My rating: 4 of 5 stars
After reading Under the Jewelled Sky by Alison McQueen, I can't stop myself from quoting Rumi, the Persian poet's remarkable words,
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and right doing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
If I've to express the book, Under the Jewelled Sky in few short words, then I would say:
Painful, raw and deeply moving!
Synopsis:
Let's move back to the time when India has got the power to overthrow the highly acclaimed British Empire from their land- the year is 1947! A sweet, innocent and pure love story blossoms between an English girl and an Indian servant boy inside a hugely lavish palace in Jaipur on the very day on India's independence.
Fast forward to 10years later, when we see that English girl Sophie getting married to a diplomat and settling back in New Delhi- the country which makes her heart skip a beat, to a country where she hid all her sweet memories in her closet of past dreams and hopes. Sophie's doctor father lives in Ooty and knows all about her fragile heart, but will she be able to keep her heart in place to make it work with her new husband? Has Sophie's heart stopped aching from the previous pain? Will the past haunt her upon her arrival to the country which made her feel the passion of a first love?
Can you feel the pain? Amidst of India's independence and peak of a new horizon, a love story blossoms, which will only make your heart flutter with joy! And the innocence of it might touch your heart and is bound to make you remember all the flames of your first love! What a bliss!
Let's talk about the setting- India- my country! But if I now start judging the book from an Indian POV, I would rate the book quite critically, since the author, who is too a British women, might have commented on certain stuffs about our country, that erupted a fire inside me! But to be honest, whatever she commented about India- was true! She has the brilliance in her words to capture such a colorful and culturally vast country! From her descriptions about The First Maharani's boasting to her demeanor to the clashes between Hindu and Muslims during the partition to the newly formed Government under Pt, Jawaharlal Nehru to the dusty roads that lead to the villages, everything- the author has made it alive with her words.
Her characters are coming from different cultures- some Catholic, Hindu, Christian, Muslim- am I leaving out anything else? It's quite rare that you come across such characters in your everyday novels that come from different backgrounds and strike you as the most relatable ones! Jag- the Indian boy represents his country- India. Sophie and Lucien represent England. Likewise, via this book you get to travel into so many unknown lands, get to know about so many forgotten stories!
Indeed Alison McQueen is a brilliant author since she has made her plot into a compelling tale with a medium-fast pace and a smooth flow of narration. And in the end, I swear that the book left me in tears. The story touched my heart so deeply, that it might take quite a while for me to get out of the aura of this book! But still somewhere, the book failed to irk the interest in me! In some places, the book became pretty boring!
Verdict: Do read this book to relive those moments when a country gained its first freedom and when a girl and boy falls in love for the first time in their life and starts to explore the depths of their passion under a brightly-lit sky!
Courtesy: All thanks to the author, Alison McQueen, for sending me over the copy of her book, in return for an honest review.
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