#BookReview ; Co-Wife by Pradipta Panda

Pradipta Panda, in his book, 'Co-wife' on the LGBT community, poignantly captures the pathos, the problems and the mental trauma faced by the LGBT community. His story revolves around the relationship of a straight woman, Pranami and a gay man, Manav, whom she loves. Manav is a bisexual and a crusader of the LGBT community.The story through real life stories of gays and lesbians brings to light their experiences and raison d'etre for choosing to love, live life, and have sex with partners of the same sex. Pranami is caught in a web of conflict and deceit-will she succeed in her dream of being able to marry Manav? Or will he choose to remain gay? Or will her brother, also a gay, succeed in his scheme of marrying her off to his gay lover to get hold of her property? Will a society that criminalizes the LGBT community accept their marriage, even if it happens? Will the LGBT community ever get justice and peace to fit into society? The term wife is self-explanatory and needs no definition. However, what and who is a co-wife? What does this term signify? Read 'Co-wife' to understand-the mystery behind a co-wife-and the ethos of the LGBT community."

Co-Wife is the third book written by Pradipta Panda, published by Leadstart Publications. The author was born in 1976, his last two books “Under One Roof” & “In God’s Wishlist” were very successful. He has completed his post-graduation in Journalism & MBA in HR. Presently he is working at Bank of India.

The story has 3 main characters, Manav Agarwal, Pranami Sharma & Vardhman Kalra. Pranami is a straight woman who is in love with her childhood friend Manav, who happens to be bisexual & wants to revolutionize the LGBT community of India but Manav loves another man named Vardhman who is gay himself but loves Pranami. As Pranami & Manav grew up together their relationship grew stronger & even when she came to know that Manav loves another man her love for him never decreased, she tried to understand the LGBT community thinking it would help her understand him more & rekindle the love they had for each other but it results to nothing. The complexity of the situation increases as it becomes a love triangle, but this isn’t the end! Pranami’s brother who is also gay faces bankruptcy & plans to get his lover married to her in order to acquire her property. Will Pranami get the love of her life or will she get entangled into the web of deceit her brother has planned for her, to know all this buy the book here.

First of all I would like to congratulate the author for picking up a topic which most writers keep themselves away from just because its a bit controversial. Mr Panda successfully builds up a story around the problems & trauma LGBT community goes through & how sometimes people around them suffer too. The title is chosen quite wisely which guides the reader towards the kind of the story its going to be, also the cover is simple yet elegant. The story in all is very good but unfortunately diminished & destroyed by poor editing, there are infinite mistakes, missing inverted commas, etc. For a book which is 381 pages long it needs to keep the reader interested which though the story did but the editing threw me miles away. Readers interested in a different kind of read should surely pick it up.