Book Review: Life after MH370 by K S Narendran

Book Name: Life after MH370: Journey Through a Void

Author: K S Narendran

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Rating: 3.9/5

Book Blurb: There are at least 239 stories waiting to be told at length – those of the families of 239 passengers of MH370, how their lives took a turn on March 8th 2014 when MH370 disappeared.
This is the story of one person, Naren, who lost his wife, Chandrika on that flight.
The probability of survivors diminished with each passing day. As the months went by, Naren remained pre-occupied, wrestling over what to believe. Some friends argued insistently against doomsday conclusions and spoke of their dreams as the basis to keep up hope. Many others, including Naren’s daughter, preferred silence over predictions. The one argument against which there was no counter was: Where is the evidence? Where is the debris? Where are the passengers?
Life After MH370 documents Naren’s experience with loss, grief, trauma and sorrow. The struggle with ‘ambiguous loss’ morphs into a ceaseless search, for the scent of a cover-up, for the truth, for that explanation that satisfies and helps one move on. A loss that meant critically resizing shared dreams, reconfiguring relationships and attempting to find a purpose that anchor him in the present.
There is the hint of a promise in KS Narendran’s story – of existential truths about living and dying that might help anyone who comes upon this book.

Review: Life After MH370 is a highly personal and emotional account of one man’s tragedy and his efforts to move on after the tragic event. This is unlike other works on MH370 and does not deal with the investigation of the tragedy itself but rather it deals with the emotional toll such an event often entails in the lives of the relatives and other loved ones.

To lose someone close is a very tragic incident but what made the MH370 accident worse is perhaps there is no sense of closure. That is what is the most disturbing part. The event cannot be changed and has happened but families need closure, some proof and some explanation as to what happened so that they may move on with their lives.

The writing skills of the author are average but what he lacks in language is made up in part because of the candidness with which this story has been penned.

‘We are not dealing with cargo. It is about 239 lives, human beings’ an incensed friend and colleague of Chandrika said on a telephone call to express his anguish and anger, soon after Malaysia, on January 17th 2017, announced its decision to suspend the search for MH370.

The author has dealt with the aftermath of the incident very candidly and deals with the apathy displayed by government officials, the media circus that prevailed after the accident and finally acceptance of what had happened.

This is a very emotional account and told with a lot of honesty.

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