THE VIRTUALS

is novel ki shuruat hoti hai ek railway platfarm ke ek anath ladke se jiska naam peat hai..wohi is story ka hero hai ..jaise jaise kahani aage badti hai waise waise hi peat ka evolution bhi hota jata hai..sabse mast isme giddu naam ke character ne play kiya hai jiske action and thinking mujhe sabse craziest and action packed lage asie lage jaise ki wo koi doggy na hokara ek superhero hai...

The Virtuals is awesome, and not just virtually but actually. Back in 90s RC used to release a set every month. Each set had either a Dhruva or a nagraj digest, sometimes a multi hero digest. Then there were fighter toads too. Basically Anupam Sinha sir was coming up with minimum 1-2 digests every month. I always wondered how is it possible for a man to think, write and illustrate a comic every month. will there ever be a day when he will be short of a story, when he will have no story to tell, but then he came up with this and then he has negatives in pipeline and the sequel to Virtuals has already been announced. No. Anupam sir will never be short of a story to tell. I'm not a very avid novel reader. The only novels that I've read before are The Godfather, dan brown's Robert Langdon trilogy and Chetan bhagat's books. So this is my first sci-fi novel. Actually it's not sci-fi. There is no science in it. It's not even philosophical because I find that stuff preachy and boring and it wasn't boring, neither it tried to preach. It wasn't religious coz I never came across any words like Hindu or Muslim or Christian throughout the story. It's sort of a 'thought-stirring' fiction. Watching The Monk's actions throughout the story I wondered, is God really so evil? Why couldn't god create a perfect world? Is God selfish? Does he make us suffer so that we can pray and follow him? So that we always feel that we need HIM? I mean who would need or remember God in a perfect world? The story is so very Indian. It has roots in ancient Indian science of yoga and meditation. Indriyan, Chetna, Conscience. Kuch din pehle main apne nana se bat kar raha tha. I respect him very much. He is really intelligent and a well read man. He always share his wisdom with me whenever we are together on any topic he finds the will to talk on that day. Be it my career, future, or family matters, handling relationships, be it humanity, religion, philosophy or history. On that particular day he was wearing his religious/philosophical hat. He said to me, beta I don't believe in God. Ye itna vishal brahmand aise hi to nai bana hoga. koi energy, koi shakti to ise chala rahi hai. But Ye ram, krushna, Allah, etc., these are just figment of our imagination. We can't worship thin air. We need something solid, something we can see and touch to worship, so we created God's images and shapes acc. To our liking. Main to ye maanta hun ki raam, Krishna kuch nahi hai. Bas ek vishal chetna hai. Is chetna ka koi chehra nahi hai. Aur hum Sab jeevon me bhi usi chetna ka ek ansh hai. Aur Marne k bad wo chetna apne sharir se nikal kar us vishal chetna me sama jati hai. I was bummed. I was midway through The Virtuals then, I was like, whoa, nana is saying exactly the same thing that I read in the Virtuals. At the same time my thoughts went out to all those old religious tv shows jahan Bhagwan raam ya Krishna kisi paapi ko maarte the and then unke sharir me se ek lau nikal kar Bhagwan k sharir me sama jati thi. The Higher Conscience. The Virtuals definitely was thought stirring. But it didn't impose those thoughts on us. It isn't preachy. It is an interesting fictional entertainer which also stirs our thoughts. Coming to the story itself, I liked every sequence and scene in it. If I sit and try to explain which sequences I liked and what I liked in it, I guess my review would become 400 pages long. So I won't attempt that. All I would say is that the explanation to every fight sequence was so vivid, I could imagine it happening inside my own head. I realised, that this is how Dhruva and Mahamanav fight with each other. Anupam sir used to illustrate those mental fights in Dhruva comics, now he vividly and expertly explained that stuff without any illustration. Now I understand that if Mahamanav hits Dhruva with a mental fist, it doesn't mean that the mental fist is actually visible. He just feels it inside his head. That anupam sir has to draw that fist for illustration purpose is a different thing. I especially loved the sequence involving Malt Wisney. I liked all the characters. I liked Kish the most. His characters had the most shades and layers. Kish's mysterious appearances and interactions with Sonya was my favourite part of the story. The way the story was shaping up, I was scared that Kish would either turn villainous or probably die. I kept praying don't do either of that. I liked Druk too. I hope they don't get overshadowed by Peat in Omni. I hope they both get nice and lengthy part in Omni. If a movie is ever made on The Virtuals, I could imagine ranbir kapur playing Kish and Hrithik playing Druk. Earlier during Kulawa and Peat confrontation, I felt that why did he have to write a novel for it. He could have very well shown the same fight in a Dhruva comic. But as I went on, I realised that the canvas of the story was too big to be contained in a 60 page comic or even a 4 parter comic series. I wasn't really happy that anupam sir stopped working on Dhruva for writing a novel, but now I'm happy that it all culminated to the Virtuals. Now I've both Dhruva comics as well as a great entertaining novel. Now I've no issues with Anupam sir working on Omni. In fact I'm looking forward to The Omni. In fact I'm actually happy for Dhruva. Hindi literature has its limitations. But English is a universal language. Major part of the world or even India has never read raj comics but I'm sure this Novel will be read world over. So I was glad that anupam sir mentioned Dhruva in his preface. Many ppl who never heard about him before would probably google/wiki Dhruva. I hope it will give India's best superhero some more recognition. I hope in coming couple of years, there will be a sci-fi movie on Virtuals. And I hope that it will draw Bollywood's attention to Dhruva as well. A couple of complaints to Anupam sir- 1. Editing - the book needs a stronger editing. Almost every chapter has on an average 2-3 typos/misspelling/grammar errors. I'm not a very avid novel reader. So I don't know if every novel has it, but please next time there is scope of tighter editing. 2. There was nothing to please the Dhruva fanboys like me. I was hoping for some subtle reference, a nod to indulge fanboys. There was none. :( 3. If possible, please increase the number of chapters. It makes reading and taking breaks easier. In every chapter there were many events that had nothing to do with the title of the chapter. If you can't increase chapters, at least you can introduce sub-sections in every chapter, lets say, separating one scene/sub-section from another by a *** or any other such section break. That makes it easier to read. I don't like getting up in between chapters. No drinks break or even toilet break. I prefer reading a single chapter in single sitting. Increasing no. Of chapters would make it easier to take breaks and also make reading interesting. I was kinda hoping that you could have shown a kid on platform reading a Dhruva comics, or even during the prologue, you could have described the biker virtual as someone wearing a blue costume with yellow leotard looking like a stunt biker coming right out of a circus show. Artwork pe rating kaise dun?? ok, i can rate the cover and probably some concept arts for the Virtuals that Anupam sir has posted on facebook.