Death of a Gentleman

Death of a Gentleman
by Riva Razdan
Published by Penguin Ebury 2025

Yuvraaj, Saarika, Sanjanaa…

I am not very sure if the author was quite inspired by Indian K-dramas or a certain KJo for her to have specifically added an extra ‘a’ to all the character names in the book or maybe she was told by an numerologist to do the needful for a good measure of luck and readership. However, that should not have been the first thing to notice while reading. I am not overly critical by nature and do like to give due credit to authors who put in so much of work. I am after all a diligent reviewer and editor – bound to my job to see the slightest deviation to normal usage of
the English alphabets.

Apart from this small observation, comes the story of Mumbai elites and their lives. Yuvraaj Khanna is going to become a millionaire. Soon. His grocery delivery app, launched in the dire times of Covid has done stupendously and now he is waiting to expand his operations. But, life was not kind to him and his mother. His father, a hotelier by profession chose to abandon a young Yuvraaj, literally having them on the streets. Witnessing the hardships of life, Yuvraaj, not only focused on becoming successful but also silently taking revenge by becoming a name people would recognize. Unfortunately, Rana Khanna falls dead one evening, when he was partying with his philanderer son and demanding wife. What caused the heart attack? Bad life style, failing business, emotional baggage or simple rage? These questions were being asked to Yuvraaj as he gave a hard-hitting and candid interview and declared that he was out to see his estranged father in the dumps. And dead.

Is Yuvraaj responsible for this death? What secrets are keeping Yuvraaj from seeing the success he so desperately wants? Will his love life be affected by the investigation? Many such questions come to mind.

I would have liked some parts of the book to be more crisp and not pull the story line so much. While I understand the circumstances that led characters to be the way they have been portrayed in the book, I would have liked the author to be less filmy and dramatic, if I can say so. That said, none of us ever like to give up on a good story line. I kept turning the pages automatically wanting to know the story unfolded. Did the characters get their due? Do all stories have a happy ending, after all? Stories are our essence. It is how we tell stories that shape our conversations. And this book is nothing short of an evening’s worth of conversation over chai and gupshup.