Title: Sadhana, Who Stalked Her?
Author: Spandana Chakradhar
Publisher: Write India
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
First Publication: February 2019
Language: English
Setting place(s) of the story: India (New Delhi, Hyderabad) and Australia
Protagonist: Sadhana
Antagonist: Stalker.
Main characters: Abhinav, Manav, Stalker, Vani and Wasim.
Narration type: Third person/ Dialogues driven
Book Summary: Sadhana, Who Stalked her?
Sadhana, goes to a new city to earn a living. The young ingenious and intuitive girl works her finger to the bone to establish herself in a multinational company.
Just when her life is moving in the right direction unforeseen incidents crumble the ground beneath her. Someone begins stalking her. He scares her, torments her and intoxicates her…Who is he? What does he want?
Swamped in fear and despair, she curses her jinxed fate. She gets more and more despondent each day. Soon, her dignity and her character are at stake!
While, the Fast and Furious, Abhinav teaches her self-compassion and protects her image in the society, The Suave and Chivalrous, Manav gives her the confidence to fight through her adversities.
Displaying colossal courage and unflinching determination in solving her issues by herself, Sadhana leaves no stone unturned to trace her unknown creepy stalker.
How long can she wait for a hero to save her? How long can she suffer?
What does she need? Or she needs to be her own hero?
Book Review: Sadhana, Who Stalked Her?
Women are raised to routinely fear.
“If you go at night, take a friend.” “Check under the car and in your backseat before you get in.” “I’m just saying it’s a good idea to know where the exits are.” “I got you this whistle for your key chain, you know, just so you have it.” “You were an hour late than I thought you’d be! We called the police!” “Oh, that’s pepper spray; I keep it with me just in case.” “I just make sure I get my keys out and check for other weapons if I’m getting off work late.” “Is this weird? I live alone and I’m going running, so if I don’t call you by 11:15, call the police, okay?”
A woman who fights back – no, a woman who argues at all – does so knowing it will probably make her a social pariah.
And there is good reason women are raised to fear rape, and raised not to fight back: survival. Women know that if they walk alone in the dark, statistically there is a good chance they will get raped. If they go to the wrong party, they’ll be mishandled. If they misread that boy next door and his wellness is a con, betrayed. And when a person is in a position of being systematically controlled, it often does cause more physical or emotional damage to fight back. It’s not right, but it is real.
I have to say, though, that while I think it is realistic to say that women are raised to fear and to incorporate that “fear of men” into their daily routine, and that sometimes fighting back makes things more dangerous, I do not believe it is effective to live in fear or to encourage women to live in fear or not defend themselves. I think that perpetuates an idea that women are powerless, which then encourages women to freeze up when encountered with violence or even conflict. Trusting their instincts and learning martial arts is probably more productive.
That seems like the approach this book, Sadhana, Who Stalked Her, takes, though it more directly simply reflects, with appropriate outrage, on the levels of male contempt for women. And I think , the way it is directed to men, it is about how gross contempt for women is, whether it takes the form of self-absorption or sadism.
This book, Sadhana, Who Stalked Her?, is smart. It is symmetrical in its execution in many ways.
Sadhana’s character is smart. She is both the outcast that women are when they fight back, and she is something of the misunderstood-bad-boy hero turned girl. I liked that. Sadhana is awesome and badass, no doubt there, but this book is so much more than just her story, and focusing solely on that undermines the message author, Spandana Chakradhar, was sending.
