Book Review: Pinto has an idea
PINTO AND HIS PHENOMENAL INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THINGS COMMONPLACE
Book: Pinto has an idea
Author: Rajeev Saxena
Do you want to read a book that has a humorous way of showing you how to deal with practical everyday problems? Are you also one who imagines scientists to only have fuzzy hair and not much of a family life? Can you picturize a scientist romancing with his love interest? What happens when a scientist forays into politics? These are instances which will surely lead to interesting and humorous ripples when they happen in real life. But what happens when they are incorporated into a fictional book. That will surely make for an interesting read. Author Rajeev Saxena comes up with such a book “Pinto has an idea” which is an interesting take on a scientist’s ideas and innovation prowess to solve day to day problems of people, which interestingly also get political leverage when this scientist enters politics.
The storyline revolves around the protagonist Rajat Srivastava or Pinto, as he is lovingly called. Pinto has from his childhood been an out-of-the box thinker, finding solutions in his everyday surroundings to myriad global problems. He invents a certain machine in his childhood which makes him a hero in the village, but people have apprehensions to his pursuing a career in hardcore science and he gets discouraged by many naysayers. This small-town boy then goes on to be an IITian and a scientist working in MIT, becoming Dr. Pinto, but he suddenly experiences a life-changing revelation in the early days of his research and decides to leave his work on theoretical physics and sets out to solve the practical everyday problems of the world he lives in.
Pinto then returns to his native India, where he finds his noble quest beset by unexpected adversaries, obstacles and trials; but he emerges triumphant from each battle. He also does not like to appear a romantic person, but when his childhood sweetheart Lavanya returns to haunt his life and shoe-horns him into marriage, he obligingly falls in love. This is because Lavanya is not just a pretty face; she’s also his partner in research. Pinto too, being a newbie in romance, falls head over heels over her. But life takes a different turn. Pinto is on the road to become rich and famous and invents a mechanism to eradicate corruption in the land, entering politics in that process. But this impinges on the couple’s relationship so severely that Lavanya disappears suddenly without telling Pinto. What has Pinto done that Lavanya takes such a step? Why does she leave their child with him? Will he lose his greatest ‘idea’, Lavanya and himself? The storyline then goes on to answer these questions.
The front cover of the book shows an image of a face with machine parts on his head, which depicts the constant rolling wheels of Pinto’s mind leading to a continuous stream of ideas. The book cover is very apt considering the story and will certainly go down well with readers and also spark their interest in the book. The blurb on the back cover is well written with only relevant details required to provide a gist of the plot, talking not much about what his innovations are.
The writing style of the story is good, being filled with various humorous scenes and relatable characters, with elements of ingenuous and surprising ideas thrown in. However, in the quest of finding numerous ideas for Pinto to act upon, a lot of simple ideas have also detailed in the book which are not very original or could’ve been thought by a lay person too. Also, the book is titled “Pinto has an idea”, but Pinto has not one but many ideas, which becomes annoying at times and even brings certain monotony to the plot. The character of Pinto is somewhat of the introvert scientist who is in his own world spinning ideas; but it is his dedication to act upon those ideas and bring them to fruition for solving the common man’s problems that seems to catch the reader’s heart. Also, the combination of a scientist and a politician described in the book, with scientific solutions for political problems, calls for numerous hearty laughs.
The book is a fictional story, so some situations seem impractical and some artistic liberties have also been taken for elements of humour and sarcasm. But various social issues have been raised in the book in an interesting manner, which will certainly make the readers ponder about the implications some out-of-the box solutions have. This is a book that lingers in the mind for long, for all the right reasons. And so does the character of Pinto. Readers will find the character of Pinto to be interesting, helpful and definitely genuine; and in their imaginative bubbles will also think of finding such solutions and ideas. Or in their imagination, they can go to Pinto. And Pinto will give them ideas. Pinto-style.