Bloody Dreams by Gopinath Lakshmanan is an unusual novel on the jaded life phases of women from the Indian society. The making of this society is such that patriarchy is deep rooted; parents when bestowed with a male child forgets the gender equality and raises the child as he has already got a dominance in heaven.

Bloody Dreams features same pain through two characters that is same. Rajeev is that boisterous ego-centric male child who listens nothing to bend women for his petty ego, which he got from the society, family, and his father. On the other hand, Rajee is that wretched girl, who feels the empty void of life’s jaded jinxes and male prejudice.

Two characters! Two worlds! Same pain of women! The subjects change but soul is same. In the real world, Rajeev wrecks havoc on his girlfriend Divya. And in the other world, Rajeev becomes a girl known as Rajee – and she has to bear the suffering caused by men. Both worlds are different. Rajeev is same with no erased memory. And Divya is a witness in both worlds. One by one, both Rajee and Divya deal with the social and economical complexity of feminism, assault, activism, marriage, and love. The walls of their exhausted reality close in on them as they fumble their way through challenges laden with good intentions and misguided life lessons.

Bloody Dreams is a zigzag page-turner and tries to peak nonchalantly into women’s daily lives. Rajee part may remind you of some old movies that portray a kaleidoscope of female life on the canvas of world’s patriarch society. The author facilitates a lens to zoom into the common life issues of marginal women of our country. The novel reading is like a deep dive in their lives at times through Radha, Rajee, Divya and her roommates. You may feel like the book may an ode to women. The novel is not like any other thriller or any novel, Rajee’s mayhem gives a whole other kind of experience.

This book makes you laugh, cry, and be thoughtful in a different manner. The nuances of city’s daily life he served with sprinkles of raw and rustic humor and this raw style may steal your heart away. Every character is well-developed and well-rooted to the plot. Rajeev, Iniyan, Abdul, and Ranjan, all are magnificent examples of the people who live outside our views and the author sees their lives through a new lens. The author narrates his story with the perfect amount of paper and salt! Terrific and well placed.