Tuesday 15 December 2009

Its OK; Go Read It

I must say, I have read worse. And at least, this one seems to come from the heart unlike those two terrible ones - the one about the Call Center blah, further made annoying by having a movie made out of the Clan of Salman Khan; and the other one which, in my opinion, trivialises everything including cricket. Of course I am not feeling objective enough to comment on Five Point Someone. I give it points for opening doors and creating a genre.

In short. "2 States"

Normally, I would never admit to reading a book that had that title. It has to be 'Two' not '2' I would insist. I mean, not that I am Queen Elizabeth, perhaps its not even right, but that, would be my preference.

I was surely not going to pay even the <100 bucks for it. At least, that was what I told my friend just a month ago. "Naah. Not even worth that" I believe I said.

But mum bought the book in Mysore. And brought it all the way over. She asked me to read it before she leaves so she can take it back to my aunt, who apparently wants to read it. As a family we are like that. We read anything that dares to cross our paths. My mum has been known to read the newspaper which used to wrap the Chilli Bondas that Kaveramma in I Main Road (right next to the gutter. eww) used to make. Not to mention the old Star of Mysore in which the Churmuri used to show up in. I don't read greasy papers for sure, but I do read any novel that I happen to see.

But yeah, back to Mr.Bhagat, whom I love to hate. I even called him Chetan Sharma once. Which is another person I love to hate. He used to play in those long ago days when I was a big cricket fan. Those crazy days when I used to like Ravi Shastri (Ewww).

As I was saying, there has been enough dope about this book. They say its autobiographical. Probably is. He paints the wife in such fantastically rosy colours that even if it is obviously autobiographical (she ought to be the best judge of that), he needn't worry. He is not going to be in the dog-house, sleeping on the couch, denied of basic human needs, because of his book.

What am I saying? Poor guy, probably nice at heart and so forth.

I read it in a rush. I ignored the obvious mis-spelling of suspicious. I let the very IITian 'in life' appearing at the end of several sentences. I skimmed over a couple of other such minor transgressions. I laughed at the Punjabi caricatures. I nodded at the boring South Indian wedding. I totally realised he was playing to the gallery with the mickey mouse undies thing. I admired their tenacity in hanging on to their dream. In short, not bad at all.

I can now safely move on to Grimus, which I am reading slowly and methodically. And cracking all the anagrams this time around. Endimions indeed!!

10 comments:

Poppins said...

Hmm. Ok. Maybe I will then. I agree that South Indian weddings are boring but it's got it's own charm wokay? :)

Choxbox said...

Gimme a South Indian wedding any day babe.

Ugggh. I was forced to become all ghost-like and told 'aap toh bahot simple ho jee' by the parlour lady, before she proceeded to hang a basket full of jasmine and boxes of artificial jewellery on me, at which point I put my mehendi-ed feet down really firmly. The man still thought I looked hilarious and pained me big time in life (sorry!) right through the ceremony.

Choxbox said...

and pliss to add the 2 in my url. thanks etc.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

Girls, what are you saying????? There is BOOZE in Punjabi weddings (apparently). Beats the pants off anything we do in Southie ones, for me. Imagine! I could have been all cool and happy and high; instead of hot and stressed out and on the verge of tears. And not to mention caked white powder and those miles of sari and oodles of jewelry which happened anyhow.

Straight Talk said...

you are recommending a chetan bhagat? this is exactly why i told you not to leave bombay..

tch. tch.

Perakath said...

Let him write his whatever books... but I don't understand why the country goes gaga over him.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

Straight Talk. Yeah. I mean compared to the other two books, this came from his heart I thought. And, after all, even Shashi Tharoor has written a Show Business has be not?

Perakath- well thats true, Thats the most annoying thing. people acting as if its fine to write in that type of English and get away with it.

Serious Lounger said...

ewww, you readh chetan bhagat, ewwww.. your standards have dipped.. avoid the man by the mile, overrated i say.

Have attended a punjabi wedding - yup they do serve booze, but the wedding is like at 2 AM in the next morning and you are up from like 2 AM the previous morning and it will be butt freezing outside for some weird reason all punjabi weddings have to happen in a farmhouse in the outskirts of delhi/chandigarh in the period from Nov- Jan which is when the temperature in such locations drops to the scientific freezing point (which is about 20 deg C lesser than what any self respecting madras boy considers to be the freezing point) - i needed four layers of clothing to even start being remotely warm and was nearly driven to drink by the cold.. duh!

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

SL-
I have read ALL of his books incidentally. Which thus qualifies me to comment intelligently on a whole genre of books we would like to call Men's Chick Lit. Or Chick's Men Lit.
& as far as I am concerned ANYTHING beats waking up at 3 am and having to oil and wash your hair...

madraskaari said...

Have you sawn the movie 2 states then?