Vritant

Book Review

Story is based on a “Joshi” Family ancestry. It is not a novel because it does not have any Hero, Heroin, bad guy characters but it is a fictional story based on his readings on many biographies of “common people” and real Joshi ancestry. This book depicts almost 150 years of history and life experiences of “Joshi” family ancestry. The author always focused on biographies of ordinary people versus well known people. He always believed that we learn the reality of life including bitter truths more from ordinary people verses well-known people because they never fabricate their stories and it always comes from their hearts. The time period which he has covered in this book is very important time period of Indian history. The time span started with end of Peshwai (Nana Saheb Peshwa) up until India’s independence.

The book starts with a very interesting story of a very ordinary man the author himself whose name was “ Jayant Joshi”. He worked very hard for 30 years just like his father and grandfather. The only wish he always had all his life was to own a small place in city like Mumbai and stay there happily along with his wife and two children after his retirement. When he retired from 30 years of long service in a bank his own home became an empty prison for him. He thought about traveling, reading books but nothing excited him anymore. He started getting really bored with his retired life and one day suddenly he received a letter of invitation for going to a small village in Kokan called “Velneswar”. The name of the person who sent this letter was “Shridhar Joshi”. His 90 years old father “Bhikaji Joshi” wanted to celebrate his birthday with members of “Joshi” family with whom they can get hold of. That letter changed his life completely and he suddenly started feeling close to his distant blood relatives from “Joshi” family all over the world. He started feeling great respect for his original ancestor “Mr. Ganesh bhat Joshi” when he found out that he came to the city about 200 years ago leaving his ancestor home at “velneswar” behind along with Balaji Vishwanath Bhat who was the first Peshwa. He felt he was the most important person within Joshi heritage because he was the person who brought “Joshi” people to cities and gave them opportunities to explore the world.

When Mr. Jayant Joshi visited his ancestor house at “Velneswar” to celebrate Birthday of 90 years old “Bhikaji Joshi” he felt like it was his own home and he truly belonged there. No body from his previous two generation had come to this house before and he considered himself very lucky and fortunate to get that chance. There he meets many other “Joshi” families who were invited and who came from many different places. Mr. Bhikaji Joshi was a retired professor and after his retirement he started collecting many documents, letters, writings about his Joshi family ancestors. He had 150 years old collection of stories from many people whose surname was “Joshi”. Shrikant Joshi found him very enthusiastic and studious fellow and he started showing interest in his work. He thought Mr. Bhikaji Joshi was doing very important work for all of the Joshi family members all over the world.