Trivial and Terrible
India’s pop icon in books Chetan Bhagat is living his dream. A full-time writer with his novels topping the best-seller lists and getting adapted in movies. His first book 5 Point Someone which kicked off Bhagat’s career and shot him to stardom especially in younger generation is source of next Aamir Khan film 3 Idiots. He churned out two awful potboilers after that and they were also hit. Things are as good as they can be for writer. Unfortunately same is not true for readers who has to bear his latest called Two states – story of my marriage. He claims source material is his own life. His protagonist based on himself is called Krish, a Punjabi boy from Delhi who fell in love with Tamilian girl Ananya (only interesting character in the book) who he met in IIM-A. Novel deals with author’s struggle to win his own parents and would be in-laws so they can say yes to their marriage. Ek Duje Ke Lie with happy ending?
Story opens with love affair in IIM A are novel’s only few pages that I didn’t have to endure. Starting with friendship (joke) soon they becomes lovers. And thankfully the often “tasteful” sex scenes are handled subtly this time as a matter of fact. But once they get the jobs and decided to take vows of holy matrimony parents come into picture and rest of the novel is one exasperating read. I especially hated Bhagat’s caricatures, so predictable and bound to bore you to the death with its soap opera issues. Central conflict is so out of date. Protagonist’s mother tops that list with typical Punjabi mother wants to sell her son to highest bidder and impress the horror race of relatives. Father is another island. And a little domestic violence is also thrown. Writing like blueprints to screenplay story follows Krish in Chennai after scoring job at Citibank. Large chunk of story takes place there. He takes tuitions of her younger brother, helps in making a power point presentation to his in-law and gets mother to sing with SP and Hariharan in company annual function. A whole lot of nonsense.
Sense of humor which was real highpoint of his debut novel has lost all his freshness and often dull and frankly feels old-hat. Final blow is writer’s use of deus ex machina which comes out of nowhere to end final conflict and win the battle is such a cheat and final nail in the coffin. In recent interview he declared he writes for mass same as Shakespeare and called Shakespeare was Ekta Kapoor of his time. Let’s not get into Shakespeare but he certainly has turned himself into Ekta Kapoor and this book of his is strictly for mass and front benchers.
Two States – story of my marriage
Chetan Bhagat
