Story of Tublu by Jahid Akhtar

Story of Tublu by Jahid Akhtar is all about the “amazing journey called life” of an Assamese village boy known as Tublu (real name Tanmay). Jahid Akhtar is a well known blogger and he took on writing through his blogging habit. I am used to go through his blog quite often and really find his blog post quite engaging. The fluency in his writing is very much there in his debut novel the “Story of Tublu.”

Jahid Akhtar has a very simple tone in his writing that attracts me the most. In his debut novel, he has set the backdrop of the story in the 1980s, where a devastating flood has taken away everything from Bipin and his son Tublu. They are fortunate enough to get shelter from kind hearted man Mr. Sharma, who not only gave them shelter, but also helped them to become self sufficient. In no time a strong bond has been developed between Mr. Sharma and both Bipin & Tublu. They came really close together and this bonding between the two families never fades away.

There is another angle of the relationship within these two families. Tublu always has a soft corner for Maina, the daughter of Mr. Sharma from his childhood days, but he never disclosed it. He always imagines about Maina in his fantasy and dreams. Maina though sometimes got some faint hint about Tublu’s feelings for her, could not think about it further as there are distinct cultural, social and economical differences between the two families.

With time the characters of the story changes and both Tublu and Maina experience their life outside the small town. This changes the way they think, their meaning of happiness, their friendship and take on life. But, among all this natural development in life, one thing never changed, that is the love for each other between Maina and Tublu. In fact, the love between them got stronger day by day.

It is a pleasure to read the life of Tublu in his college days that reminds me the college days of myself. The chatting with friends, the mischief behaviours and the studies were depicted so well by the writer. 

Similarly, other characters of the story were equally well dealt with the author. The characters like Bipin, Mr. Sharma, Paplu (the brother of Maina) were all quite powerfully made. Another character that appeared for short duration, but surely will touch everybody’s heart is Shilpa. 

The Story of Tublu will definitely touch your heart as a nice emotional novel written in a simple and lucid language. The author really has done extremely well to hook the readers, even with a simpler plot without any dramatic twist. Though the characters suffered a bit of lack in depth and somehow you will feel they are too simple for the modern world. It may be because of the simple nature of the writer. There are also issues with poor editing, but these are all minor things and did not hamper the actual flow of the story.

Overall, I am very much impressed with the debut effort by the author Jahid Akhtar and will definitely suggest everyone to grab a copy from Flipkart or Amazon.