Book Review: Some Mistakes Have No Pardon by Girdhar Joshi: From Rags To Riches And Beyond

I have interacted with the Girdhar Joshi, the author of Some Mistakes Have No Pardon in a video interview here and another interview here. When Girdhar sent me a collection of his pictures for his interview post, there was a very catchy pic of him of his youth days. He looks quite appealing, serious and somewhat like a freedom fighter (having a spark on his face). He has many educational books to his credit related to retail, technology and management and this is his first attempt in the fiction world. In my opinion every author has a unique style of writing though some appear to be inspired by their role models in the arena. Girdhar's style of writing, is not only unique and philosophical but is quite elaborating that displays a deep insight on the subject and story line.

Some Mistakes Have No Pardon is the story of Girish Kainmola, his family, his childhood, his growing years, his marriages, his children, his struggle, his journey (upward and downward), his adversities, his achievements and his MISTAKES. Girish is born in a very poor family where he had no scope of education and a normal growth. The family is struggling everyday to get meal and at times there is a lot of compromise on that front. There is a prediction by a learned man about Girish in a set of phrases and prophecies. Each of the phrase predicted by the learned man about Girish comes true during his whole lifecycle from time to time. 

Some Mistakes Have No Pardon by Girdhar Joshi is a classical, non commercial style, simple and sincere effort by the author which will appeal you as a straight from the heart, introspective, philosophical, honest and slightly scientifically written story of Girish. There is a lot of philosophy from author's end in the story which longs for 424 pages. The story is about Girish who somehow manages to get shelter from various people in his life who supported him to get formal education to a substantial level that helped him to build his career as an entrepreneur. So a guy who starts his life in rags reaches to riches. But like every human being, ego played a big role in Girish's life and that became a prime reason of his downfall after touching the peaks of his life to bring him down to the bottom gradually. Story is quite interesting as the the lead role Girish is not someone with a very clean character and who easily got drifted with the winds of life. He is not able to adjust with his first wife Mala though they had two children - Siyana and Harrit - a daughter and a son respectively. Then Maya Subramaniam comes into his life as a Facebook contact and they both engaged to each other as soul-mates. But due to different opinions about life and relationship, it did not last long against their wishes. Then Tara comes into his life as his second wife who is almost 20 years younger to him. This also did not materialize though.

There are some flaws in Some Mistakes Have No Pardon by Girdhar Joshi on the editing/ proof-reading front where some spelling/adjective/grammatical mistakes (e.g. page 237 wound as wond; page 267 he/she mistake; and A page appears twice thereby intermingling the sequence). The characters seem scattered and having no connect among them. Girish and his mother Parvati - no engagement stays in the story. All of a sudden Girish appears to be a writer with no background or introduction. You need to have a fair amount of patience to read the story that goes over-philosophical to an extent that even if you skip few pages of too descriptive philosophy, you stay intact with the main story. That way story could have been made a bit crispier and the introspection presented by author could be left for readers to analyze in their own way. May be some extent of autobiography has become the part of this fiction.

Overall Some Mistakes Have No Pardon by Girdhar Joshi is an excellent, touchy story of Girish and his extensive/ exhaustive life journey with lots of twists and twirls, passing through ups and downs.