The legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna

"The legend of Lakshmi Prasad" by Twinkle Khanna. This book is published by Juggernaut in 2016 and has 233 pages. This book contains four stories. 

In 'The legend of Lakshmi Prasad' a village where birth of a daughter is considered liability, a girl named Lakshmi has an idea. She changes it all. How?

In 'Salaam, Noni Appa', Noni, an Ismaili widow, is in a quandary as to weather to give a name to her relationship with Anandji, a Yoga teacher, (both above sixty) or let it remain undefined. What will be her choice?

'If the weather permits' is the story of Elisa who has two unsuccessful marriages while her parents still want her to marry. 

'The sanitary man from a sacred land' is story of Babloo who is passionate about producing low cost sanitary pads for rural women. It shows his struggle, difficulties, ostracization, will power, never give up attitude, tremendous efforts and social engineering. He loses his wife, family, friends and well wishers. He was called blood sucker, vampire, pervert and raving mad but he did not give up. Did he succeed?

Author has consciously decided to take up a different genre. Instead of her tried and tested light hilarious formula, she has ventured into social issues like child discrimination, live-in relationship, societal necessity of marriage and sanitary pads through stories. 

The stories are not bad, but they are not wow either. Since these stories are fictions, they could have been better and more interesting. I doubt if one would remember the book after a few years. 

Twinkle had heightened the expectations of readers and I purchased the book with a lot of anticipation. I expected it to be hilarious or observant or memorable or witty or emotional or brilliant or unputdownable or a combination of some of above. However the book falls short on all counts. 

Although the book is named after the first story, neither is it the largest story of the book nor the most important. Author dedicates the book to Akshay, the friend! That too with a seemingly innocuous but probably meaningful message. 

The book is more than 200 pages long but it uses a large font. Had a normal font been used it would have been about 150 pages long.

Why did I read this book? Author. 

What I didn't like? Blandness. 

What did I like? Author's choice of social causes. 

Give it a miss.