Book Review: The Other Side by Faraaz Kazi: Everybody is a Book of Blood

Horror is usually not the genre that I like to read but there have been exceptions in the past that I read and liked them and so is the case with The Other Side ... Dare To Visit Alone by Faraaz Kazi and Vivek Banerjee. Human tendency is more to opt for good side of anything specially when it comes to a road which is to be traveled alone. Good is not always good and bad is not always bad. Also good is not always real, and the other side gives you a better insight, better perspective, and a little more to ponder upon than the routine life.

The Other Side by Faraaz Kazi and Vivek Banerjee published by Mahaveer Publishers is a 320 pages and 13 stories book. Each story takes you to a different angle of life and makes you think in a different manner to look at it depending on the amount of gravity of subject you have been able to grasp while reading each one of them. For instance one of the story is about a young newly married couple living in a remote area where population of transport and human is very low. Nikhil is a doctor who has got transferred to a remote village and Lavanya is his newly wed wife. One night Nikhil encounters a man on a lonely road while travelling along with Lavanya in their car. The main standing on the side of a dark and isolated road requests Nikhil to attend to his wife who is in very serious condition and needs an urgent medical attention. Nikhil and Lavanya visit the old house on a barren land and Nikhil attends to that old lady. The old couple in return give a valuable gift to Lavanya. But when Nikhil and Lavanya visited the same place after a few days, it was entirely a different situation for both of them that was more than enough to get shocked.

Similarly we have another story where a newly wed couple decides to go for a weekend to a hill station. Sachin decided to take Shikha on bike to the hill station to spend their weekend and revive back their good old days back where they used to love each other like anything. The weather goes nasty but still the couple is able to reach to their destination to spend few moments of love between them. Just one connection that I failed to correlate between the spirit Ranjit Singh that was invited by Tanya to answer the queries of Shikha and Sanjana and Ranjit who met the couple (Shikha and Sachin) on the hill station. May be there was no link but then why the author used same name and for what purpose... could not find out.

The 13 short stories are definitely going to take your mind and heart for a toss, to get you into a different kind of inquisitive and introspective mode. The Other Side by Faraaz Kazi and Vivek Banerjee is definitely an off-stream and a different kind of book comprising horror stories that make you THINK.