Sunaina Joshi is a reporter with a news channel covering urban centric health related issues, but her heart is with the great outdoors and she keeps submitting proposal after proposal for reporting on wildlife and environmental related issues. She gets a great opportunity when her news channel is commissioned to run a campaign on tiger conservation, featuring a Bollywood actor trying to resurrect his image after a scandal.
There are clear parallels between the protagonist and the author, Gargi Rawat, who has been reporting on the environment and wildlife conversation for many years, and she uses the novel to create awareness about wildlife conservation, the role of the forest department (especially the forest guards), responsible wildlife tourism and the need to understand the the nature of man-tiger conflict before commenting on it. Many animal lovers (me included) have signed petition, retweeted hashtags and otherwise agitated for saving individual tigers, without understanding of the backdrop against which most of these conversations play out. By integrating it into the storyline of the novel and using that to develop the story arc, the author personalises the issue and ensures that we understand it in a manner which we might otherwise not have.
While wildlife conservation the soul of the novel, the author also touches on several other issues- the fickleness of social media, activism for sale, the intrusive nature of media, even expectations from and guilt of children!
There is also a romance- the character starts out as a Mr. Darcy, but it is impossible not to love someone who apologises as often and as honestly as he does. The protagonist is entirely believable and loveable- that she is fuelled by her passion and coffee makes her a firm favourite of mine. There is a large cast of characters, but they are all so human that it is impossible to dislike any of them.
Overall, it was an enjoyable book- an entirely “unpreachy” one.
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