Crossing the Mirage: Passing through Youth

by B.S. Murthy

If passing through youth was like crossing the mirage of life for Chandra and Nithya, it proved to be chasing the mirage of love for Sathya and Prema though for plain Vasavi, Chandra's pitiable sibling, it was the end of the road.

As life brings Chandra, who suffers from an inferiority complex for his perceived ugliness, and Nithya, who was bogged down being jilted by Vasu, together, they script their fate of fulfillment.

And as poetic justice would have it, Sathya, who caused Prema's heartburn, himself was led down the garden path by Kala, doing a Sathya on Sathya.

Just not that, life has in store just deserts for Vasu owing to Nithya's retribution as he tries to stalk her. Besides, after many a fictional twist and turn, the way the story ends, challenges the perception that fact is stranger than fiction.

Signposts in this book

Shackles on Psyche
End of the Tether
Burden of Freedom
Onto the Turf
Respite by Death
Lessons of Life
Naivety of Love
Dilemma of Disclosure
Perils of Youth
Absurd Proposal
Crossing the Mirage
Setting the Pace
Oasis of Bliss
Busy bees in Honeycomb
Twist in the Tale
Love in the Bind
Turn for the Worse
Shadows to the Fore
Spurring on to Err
Tempting the Fate
Stooping to Conquer
Fouling the Soul
Poetic Justice
Agony of Penitence
Embrace of Love
Life of a Kind
Just deserts

Links to the free ebook
Google Book https://books.google.co.in/books?id=E...
Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press http://www.gutenberg.us/eBooks/WPLBN0...?
Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/6140582...

ebook

Published November 7, 2014

About the author

I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and having been schooled in letter-writing, in my mid thirties, I happened to articulate my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Besides Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), a ‘novel’ narrative, possibly in a new genre, and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) in the arena of non-fiction, my literary endeavours in the translation zone had been the versification of the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey in contemporary English idiom,
Later, as a prodigal son, I took to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps)
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
MY body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://www.google.com/search?q=bs+mu...
More over, some of my articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs published in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com are reproduced in Academia.edu
https://independent.academia.edu/Bulu...
I, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor from 1986 - 2021.
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More about me in "My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility" https://g.co/kgs/6z2djV

Reviews

[Brandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book...what is there to say...

I really love the Characters in this book along with their lives and back stories that have been brought to light by the author. It seems just as you get to know a character in this book the author lets you get to know them by telling you a story from their past that makes you understand why they are the way they are. I loved this.....

I hated that throughout the entire book the Author decided that he needed to psychoanalyze his characters with psychobabble explaining why they feel the way they feel when they feel it. It really is a tedious book to read until you get hooked around page 60....however considering there are only 119 pages in the download of the book I find it a little tiring.

If you can get through all of the ridiculous babble in the book and look through to the characters it really is a good story. You just have to look past the authors way of writing. It really was a useless first half of the book. It was almost as if he read a psychology book and decided to add all the big words from it.

Good luck and as always enjoy :)

[Rajuda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading 'Crossing the Mirage' close on the heels of Mr B S Murthy's giveaway: 'Benign Flame'.

Both novels portray relationships traditional, yet vulnerable to rousing flames of sensuousness and passion. The author having immaculate command over the language, treats such intimate encounters to a rare demonstration of narrative aesthetics and decency.

This commonality aside, I found 'Crossing the Mirage' engaging my imagination in a way more striking than 'Benign Flame' in terms of its editorial dimension and character integration. Such was its overall appeal that I felt the book had sufficient scope for greater visibility and appreciation.