Kim's Review : The Homing Pigeons

The Homing Pigeons is Sid Bahri's debut novel.

Sid's journey from Guwahati to Chandigarh, his current move to Majkhali near Ranikhet after giving up his job to focus on writing, his job stint with Citibank, all these experiences have shaped him and wormed their way into the story line of The Homing Pigeons.

There were a few similarities that hit home for me too. Like the hero & heroine of The Homing Pigeons, I too graduated in 1999, I had a bunch of classmates that joined Citibank (amongst other companies). I hail from Mangalore which is supposed to be the hometown of the anti-heroine in the book - Divya. So I was hoping to identify more with the lead characters.

Aditya and Radhika are the Homing Pigeons of this tale. Classmates in High School, colleagues at Citibank after a couple of years, separated by continents only to throw them back together again in a year. Life seems to be drawing them apart and yet they keep coming back to each other.

The Homing Pigeons, moves forward and backwards through a series of flashbacks alternating between Aditya and Radhika's viewpoints. A lot of historical events are covered over the years : the backlash against the Sikhs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's Assassination, the recession that hit the job market badly, the reverse brain drain - amongst others are all woven into the tale through the perspective of our 2 lead characters.

The tale is interesting, but to me their actions at times seemed extremely impetuous and at times downright childish. And hence I couldn't really identify with the characters. But I also know that a ton of students in colleges across the country will identify with them very well and this could be the main target audience for The Homing Pigeons.

The start is quite gripping and the middle is quite fast paced too, but at the end, somehow the entire tale seemed to rush to finish in 5 pages. After agonising over every tiny detail in the preceding 300+ pages, the ending seemed abrupt.

***SPOILER ALERT***
If Aditya hated being dependent on his wife once he lost his job, how come he is suddenly OK with living off Radhika and her ex-husbands money?
Why does Radhika take him back so easily given how badly he treated her, especially during the abortion he forced her to undergo?
***End of Spoiler***

It is these questions that beg to be raised that made me feel the ending was abrupt. However, if the target audience for the book is teens and those in their early 20's, the Happily ever After Ending, may just be enough for them to love the book.

I don't think, that I'm the target audience for this book, so my rating is low, however except for some minor editing issues, the book isn't bad and I'm sure it will do very well for itself among readers of this genre.

Rating : 2.8 / 5

This Review is a part of "The Readers Cosmos Book Review Program". To get free books visit thereaderscosmos.blogspot.com and can be checked out on Good Reads