Sometimes you want to do things just because. Given the hormonal upheavals, I have been feeling like that quite often these days. I want to eat horrible junk just because, want to bawl my eyes out just because, want to watch romcoms, shop for extra-large clothes and home stuff just because. And read-read as if all books will soon vanish in the deluge and leave me in a book-less world.
Because I am in an extremely self-indulgent mode (and the most important person to myself) these days, I give in to these whims without a thought. Which is why, when, among the myriad books-enriching, self-motivating, deep-in Crossword, my eyes picked out “Those Pricey Thakur Girls” by Anuja Chauhan with the cover showing bare legs, anklet and chappals and immediately had to have it, I picked it up straight away.
And was thoroughly glad, the next morning that I had. Having grown up with Austen, Dickens, Scott, Trollope and moved on to Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Rand among others, my tastes are purist to say the least. If its mystery, it must be Holmes or Poirot, short stories-Maugham, O Henry or Saki, comedy-Wodehouse. Even Indian writing in English was restricted mostly to Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and the like. You can skip this part if you think I am being snobbish, just wanted to create the context for what I am about to say next. Which is that I never thought something that genre wise qualifies as chick-lit would bring such a wide smile to my face and warm the cockles of my heart.
The story is cute, romantic with a predictable happy ending. An “Austenesque” family in eighties Delhi, a handsome, brooding hero, a motley of characters-a weight lifter, his paranoid mom (also given to routine vituperative outbursts), mongrels and tortoiseshells, roguish children, a Sikh Christian family, a crafty editor, and numerous others make this a colourful, breezy, warm and funny read. The humour is desi, the dialogue witty, sometimes veering on profane, deliciously and wickedly scandalous. The language, with lots of vernacular, won’t impress English aficionados, but it serves to add the typical “Dilliwalla” spice to conversations which frankly wouldn't cut much ice in staid English. There is a gloomier track of the anti-Sikh riots post Indira Gandhi’s assassination, which looms in the background and adds substance to the hero’s character and some more twists to the story. The highlight is an entirely bizarre, rib tickling climax when you are haplessly wondering how this will end.
It ends well, however, with the lovers reunited and all ends tied up. What stays with you is the eighties flavor-Doordarshan, no mobiles or internet, Halo shampoo, Maruti-800, evening card parties-some really funny dialogue, some genuinely heartwarming moments. Whatever this is, it isn't fake-the author doesn't try to be unusually smart or make a very deep observation on life. She writes a simple, playful tale and expects the reader to enjoy and accept it for what it is.
I did- I even re-read bits of it to make me feel better during some horrid moments I had that week. It made me get a pedicure and a long overdue pampering in the salon (don’t ask me what the connection is-someone once said, in a book, that Pickwick Papers made her hungry, well this makes me want to pamper myself). Maybe it’s the humour, maybe the handsome hero and the fairy tale romance. Or maybe it’s just the happy ending, but I haven’t enjoyed something that much in quite a while. Maybe it is chick-lit-but who cares.
