You beneath your Skin by Damayanti Biswas #LetterToTheAuthor

Dearest Damayanti,

I really hope all is going well with/for you. I pray to God and wish it is all good. My sincere wishes to your beaming projects, #ProjectWHY and Stop Acid Attacks. I wish you find the means to support more projects and more children in the coming years. Kudos to your entire team.

I thank you deeply for dropping by to comment on my blog posts. I must say I am always inspired by your comment. Thank you for being supportive.

I secretly wish you drop by and comment too. It’s not a secret anymore, so don’t burden yourself. Still, thank you. I wanted to initially send a long comment in your blog, but decided against it. Hence this post.

I really wanted to write a book review after finishing your book last week. I gathered points and also started framing it for a post. Somehow I felt it was all amiss. I am not a great reviewer.

I always share only my reading experience as a review. How I got the book to what happened during the book and all that. That was definitely not what I wanted to do for yours. I don’t know if this letter would do enough justice to the book you’ve written, but I’ll try to put my thoughts here in the only way I know.

I really wanted to tell you how much I loved reading it, despite the fact, I abandon most books that has affairs. When yours started with one, I was honestly disappointed. I really wanted to ask why was this needed, but as I continued reading it, it all unfolded in a way that changed my opinion.

Amidst taking care of my toddler, the home, some travel, sickness in between, I always felt I needed to keep your book with me. I carried it everywhere and I’ll tell you it fits well in a bag I purchased for my stationary.

I even considered taking it to Tirupati, but decided against it because I cannot read while traveling. I’m strange I know. Let’s forget that for now.

I also kept myself away from reading most of the blog posts/reviews of the book that bloggers had written. When I want to watch a movie that I’ve been waiting to watch, I keep myself away from reading anything about it.

That gives me opinions and I cannot watch it without judgement or knowing everything about it. It doesn’t work for me. It has to be fresh, so I kept away from bloggers reviews.

I pre-ordered the book after a short conversation with you and I knew it will be delivered by the time I reach India. It happened just in time. It reached me a day before my arrival on 1st October so I asked my parents not to open the parcel, but to keep it in my shelf.

Though, I had already seen the cover one thousand times, I always tried to find out something extra about this book. I figured a plot and checked how this is different than the one I had in mind.

How easy it is to get tangled in our own webs? From the little I read from bloggers, due to blog hopping, I understood it was a gripping story that must be finished in one sitting. That was impossible for me. So I let out a sigh and knew it is not going to happen. I didn’t read any further and I was glad most could still sit down and finish it in less than two or three sittings.

You want to know how long I took to finish your book? Don’t be disappointed okay. I think I’d be the only longest reader of your book. 😬 It took me 3 and a half weeks. I finished on November 6th after writing the post about my sick day.

From then till now, I’m thinking about your book, because I want a sequel. No, I didn’t expect a happy ending on this one, did not expect Anjali and Jatin to get married, but expected the case to be closed in an appropriate way.

When I finished the book I had a multitude of emotions rolling at once. I wanted to question you on why you couldn’t finish it well. That’s one of the prime reasons I delayed this post by a week. It took me a week to understand you’ve written things as it is. No extra bits and pieces just to convince the reader that you mean well. That would have made it all a big lie.

Haven’t you put things as it is? The present state of politics, the cover-ups happening everyday, the policemen shifted for working honestly, suspended for trying to work with their conscience, above all the victims dead/still living dead with no justice.

This is all true, I would read your book instead of the daily newspaper. Almost all the news that is written glossily in a newspaper, is in your story.

Being impressed is another thing, but I’m thinking how much time did you spend doing this? What was your emotion while writing all this? You must write something about working on this book. I’m sorry if you’ve already written it, but I missed it.

Right from the miss in today’s parenting, misuse of power, freedom, law, women, little understanding about children with different abilities, extreme tolerance towards issues in our society, affairs, unfair negotiation, there is everything one needs to know about today’s society.

You’ve not touched up for the sake of it, but you’ve done your ground work for everything. I don’t know if you at any point in time felt you need to drop this project, but something or someone pulled you to finish it.

Though these are still tough and unspoken subjects in our society: acid attacks, autism, rape and murder, attacks on women and children, child trafficking and drugs – this is a book I recommend to all.

To women, to know how strong we are in spite of all odds and being self- critical ourselves.

To the men and women in the police as well as other departments who do the ground work to bring justice, but are held back in some way, I understand you.

It is always easy to blame the police or other departments for not doing their work, but don’t the most important jobs have lengthy instructions backed by power.

Aren’t you right about the title of the book? I wonder how this title came up? Did it happen during some conversation or did you really fix on this one first and then began your story? How many of us are really fine in our own skin to think beyond it?

The title is where the thinking begins. Mine began right after seeing your poster, trying to find the girl in it and the girl within. Those eyes in a women without the smile makes sense now.

I’ve personally visited Burns unit previously. I’ve had a couple of incidents in the family and have lost people due to fire. My husband who was once caught in a fire accident while testing a car engine still has second degree and third degree burn marks on his hand. It still itches at times, he says.

To an extent, I know what it is like to be burned off quickly. Intolerable pain and anger go hand in hand most times. Life changes in a moment, it all becomes before and after life. Anjali’s life and all that happens around her just kept me turning pages eagerly.

Though I missed to attach myself to most hindi phrases, that little translation you’ve given helped see some Ghalib’s words of wisdom. However, I couldn’t connect very much with it deeply as I would have preferred to.

Usually when a plot has a lot of characters, it is difficult to remember them all. I appreciate you introducing them gradually and I remember all the characters much to my surprise. It’s all in the way it is connected.

The script handled every character and scene at large from all views. I’m sure you’ve taken years for this and I’m honestly telling you it was worth it.

Somehow I always had this notion of Delhi, “Anything can happen in Delhi”, I still don’t know why. I’m trying to figure out the reasons, or maybe the media fed me this sort of a mindset.

This plot happening in Delhi was again a scary moment for me. Maybe visiting Delhi would calm me about it. Who knows maybe many think about Chennai the way I think about Delhi.

Alright, I think this is a long letter, but I hope I conveyed what I wanted to. You’ve written a gripping crime novel and I’m sure it tops the list of bestsellers and remains there as long as it can to help both the projects as well. Otherwise, hugs Damayanti for such a honest book.

Thank you for this wonderful book, my best wishes for your upcoming ventures.

Jayanthy!

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