Gods of Willow- Amrish Kumar

 'Gods of Willow - A Coming of Age Innings' by Amrish Kumar has a theme that caught my attention immediately. Its a story of a college going boy from Hyderabad who loves his cricket, friends, and all things that college going kids love, loses his illusions in the aftermath of communal disharmony, starts life afresh and finds redemption. Now cricket, Hyderabad and Mumbai are familiar areas and I dove into the book without any further ado.

The story is about Kabir Menon who aspires to make university grade cricket. He has two bum chums Mustafa and Sameer. Kabir also falls in love with Sahiba a Muslim girl known to Mustafa. Then communal disharmony, college politics, their coach getting thrown out, Kabir under question, Sameer being right wing, Sahiba not going against her family's wishes cause Kabir to head off to distant Mumbai to start life afresh.

Here he finds a job, love, gets over his own disillusionment and finds that the fortunes of the Indian cricket team or rather of world cricket, teach him lessons and guide him along. In the end, alls well and that ends well.

This is Amrish Kumar's first novel and its an interesting theme considering that he is a entrepreneur who has started several companies and was MD of the fashion brand Ritu Kumar. It is written in a simple, accessible style, the characters are easy to identify with as are their dilemmas. 'Gods of Willow' is a valuable and welcome addition to the short list of cricket fiction in India.