Beyond The Horizon – A young girl’s fall & re-emergence as a victor!

At the time, when the foundations of Western philosophies were being laid down in the ancient Greece, Plato made it clear that in his state a philosopher- irrespective of gender, will be the ruler. Thus, bringing the status of women at par with men.

But at the same time, his disciple – Aristotle defined women to be another piece of furniture in one’s home. Ever since then, women along with her rights and status in society has been a bone of contention between the scholars, philosophers and others.

It is this struggle of women, which brought into action some revolutionary moments of global orientation in order to fight the menace of chauvinism and enter the magical sphere of equality, liberty and fraternity. But doing this, women have faced a stiff resistance from the society which has been patriarchal in its texture and every possible effort was invested to nip such processes of female empowerment in the early hours.

The result of such tussle is seen in the growth of some brave heart girls like Nivara Desai – the protagonist in the novel “Beyond The Horizon” by Samrudhi Dash.

The book apparently talks about many ills and vices that a women faces in the strict patriarchal society of India and highlights their plight after being victimized by the antiquated codifications of our society.

Beyond The Horizon is an interesting story of a young girl – her dreams, her fall and re-emergence as a victor.

The book has been written in three parts corresponding to three stages of Nivara’s life. The first part introduces the protagonist as a born fighter, who against all odds fights her way to the prestigious campus of JNU – her dream university, where she enjoys her life to the fullest but her valor gets thwarted by a chronic disease and is unable to deliver up to her expectations. But she manages to defeat the disease and with flying colors finishes her course at JNU.

Then in the second part of the novel, Nivi seeks her career in the civil services and wants to join IFS and she works tooth and nail to get her dream accomplished but her life is hit by an unspeakable tragedy – she falls in love with a boy named Aryan, who despite being decent and very caring breaks her heart on the pretext that he finds her over ambitious in love.

The lessons taught by life had made Nivara much more mature than any other lady of her age and she had already learnt to tame the pain and convert it into her strength. But still the reminisces of the days past excruciated her in the lonely nights and that’s what caused her to versify her pain on the paper to which she calls her 3 AM thoughts.

The breakup shatters her life completely and she fights her seclusion by taking overdoses of sleeping pills as she had no one to share her agony with. Nivara even makes an unsuccessful attempt to take her own life when the burden of unrequited love seems un-affordable to her.

Then the third part deals with the rise of a brave young lady who decides to keep the pace of life at par with the ticking of clock and accept the fate in good spirit.

The lessons taught by life had made Nivara much more mature than any other lady of her age and she had already learnt to tame the pain and convert it into her strength. But still the reminisces of the days past excruciated her in the lonely nights and that’s what caused her to versify her pain on the paper to which she calls her 3 AM thoughts.

It’s this fretful journey from a meek heart and gullible girl to a mature and experienced young lady that earns for her a worldwide fame, that’s what can be considered her flight Beyond The Horizon.

But her tragic death in the end spoils the mood of the reader and is totally out of context and unwanted to such an inspirational story which can be summed up in three words – adopt, improvise and overcome.