, one day, go after Kim.







Romi, is a small town boy in love with all things cricket and especially the God of cricket – ‘Sachin Tendulkar’. The story follows the life of Romi and his gang of friends as they wade through their young life and deal with school, teachers and parents all with their innocent enthusiasm. They are four boys, brothers in arms, brought together by their common interest in cricket and their affinity to playing pranks. Their little world starts to tumble down upon them when Kim disappears.

Reading this book was like taking a walk down the memory lane at two levels. First, having grown up as a tom-boy with four elder brothers at our joint family home – Romi’s story could have very well been mine. Secondly, it also reminded me of the books that originally ushered me into the world of reading – Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and the Five Find-Outers series.

Cricket plays a major role in Romi and his gang’s life and so it does in this story. Quite a number of matches have been described and I found myself cheering for Romi.  The essence of innocence, the thirst for adventure that the kids of that age have has been captured beautifully by the author. Also, there are certain messages hidden in these pages – messages about being truthful, about loyalty and friendship and the importance of failures in one’s life. The characters also play an important role in making this story a lively one. Romi, Sunny, Golu and Sukhi are each distinct young minds, each with their own quirks and their own fair share of troubles. Besides them there were also a couple of characters who have influenced the story, for instance Romi’s father. The illustrations in this book were also quite good.

For a thirty year old like me, this book was a way to ‘Nirmal Anand’ for 2-3 hours. The little 9 year old in me enjoyed this book thoroughly. The target audience for this book, pre to early teens, would surely find this book to be a fun read and may even learn a thing or two from it.


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Review Copy Received from Pirates in exchange of a fair review. 

1 comment:

  1. I liked the book too. for both the reasons you mentioned for the walk down memory lane :)

    cute !

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