Healer: the biography of Dr Prathap Chandra Reddy by Pranay Gupte

The foolish reviewer

A friend sent me this message a short while ago, something she saw on facebook:

Does anyone know who Saaz Aggarwal is? Well, let me tell you: She's a Pune-based writer who "reviewed" my biography, Healer: Dr Prathap Chandra Reddy and the Transformation of India (Penguin) for Hindustan Times. In my opinion, I wonder if she actually read the 600-page book. For example, she says I did not deal with health insurance! Whaaa? There's an entire chapter on health insurance. And so on. Ordinarily, I ignore foolish reviewers on the grounds that they are, well, foolish, and that they have some sort of agenda. But this so-called review is egregiously misinformed. It misrepresents my book. The next time that Manjula Narayan, books editor of Hindustan Times, makes assignments, she should at least insist that reviewers read a book before "reviewing" it.

My ‘review’ of this book actually appeared in Hindustan Times on 5 April 2014, and if you like you can read it here:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/books/booksreviews/book-review-healer-a-biography-of-dr-prathap-c-reddy/article1-1204417.aspx or at the bottom of this post, along with images of the facebook conversation I had with its author, Pranay Gupte, who had posted the comment above, along with a photograph of me.
It’s not nice to spit and scratch in public, no? So I did ‘like’ on the comment. Then I noticed that this was a 'sponsored' link. This meant that Pranay Gupte had paid money to facebook so that my photo and the defamatory comment would be seen by more people!
Here is a transcript of my response, and the next two comments:

Saaz: Uh oh Pranay Gupte ... this SPONSORED link misses a few other things I said in my review:
Presented as the author’s year-long journey in writing it, Healer includes irrelevant description of each interview: the interiors of Sheila Dikshit’s ‘lovely bungalow in the Lutyens Zone in New Delhi’; the CV of the architect of Apollo and information about his leisure pursuits; lyrics of a song New York financier Richard Cashin sang at a Chennai cocktail party; and more. The interviews are weighted with banal hallelujahs: “Dr Reddy possesses great strength of character”; “it is rare to find a leader with such infectious enthusiasm and high principles as Dr Reddy”; “a handsome man with exquisitely polite manners”; “the so-called learning curve happens faster at Apollo than anywhere else I have seen”; and dozens more. Pruning these and the rather excessive repetition (that Dr Reddy’s granddaughter married ‘superstar’ Chiranjeevi’s son appears four times) would have made Healer easier on the wrist.And a whole lot of other stuff I LIKED about your book too :-)
Pranay Gupte: Well, I appreciate your response, Saaz. Cheers from Delhi, and I hope we meet in more pleasant circumstances.
Saaz: What I wrote was a measured, balanced review AFTER reading, making notes and mulling on every page in your book. What you've done here is post a slanderous comment along with my photograph. Nice, eh! (Incidentally, I never said that you "did not deal with health insurance". What I said was, "Controversial topics such as vaccinations, the impact of health insurance and tort, and the basic concerns of access and affordability to best-quality medical care for the majority of Indians are not delved.")

I've been away from this blog for far too long. Thank you, Pranay Gupte, for getting me back to it.

Postscript: The morning after I wrote this post and shared it on my facebook wall, tagging Pranay Gupte, I find that he seems to have 'unfriended' or perhaps 'blocked' me. I wonder why!

Pranay Gupte is a high-profile journalist, sufficiently well-connected to get the President of India to launch his book for him. He responds to a genuine critique by making malicious and ill-founded comments about the reviewer.
Does this mean that book reviewers must always praise books by well-known people, even when they are full of holes, for fear of vindictive reprisal?
Perhaps this is the reason that responsible books editors like Manjula Narayan of Hindustan Times (also maligned in Pranay Gupte's sponsored facebook post) try, whenever possible, to give books for review to writers with a track record of understanding and analyzing books, in addition to having a respected body of their own work.

And the HT review on 4 April 2014:

Dr Prathap Chandra Reddy is a cardiologist and entrepreneur. He founded Apollo Hospital in Chennai in 1979, and grew it to a chain of corporate hospitals, 38 owned and 13 managed, treating patients from 120 countries. This book shows us how Apollo created opportunities that brought Indian doctors settled abroad back to India, and by investing in technology, helped specialists to advance professionally. It credits Dr Reddy with introducing a culture of competence, and a more soothing environment, into Indian hospitals; implementing emergency services; and influencing Tamil Nadu to develop the most advanced ‘cadaver policy’ in India.

Dr Reddy comes across as kind, sensible, and generous to colleagues. He meditates and prays daily – but is also influenced by mythology, astrology and godmen. An entrepreneur and innovator from a young age, he made a fundamental business mistake when expanding into Sri Lanka. When two of his four daughters wanted to be doctors, he discouraged them, now he would like one of his grandsons to become one. Once a fussy eater, he was difficult to cook for, and people would ‘tremble’ at his sometimes petulant behaviour in reaction to a dish he didn’t like. Working at Massachusetts General in Boston in the 1960s, he was once slapped by a patient enraged at being treated by an Indian doctor. Dr Reddy’s boss wanted the patient discharged; Dr Reddy convinced him not to react to the bad behaviour and treat the patient kindly.

Healer also has information about healthcare in India and anecdotes about well-known personalities. We learn about organ transplants and innovations such as robotic surgery. Charming footnotes provide context when required. However, the challenges of raising standards of clinical care and JCI accreditation are not described. Controversial topics such as vaccinations, the impact of health insurance and tort, and concerns of access and affordability for the majority, are skirted.

Presented as the author’s year-long journey in writing it, Healer includes irrelevant description of each interview: the interiors of Sheila Dikshit’s ‘lovely bungalow in the Lutyens Zone in New Delhi’; the CV of the architect of Apollo and information about his leisure pursuits; lyrics of a song New York financier Richard Cashin sang at a Chennai cocktail party; and more. The interviews are weighted with banal hallelujahs: “Dr Reddy possesses great strength of character”; “it is rare to find a leader with such infectious enthusiasm and high principles as Dr Reddy”; “a handsome man with exquisitely polite manners”; “the so-called learning curve happens faster at Apollo than anywhere else I have seen”; and dozens more. Pruning these and the rather excessive repetition (that Dr Reddy’s granddaughter married ‘superstar’ Chiranjeevi’s son appears four times) would have made Healer easier on the wrist.

This book also succumbs to what Patrick French calls “the distorting lens of the present”, using phrases like “back in the 1970s” and providing long lists of recent associates. Technology new in 2013 will soon recede; to specify that a “technique is truly revolutionizing spinal surgery” is to ensure that a book will soon be out-dated.

The lost flamingoes of Bombay by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Forgive me, dear lord
What a lovely, evocative title! Imagine a Mumbai commuter train stuffed to the brim with flamingoes in startling shades of pink, red, and orange – their bright feathers flapping in the breeze as they swell from overcrowded doors, and their strong, hooked bills pressed against the side, as the Local banks and hoots. I’m afraid I found much of this book as unlikely, as cutely stylised, as this image. After a tedious build-up of characters and situations, aptly couched in laboured language, a woman is shot dead in a bar – just as Jessica Lal was. If you want a more lifelike version, go see the movie No One Killed Jessica.
What upset me most about this book was the rave blurb by Amy Tan on the cover – if not for that, which marks it out as a fabulous global work of art, I wouldn’t have dreamt of demeaning it in public. In any case, to be fair, maybe it was just too artistic for my plebeian tastes.
What I will always remember about this book is the leering looks the waiter gave me as I read. It was a roadside joint near the Dadar flyover, and the yumptious-scrumptious pau bhaji dripped with butter and soothed some of my aesthetic senses while this book jarred some others as I waited for my ride home. It must be ten (or twenty or maybe even thirty) years since anyone gave me those serious oh-my-god-you-hottie looks. Only later, when I took a closer look at the cover of the book I was reading, could I imagine what the man might have been thinking watching me sitting there, slurping at the food and reading engrossed, but with expressions of distaste flitting across my face every now and again.

Can Love Happen Twice? by Ravinder Singh

I too was waiting eagerly for this one
When I read Ravinder Singh’s first book three years ago, it was with a sense of disbelief. HERE is the, er, dissertation I wrote about it on this blog.
Leaving its flaws aside, however, I too had a love story is a seamless read, good for one sitting even if it leaves you slapping your forehead at the end of it. But this book begins badly, using a device strewn with irritating bumps and starts. I too had a love story sold phenomenally well and created a huge population of fans, and Ravinder Singh’s second book has been published by Penguin. So I was expecting copy free of major grammatical or style flaws and horrified to find, as early as pages 3 and 4 respectively, the words ‘disagreement’ and ‘nostalgic’ incorporated in unique ways:

With this gesture he signalled his disagreement to take a cab.

Would that be his ‘refusal’ to take a cab? Or his ‘disinclination’ to take a cab? I suppose it doesn’t matter that thousands and thousands are going to read this book and will believe that disagreement can be used this way quite correctly.

It was nostalgic for them to meet each other after so long.

The carnage continues, with Penguin India setting new standards for an entire generation of second-language English aspirants.
Grammar and style may certainly remain subservient to a good story. Ravin has grown up a bit and moved on from the rustic lad he once was - he can even use the word 'Voila' in daily speech. “Unlike India, where a sandwich is more like a snack, in the West it is more of a meal. Having lived in various countries I have adapted to every kind of meal now,” he tells us modestly. And Ravin, a wonderful new role model, “loves to booze” and unerringly picks yet another true love who is “very fair in complexion” and has “shining white teeth”. She also has any number of “cute” habits which you are going to love. Alas, I promise you.
The part of this book I liked the most was when Ravin’s true love no. 2 drinks too much and begins to vomit. Instead of vomiting right back, Ravin understands his responsibility and takes tender care of her.
This book is not as easy to read and gripping as his first one – but it does deal at some level with some of the issues of ‘real’ love such as understanding each other as separate human beings, and the need to develop common goals rather than battling bitterly against each other’s goals forevermore.

Mumbai Dreams by Joygopal Podder

Chatpata Chowpatty Bhel
On my way home on the Deccan Queen (which has more leg room than Business Class, and portly, uniformed waiters courteously dishing out chai-coffee to accompany their spicy, deep-fried snacks), I was transfixed, agog, gobbling kanda bhajias in a daze. When the train pulled in to Karjat, my resurfacing consciousness flashed back to similar trysts with James Hardley Chase on Local commuter trains in decades past. This book is composed of elements of Mumbai masala, including Bollywood and the construction mafia, and how things fall into place for two smart young small-town lads to achieve fabulous success. Each chapter paints a quick, action-packed scene. Sex and drugs shimmer discreetly in the background. Who am I to complain about the numerous factual inaccuracies in this book, or to wish that the author had spent more time getting the language right instead of scurrying recklessly ahead in an effort to be “heralded as the fastest-published Indian author by the Limca Book of Records” (whatever that means)? After all, the racy story certainly had me hooked.

Tea for two and a piece of cake by Preeti Shenoy

A pleasant afternoon
Preeti Shenoy is a talented storyteller, and this book has a sweet story with a good dose of wish fulfilment and some unorthodox angles. It reminded me of the Mills and Boons of yore – a similar pace, similar peaks and troughs, and uncomplicated passions, although with contemporary characters in a contemporary Indian urban setting. If I didn’t consider the description ‘chick-lit’ patronising, that’s the label I might have used. In the specific genre of romance wannabes or ‘metro reads’ this book is reasonably high-end, with almost-there editing and unusually few loose ends. The only (minor) thing that I found annoying was the use of the expression ‘cilantro’ which sounds misleadingly exotic; it’s a herb used every day in Indian kitchens and taken for granted as dhaniya or kothambir or kothamalli or even coriander – but cilantro, really, please.

A pack of lies by Urmilla Deshpande

Victim kicking below belt is ok, then?
Some months ago my friend Asha asked me to get her this book. I ordered it online and happened to peep in when it arrived. But this is the kind of book that has you turning pages faster and faster, so I barely looked up once or twice before it was all gone.
A Pack of Lies is written in the first person and the heroine, Ginny, has a problem with her mother who happens to be a writer.
I enjoyed the racy style and the descriptions of Bombay in the 1970s, which took me back to a time and place I don’t miss at all. But I did not enjoy the desperation, loneliness and the kind of defiance-inspired craziness it was suffused with - they made me nervous. Whether it was the description of food to a love-starved child, her arrogance towards her mother’s lovers, her grand plans to get rich by selling dope, Ginny’s modelling career, her unexpected inheritance, or the many other twists in her tortured life – I felt repulsed, but also pitying of a human being who was painted as steeped in bitterness.
It was only after I started reading the book aloud to Asha, who had been actually looking forward to a literary treat – having known the author’s mother, herself a well-known writer – that I realised the story was using Urmilla Deshpande’s own life as its peg and that there are any number of other characteristics and historical features Ginny shares with her creator. Even Sahitya Akademi award winner and Padma Shri Shashi Deshpande says, on the book cover, “A rare coming-of-age novel, frighteningly honest and exceptionally mature." Right!
Reading the book out to Asha, we kept digressing – bits from the book would set her off reminiscing; other bits would make her angry with the implicit libel they held. When Urmilla Deshpande’s alter ego is sexually abused by her mother’s husband, were we supposed to feel horrified and sorry for her – or admire her subtlety in naming her novel A Pack of Lies? Either way, both Asha and I found it revolting.
Urmilla Deshpande has impeccable grammar and it matches well with her impeccable lineage: her mother Gauri Deshpande and grandmother Irawati Karve were well-known writers, and her great-grandfather Dr Dhondo Keshav Karve was the great social reformer and educationist who came to be known as Maharshi Karve. Is it the grammar or the lineage or the hot parts that got her book attention? I wonder.

Lonely gods by Shivani Singh

Desi Barbara Cartland
One of the things I liked about this book was the great detail about the relationship between Physics and spirituality. Since I know very little about such esoteric matters, it was hard to decide whether to admire the depth of research or the extent of imagination. Either way, there is enormous information here about a range of subjects from the scriptures and other fields such as astro-palmistry, ‘saints’ and their partners, healing energies, karmic pegs, the universe being in ‘cahoots’, the Cosmic Egg, and even an academic discipline called ‘Quanti Mytho’.
One of the things that made me uneasy about Lonely Gods was the language, rife with phrases like ‘rocksure Punjabi confidence’ which I found jarring, and a tone which I felt more suited to a giddyheaded adolescent:

After the ceremony, the group sat gratefully under a spring sun that warmed them and lit them up in just the way they wanted. Chomping on VNP’s ubiquitous samosas, a formal introduction of the team members finally took place.

We will only find out what VNP stands for at the end of the book, but there are six team members. The genders are ‘evenly spaced’, with three males and three females. A spectrum of ages is represented, and a token from another race too. They are, of course, going to save the world.
The hero and heroine of this book are Twin Flames. Hot, magic energy flies between them! Sadly, circumstances have contrived to keep them apart:

They would wake in the middle of the night to the sensation of lips against their skin, of hands clutching their hair, of hip against hip. The sensation would be followed by extreme physical pain, as if their bodies were stretching to be with the other. Soon after, it would start raining. As if the sky and the clouds and the private parts of Nature were conspiring and participating in the wetness of their thighs, their nights, precipitating their union almost like the grand partner in a ménage a trois.

Some of the lusty scenes are even more ludicrous:

She became aware of a slow trickle wetting her thighs and his body started to ache from the strain of staying away from her.

A slow trickle wetting her thighs? Hm - sounds more like a bladder accident than someone getting horny. In general, I did find that this book painted a rather unrealistic world, one in which hospital staff are concerned about a patient in a way I don’t think ever actually happens. But I liked the frequent spikes of casual humour:

The doctor squeaked, “There are too many toxins in his system coming from too many avenues.”
Stop making my uncle sound like Park Street during rush hour, Uma thought, but held her tongue.

I can’t say I enjoyed this book, but tried hard to think that there must be many who would. The Secret of Sirikot by the same author was also a highly romantic thriller set in a palace but I found that better written and more absorbing.

Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

A seamy, distasteful world
Ever since Chetan Bhagat’s first book Five Point Someone appeared seven years ago, he has been the most successful Indian novelist ever and his popularity has grown steadily.
I found Five Point Someone unreadable, but quite enjoyed his next three books, and believed – while naively looking forward to the next one – that although he would never be accepted by anyone who expects a certain basic literary quality, his readability was improving.
Gladys laughed aloud many times when I read 2 States to her and naturally that enhanced my enjoyment - and improved my opinion - of it.
Revolution 2020 has an impressive theme: the alternative system of higher education in India. This is a system which, tragically, has far less to do with real education than with anxious students desperately seeking a means to escape their economic deprivation, and the nexus of politician-crooks who exploit this distressing but very real anxiety. Chetan Bhagat has done an excellent job of describing how the racket works. There are details of the sordid coaching classes which aim to prepare mediocre students for an education for which they have no aptitude. The book also exposes the sordid methods used in setting up large and glossy but fundamentally hollow ‘universities’ or institutes of technology, with the primary motive of profit.
Maybe it will help to protect the many young people who read this book from being duped; maybe it will help them to try and understand their own needs, abilities and aspirations and follow paths of education and career accordingly.
However, some of the situations it contains are ghastly and distasteful. No matter how ‘not ok’ the education system is, surely one’s personal values and behaviour are based only on one’s own choices. The heroine of the book, for instance, has two childhood friends and romances both alternately, but also sometimes at the same time. It appears as if she is swinging between them depending on whose material prospects are better at the moment. And when the hero of the book, in an attempt to nobly exit her life and leave her to the other, more decent and capable man – he does not honestly explain his thoughts and feelings to her. Instead, he fabricates a ludicrous and revolting tableau with the purpose of shocking her away from him forever. If it was an erotic scene Chetan Bhagat felt it necessary to introduce - surely he could have invented a more imaginative and wholesome one.
Chetan Bhagat says he writes primarily to entertain but also to create awareness. I did like the expose of the crooked education system, and, instead of wanting him to improve his language - we're actually quite lucky it isn't even worse - can’t help wishing that he would create better role models.

The vague woman's handbook by devapriya roy

Neither here nor there
I started reading this book because a friend passed it on to me saying she had quite enjoyed it.
Why I continued reading till I reached the end I have no idea, but I did.
The Vague Woman’s Handbook is a brilliant and attractive but basically misleading title. It is not a handbook. I looked for, and didn’t find, guidelines for instructional use of how to cope with a woman’s vagueness – your own or others’ – or turn an asset into it, or anything related to instructional use or application of women’s vagueness.
Then, there is a basic dichotomy in the content. It is a contemporary story, with a number of progressive features. The young couple – neither is even 24 yet – are setting up a cosy establishment all their own and are coming to terms with a life of their own choosing. There’s a teeny bit of wish fulfilment here because they have broken away from their parents’ oppressive demands and are experiencing exhilarating, though sometimes painful, independence. I liked the other main character in this book – an endearing woman more than twice the age of our heroine, and the fact that the two became best friends.
However, the other basic fabric of this book is its horribly archaic language. Compressed between the fab title and the trendy author photo is an alarmingly large collection of yesterday phrases and usages. Can anyone in post-1991 India relate to the concept of “church mice”? With qualifiers like “for one” and “not exactly”; expressions like “voila” (used seriously and not as parody); an overdose of coy parentheses, exclamation marks and italics used for emphasis, I felt as if I’d suddenly arrived in Blyton-Wodehouse Wonderland.
There’s something else that rather alarmed me about this book. It’s a story about a young married couple – and for heaven’s sake they never have sex! Not even the slightest hint of it. Perhaps if this book was written specifically for a readership of under-tens, it could work. Otherwise I’m sorry to say this young couple is a very poor role model for the younger generation :-)
This author has the skill to create a plot, weave believable characters, establish a good beginning, middle, and end – and even look glamorous in a jacket photo. I sincerely hope that her language and situations mature to produce more realistic fiction of a higher literary quality in future.

Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

No Booker for this one
The White Tiger was going to be a hard act to follow. Still, I was disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book as much. It wasn’t just the story and narrative style that I found less gripping. Aravind Adiga says he loves Bombay more than any other place – but I thought that while he wrote about Delhi and the rural north like an insider, in this book he is an observer, not a participant.
I did like some turns of phrase and descriptions. Mango sellers wait by the station for returning commuters – each mango a heartfelt apology from the city for the state of its trains.
It’s the new India, where construction workers’ children clean their teeth using toothpaste, though still only by the water pump under the tree.
And there’s that shopkeepers’ refrain: a man must want something. Everyone who lives here knows that the islands will shake, and the mortar of the city will dissolve, and Bombay will turn again into seven small stones glistening in the Arabian Sea, if it ever forgets to ask the question: What do you want?
Shah, a ruthless land developer is touring a building site, musing. A worker’s family was spending the nights on the unfinished fourth floor, which one day a technology executive or a businessman would occupy. Shah touched the workers’ washing, which hung in the alcoves where Versace would soon hang; their little bars of soap and detergent did the work that expensive perfumes would soon do.
Folding a twenty-rupee note, he left it near a bar of soap as a surprise for the worker’s wife.

Is this book about an old schoolteacher in Bombay, a lonely man who lives by his principles?
Is it about a “housing society” where people from different backgrounds, different ideas, different values, different aspirations – different ways of speaking the same language – live side by side, because that’s the way things work in Bombay?
Is it about drab lives and what greed can do to them?
A man has to bend his rules a little to enjoy life in Mumbai. Just a little. Now and then. But the law in Mumbai was not blind: far from it, it had two faces and four working eyes and saw every case from both sides and could never make up its mind.
Powerful, wealthy men – dying of lung disease. Ruthless men with complicated relationships devoid of love – but employees so loyal and devoted that they sign cheques for them as part of their job, and go home to their scrupulous single-room shanty dwellings.

On page 301, after three-fourths of the book was over, I finally caught a glimpse of the real hero of this book: a gaunt, middle-aged man in a dirty blue shirt.

He looked Muslim because of his beard. Masterji guessed he was one of those he had just seen pulling carts on the road. The labourer picked a biscuit from the stainless-steel plate and chewed. Done with it, he breathed, picked a second biscuit, and chewed. Each movement of his bony jaws spoke of fatigue; the permanent fatigue of men who have no one to care about them when they work and no one to care about them after they work. The thin body broadcast a raw minimal silence. Middle-aged? No. His hair was greying at the edges, but youth had only recently been exorcised from his face. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight at the most. Masterji watched this young man with sunken, shocked eyes and barely enough strength to lift one milk biscuit at a time. This is his daily life. Pulling that cart and coming here for these biscuits, he thought.
The tired Muslim man returned Masterji’s gaze. Their eyes met like foreign languages, and the labourer, without moving his lips, spoke at last. Have you never before noticed how many are all alone?

Geek nation by Angela Saini

Rich source material, shabby output
This book sets out to investigate the Indian characteristic of geekiness. To write it, Angela Saini explored situations and people engaged in many different and fascinating aspects of science and technology in India: the international science and maths Olympiads; electronic waste dumps; software companies and associations - from the giants to technology startups; advanced technology universities; biotech institutes; Vedic science; forensic laboratories; tuberculosis clinics; nuclear reactors and even the Lavasa Corporation.
There’s a lot of information here, and much of it is interesting.
However, I found the reporting was superficial and strewn with howlers. Here are a few.
Reliance is a mobile phone company. Really?
Once upon a time the shop buildings of Jaipur were painted red, but they have now faded to a "peaceful" pink. Really?
Angela Saini drove down the streets of Mumbai in “a crumpled black Ambassador taxi”. Really? An Ambassador?
India was under British rule for eighty-nine years. Really? And the Great Indian Mutiny (or First War of Indian Independence if you prefer) which happened in 1857, was a mutiny (or war) against whom?
Though these are circumstantial details unrelated to the science information, it left a bad taste and tainted the authenticity of this project.
From this book, I learnt that:

• the Indian system of education encourages dependence and rote learning, and there is little effort to provoke original thought;
• young people in India sacrifice their leisure time, their sanity, and sometimes even their lives, to examination results;
• infrastructure in even our best academic institutions is weak and outdated;
• Indian IT guys have poor general knowledge;
• we have no adequate system of checks in research, and with our tradition of superstition and ignorance, we provide a lush setting for pseudoscience and crackpot ideas to flourish;
• more people in India will one day own mobile phones than can write their own names;
• the emerging environment of awareness and opportunities is likely to enable Indians to contribute new scientific ideas in the future even if they never did before …

Basically, nothing any of us didn’t know before.

The other thing I found distasteful was the way the author mocks her sources. Do we really need to know that Professor Vijay Singh, a former teacher who now runs the country’s International Science Olympiad training centre has a slight lisp and likes to be dramatic? That Ananth Krishnan, the “person in charge of innovation” at Tata Consultancy Services, has a balding crown and enormous head, and a voice “that reminds me of Kermit the Frog from The Muppet Show”? That Yusuf Motiwala, promoter of a technology startup, has a laptop that Angela Saini heard “squealing like a banshee” and that he “presses the computer between his palms and gives it a hard thud” to stop the sound?

With a smashing cover like this, and an author who has a Masters in Engineering from Oxford University, and is an award-winning science journalist – I assumed this was going to be a great book. I was disappointed.

Theodore Boone - The Abduction by John Grisham

The Disappointment
I’m a sucker for John Grisham and was waiting eagerly for this one. When a complimentary copy arrived from the publisher yesterday, well in advance of the one I had “pre-ordered” online the day I saw it advertised, it was a moment of great happiness and I threw everything else aside to enjoy it.
Theo is as cute as ever and his best friend, April, has gone missing. The first half of this book is gripping and plausible and the hunt for April fraught with tension and poignancy.
Other characters you might also remember from the first one, Young Lawyer, make their appearance – notably Theo’s Uncle Ike. And our young lawyer makes a very effective appearance in Animal Court - yes, a place we’ve enjoyed visiting before.
The judges of the Stratten County Courthouse still have endearing nicknames, and Theo’s parents are still as warm, wise, career-focussed, careful to remind him that he's still just a kid and has got to school every day, and generally as appropriate role models as before. Sadly, though, the plot runs thin and though I think this book is meant for kids ten years old and up, I doubt if even a six-year-old, even one who was dropped on its head as a baby, would be engaged with what we have here.
Even Grisham’s adult books can be enjoyed by younger readers. I know that the kids I gave Young Lawyer to read went right on, hooked, to read the older Grisham classics and loved them. They are going to leap at this book and fall away sadly disappointed and disillusioned.

What annoyed me most of all was that the words on the inside of the pages were so close to the binding that to read them you have to make an extra effort to stretch the pages out, and I wondered whether every edition would plague readers thus - or only this one, which is only for sale in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Priya by Namita Gokhale

Been there, done that
I’d never read anything by Namita Gokhale before, but had always viewed her with respect as a founding director of the wonderful Jaipur Literature Festival. So when I received this book, I was disconcerted to see that the publishers had placed it inside a cover that screamed “Yaah! Chick-lit! So there!”
Still, this did not prepare me for the mediocre idiom that populates this book. I read intently, waiting for it to improve.
Priya is a married woman in her mid- or perhaps late-fifties. Her husband has risen in his profession as a lawyer and is presently a Minister of State for Food Processing, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Canneries. This makes him a mighty important person – and also tells us that the book is supposed to be a spoof. They lead a comfortable and privileged life in Delhi, which, Priya occasionally reminds us, sometimes leaves her out of her depth since she grew up a simple middle class girl in a “one BHK” apartment in what was then still Bombay. On the surface she copes well and there’s no doubt that Priya has her moments of wit and intelligence. However, her language is largely uninspired, and my eyebrows rose in cynical disbelief to see it described as “elegant prose” in this review.
The world Priya depicts, of people with an enormous sense of self-importance but skewed priorities, has been done before – most famously (as I thought then) by Shobhaa De. Any number of equally pointless books of dubious entertainment value have done the same.
One of the things I did like about this one were the descriptions of Priya’s interactions with her twin sons, which showed her to be sensitive, self-aware and a very “today” thinker. It’s also quite hilarious in parts. Still – why does anyone have to pretend that this is a good book, and worth reading? Priya made me feel a bit derailed – somewhat like its Mumbai local trains, which the author tries to route from Churchgate to VT.
And it made me rush to read Paro, a book Namita Gokhale wrote in 1984 and to which Priya is linked by having the same characters, 25 years later.
Here lurked another big surprise. Priya is the narrator of this book too, and, 25 years younger, has a much more substantial literary style! Not only that, Paro is a completely unselfconsciously Indian book. I was impressed to see that there was no exoticising or contextualising whatever – in fact, even less than in Priya (which explains "one BHK" but does not bother to clarify "hall".) Commonly-used Indian words were left un-italicised. Even expressions like “kitty party” remained unexplained. And this was 1984 – when Salman Rushdie was the first “Indian” writer to have won a Booker. When every Indian who wrote in Engish was writing for a western audience. And several years before Shobhaa De (then still Shobha; one of the issues this book takes a piss at is the trend of changing the spelling of your name on the advice of a high-profile “numerologist” – possibly a roguish dig at Shobhaa De herself) was somehow awarded the IPR for the subject of chalu lifestyles!
With renewed respect, I picked up Priya again to see whether I had misjudged it. Despite every effort, I still found it rather coarse, and embedded with just a few rare-jewel moments. Priya’s life experience and her perspective had changed, and - rather sadly - so had the way she expressed herself.
And I thought about Philip Roth who, as a young man, wrote about horny young Jewish men and their love problems, and as he aged wrote about cantankerous old Jewish men and their trysts with prostate enlargement. What remained constant were the texture of his prose and the grip of his story-telling prowess.

The Temple-goers by Aatish Taseer

Oh no - not another one
DSC Limited, an Indian infrastructure-development company also promotes literature as one of its "key initiatives". DSC has been one of the principal sponsors of the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in the five years over which the event has grown to become the largest and most spectacular literary event of its kind. The company has now instituted the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, with a prize money of USD 50,000 and the winner will be announced in Jaipur, at the annual festival, in January. A longlist of 16 books has been announced and I was quite astonished to see this one on it!
The Temple Goers just happens to be the only book I've ever reviewed for two different publications: Sunday Mid-day on 4 April 2010 and also the May 2010 issue of Marie Claire. Both times I did not like it. Though it's well written, the story is tedious and pointless.
I've pasted here what I said in Sunday Mid-day:
This is Aatish Taseer’s first novel. A year ago he wrote Stranger to History, an autobiographical account of his travels “through Islamic lands”. It was also a quest to find his father, a Pakistani businessman and politician he has never known and who, despite all his efforts, has never really acknowledged him. It was a well-written book, filled with vivid descriptions and keen insights; I enjoyed and recommended it, and was looking forward to this new one which was supposed to be different, and very funny.
When I started reading The Temple-Goers, however, I felt confused and after a few pages decided that I must have misunderstood and here was another memoir. It’s written in the first person; its hero is identical in tone and manner to the hero of the first one – and it was surely not a coincidence that even his name was Aatish Taseer! Could there possibly be two Aatish Taseers, both of whom have studied abroad, have high-profile single mothers and appear to be struggling endlessly with identical identity crises?
The first indication that yes, there possibly were, were the names of the places in this book. This New Delhi has suburbs called Sectorpur and Phasenagar and a nearby state called Jhatekebal. Hilarious? Hmmm. Later, there’s a bomb blast and the group that claims to have done it calls itself the Indian Musthavbin.
Even more lame, along comes a famous writer whose name coyly rhymes with a certain brilliant but unpopular Nobel laureate who apparently said about Stranger to History, “A subtle and poignant work by a young writer to watch.”
The looking-glass Aatish has a girlfriend, Sanyogita, privileged, talented, vulnerable, patient and forgiving, who calls him Baby (“Baby’s hard,” she said with laughter and surprise). Other characters are Aakash, a gym trainer, Megha, a businessman’s “healthy” daughter, and Chamunda, the Chief Minister of Jhaatkebaal who happens to be Sanyogita’s aunt and Aatish’s mother’s best friend. Half way through, I decided to stop wasting my time and not read any more. The book was meandering and I found it tedious. Did I really need to read a book written by a talented but self-indulgent young man who has travelled the world and commented on it with discernment and wit – but wants to do a “Welcome to the zoo and please don’t feed the animals” number on the country he grew up in? This book had been written for a specific reader, one who would enjoy from the outside, and in a supercilious way, a view of the community it was set within, and that reader was not me. But duty called and I soldiered on to the end and can now step back and comment wisely that this book does a good job of describing certain middle-class Indian values, in particular certain primitive attitudes towards the female body – but without acknowledging that they are the same primitive attitudes that prevail globally. It also touches on how Indian politics is steeped in crime – and shows clearly that the system is held securely in place by a conniving class to preserve its own advantage and position, all the while preening as superior and virtuous – sadly enough, the class to which you and I belong.

And now please read the Marie Claire thing, if only to see how hard I tried to make them both responsible, accurate reviews which did not plagiarize each other in any way ...
Aatish Taseer is still trying to get his father’s attention.
In his first book, Stranger to History, he wrote about his travels “through Islamic lands”, and about his search for his father, a Pakistani businessman and politician, who had abandoned him and his mother when he was a baby. Aatish tried to make out that he was an “Indian-Pakistani” though those who read the fine print found out that he was in fact only British.
In The Temple-Goers, the locale shifts but the quest continues. Though this is supposed to be a work of fiction, some characters are familiar from before. The hero himself is one Aatish Taseer, who by an amazing coincidence has a brave, longsuffering, high-profile mother. In a moment of mock annoyance, she makes a joke about the “fictional” Aatish, shaking her head and withholding a smile: “It’s the bad Pakistani blood. It’s from the father. I’ve done what I can to improve it, but still it remains.”
The temple-goers themselves are a crude lot – noisy, greedy, superstitious and none too clean. Aatish mingles with them and watches, judging through eyes that must please Papa. They are people in the grip of rapid change and their new opportunities bring them a new affluence and new choices. And the choices they make often show them as shallow and cunning. There’s also a streak of fanaticism in them that simmers below the surface and could – and later does – prove troublesome to one main character, not a temple-goer, who provides a counterpoint, representing grace, dignity and culture. He does not ask “prying Indian questions” about how much money Aatish earns or spends. On one occasion he foolishly dresses in his best, which clearly marks him out as different. This is a big mistake as it leads the temple-goers to make mincemeat of him. Even the leaders of the land are slimy, corrupt temple-goers.
It’s only by ignoring the wailing “Papa, please Papa, look at me Papa” undertone in this book that one can appreciate its literary merit. It is well written and strewn with insights into thought processes and relationships. Writes Aatish: “Because my mother had brought me up alone and our closeness was almost embarrassing since I was now technically a man, we played at being offhand with each other.” And so even after not seeing him for months, she gives him a brief hug, says he’s looking skinny, and falls into the arms of his girlfriend instead, doing what many of us might if we shared a similar pain because we have not the awareness to notice, or the skill to describe it so well.

The other books on the DSC longlist do look promising though:

Upamanyu Chatterjee: Way to Go (Penguin)
Amit Chaudhuri: The Immortals (Picador India)
Chandrahas Choudhury: Arzee the Dwarf (HarperCollins)
Musharraf Ali Farooqui: The Story of a Widow (Picador India)
Ru Freeman: A Disobedient Girl (Penguin/ Viking)
Anjum Hassan: Neti Neti (IndiaInk/Roli Books)
Tania James: Atlas of Unknowns (Pocket Books)
Manju Kapur: The Immigrant (Faber & Faber)
HM Naqvi: Home Boy (HarperCollins)
Salma: The Hour Past Midnight (Zubaan, translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom)
Sankar: The Middleman (Penguin, translated by Arunava Sinha)
Ali Sethi: The Wish Maker (Penguin)
Jaspreet Singh: Chef (Bloomsbury)
Daniyal Mueenuddin: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (Bloomsbury)
Neel Mukherjee: A Life Apart (Constable & Robinson)

Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russel Rich

Staying ignorant in another language
Katherine Russel Rich survived cancer but then she lost a self-defining job of long standing. Of all the life choices this crossroads could have led her to, she picked the one that took her to India to learn Hindi. One of her objectives was to observe how the process of acquiring a second language, known to affect brain neurons, would change her as a person. This book tells the story and describes her experiences and observations in the context of the theory of language acquisition.
I tried reading Dreaming in Hindi aloud to my friend Gladys and found it exhausting. One reason was that the sentences are long and fanciful and often don’t make sense until you’ve stopped and examined them. Nowadays most people prefer a simple, straightforward and easily-understood style. There was certainly an element of poetry here – but far too much longwinded, self-indulgent expression for my taste.
Another reason both Gladys and I found this book tiring is because we felt it described a world we had never encountered and were constantly wondering whether in fact such a world did exist. The people seemed unreal and the situations ludicrous. We strongly felt that the author, despite her intention of immersing herself in something new and becoming different in the process, was describing India at a superficial level and in a rather precious, Lonely Planet sort of way, as one looking, self-absorbed, from the outside in.
One of the modules taught at the “institute” to which Katherine Russel Rich comes to learn Hindi is Sexual Harassment. She writes, “To the Indians, sexual harassment was a terrifying concept. Even its name, with its clacking, hissing sounds, was ominous. The idea behind it, actionable sexual attentions, was purely Western, and so no one understood precisely what it meant.”
Since sexual harassment is the most common or garden kind of street activity known to anyone who knows anything about the subcontinent, we found this observation strange. And when she said, “Just as South America is littered with antiquated cars, Hindi is strewn with words no one in America had used since Agatha Christie’s time, and for that alone I loved it,” we smote our foreheads in pity.
I’m sorry to say that about one fourth of the way into this book, we decided just to read a few bits from the middle and the end and then move on to another one next week. This means that you would be well justified in ignoring anything I’ve said here as superficial assessment.
Reading the last few pages, there were a fair number of missing links we had to address either by skipping because we couldn’t understand them, or by guessing what they referred to in context of what we knew. However, I’m glad we read the last bit because it has in it a valuable insight about how language works and how even someone who is an expert at a language may not understand two people who speak it because they belong to a different community and use it in a way only they can understand.

Karl, aaj aur Kal by Cyrus Broacha

In which Cyrus tries something new
I've been a fan of Cyrus Broacha ever since I first heard about him. Bakra was brilliant, and the moments of genius of The Week That Wasn't are usually well worth wading through its PJs for. Reading this book, the phrase The Indian Woody Allen sprang to mind repeatedly. However, I was sorry to find it rather mediocre both in terms of entertainment and literary merit. I wish Cyrus had tried harder, he could have come up with something much better than this. You can read my review of Karl, aaj aur Kal and my interview with Cyrus which appeared in The Hindu today by clicking on the links above, or just read on below:

This book traces the lives of Karl and Kunal from childhood to mid-adulthood.
In their early school days they pondered whether the one who invented exams had been heavily intoxicated or clinically insane at the time but their Maths teacher (Mrs. Batliwala) believed them necessary as they empowered the teacher.
Later, in the cast of more than twenty of Godspell (little did they know that this would be twice the number of members in the audience on any given night) Karl excused himself from dance practice (no other animal than the human suffers this indignity in public) taking recourse in his strongest talent – the ability to lie.
In New York as the boys take a course at an “acting studio” we are treated to hilarious stories that are politically irreverent to vegetarians, the hirsute, Rideley’s turtles, Italians and other minority groups.
Back in Bombay, they find themselves thrown into the theatrical film world (with prominent roles in Khalid Jani’s new blockbuster The Gaonwallah, The Britisher, and The Ugly). Eventually, Karl is taken to bosom by the eminent MP Nilesh Kane and by an inexplicable series of events may one day even land up as Prime Minister.
This book calls itself a novel. However, it’s more of a documentary with insights into the film industry, Indian politicians, the south Bombay approach to the universe and some features of life in New York, Paris and Delhi. The characters are not real people and do not change in the course of the book but more like cut-outs that are being pointed at and talked about. However, there’s a distinct Woody Allen feel to much of what Cyrus writes – funny, often surrealistic, and drawing richly from a background of privilege and cultural minority.
Then, this book drips with wisdom. We learn that in the Arthashastra, Kautilya, also known as Chanakya, said there are three phases in a male’s life. In the first he craves a canine companion, in the second he craves a female companion (not necessarily canine), and in the third phase he craves for the canine companion to return and bite the female companion.
It also has insights into world history: Medieval Europe was constantly going to war because of the strange French accent. The 100-years war apparently sparked off when the French ambassador said to his English counterpart, “Greetings to your King of Pascal” which due to the fatal accent was heard as “Greetings to your king the rascal.”
As a diehard fan of The Week That Wasn’t it had me cackling like an unladylike hyena in parts and, during the inevitable lame un-funny bits, waiting for genius to strike again, but frequently disappointed.


How did you select the title of your book?
It was a gift from my erstwhile friend and more importantly drinking companion Shree Kunal Vijayakar.

Which of the main characters in Karl, Aaj aur Kal is inspired by a real person (and who)?
Some have the base of a real person, but then they ignore my instructions and land up doing their own thing. A few are an amalgam of truth and fantasy and the rest are pure fantasy. Kunal would be roughly 50% and Nilesh Kane perhaps 60%. For better or worse it's a piece of fiction.

Did you attend acting school in New York like Karl and Kunal and have you drawn from what you experienced there?
I did, and I have, and I may add I had a ball. I came back with three truths about NY a) you must enjoy walking. b) you'll always be short of cash. c) after every girl there's an even more beautiful one in the future.

Did you really experience Pearl Padamsee as the way you’ve written about her?
Ironically, Pearl herself was really larger than life. Her brand of humour waxed between straight-faced disparaging remarks and over-dramatic statements. I absolutely will always love and cherish her.

What is the message you want your book to carry? Something you want the reader to come away thinking or feeling?
Absolutely nothing. I don't want to cleanse society and the world. Quite frankly I'm one who rarely cleans himself. This book is just a journey and all messages are incidental and at the reader’s own risk.

How did your publisher work with you on this book?
Mostly from far away. Publishers I believe are like wives. First everything is hunky dory and they appear quite submissive. Then before you know it they have the controls. All said and done they've been like a good bra - fairly supportive.

Did you always want to be someone who made a profession out of his wit?
If anybody out there wants to make a living of their wit alone, and aren't necessarily going into politics, then my message to them is please ignore people who tell you to shut up along the way. In the words of Jesus Christ, "They know not what they do".
I would also like to clarify that I see myself as a professional idiot, that is someone whose slated profession is idiocy, and bear in mind I was an idiot long before Chetan Bhagat, Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan came along.

What is your favourite medium to work in? Which do you find the easiest?
Writing for sure. I control all the variables, except of course my daughter's potty timings.

You sometimes have your family in your shows as props and though it’s usually quite hilarious, I always wonder how they feel about it.
They aren’t always chuffed. But they use an excellent instrument to 'cope'. For the past 25 years they simply ignore me.

Tell us something about your early friendship with Kunal Vijaykar and the professional relationship you now share.
I first met Kunal in 1990 for an audition. I think it was a children's play. He stammered, stuttered and coughed through the reading and seemed extremely stern. I found out later he just hadn't developed any muscles, whatever, and as you know smiling needs the co-operation of plenty of muscles. After a while we hit it off. I see us as Lennon and McCartney, without the talent. Although now that I'm nearing 40, I’d rather he was John.

How did you get the idea for the wonderful Kaneez in The Week That Wasn’t?
One day at a workshop we stumbled on a girl who was happily murdering the Hindi language. Her Hindi was so bad that she made me sound like Premchand. Such a gift should not be wasted. We stole her away, only to realise that she's a bundle of comic talent, who we heavily underpay.

In your shows you do a wonderful job of poking fun at important people. Have you ever got into trouble for this? Have you ever been stopped from doing it?
The network will from time to time censor something. But in general we try to use our common sense – short in supply though it is. Generally the team acts as a sounding board when we feel gags treading on dangerous grounds. Unfortunately there are a few holy cows to be adhered to.

Tell us something about how things have changed for you over the years in terms of response from your audiences.
One thing you realise, if people already know you, they've already judged you. It’s a prejudice of sorts. They either like you or they don’t, even when they’ve never interacted with you.
I treat the audience exactly like I treat my wife: I always begin with the two golden words, "I’m sorry”.

What has been your experience with the film industry and how do you relate with it?
It's a lot like everywhere else, sometimes efficient, sometimes corrupt and with many strange accents. Mostly it's been fun, except for the long drives.
I have appeared in about 5 films in total. They are: Jalwa, which was made roughly a hundred years ago, Sooni Taraporewalla's Little Zizou, 99 - People Pictures, Fruit and Nut and Mumbai Chaka Chak (not released yet).
However, I have worked as an interviewer with almost all the male and female stars of your generation and I've had to consume large quantities of alcohol to get over a few of them.

What about politics?
Well, I've been around politicians at public functions. Nilesh Kane's physicality and mannerisms left a great effect on me. Sadly due to security reasons his name can't be revealed at present. Perhaps after I get my green card.

If you really did make Prime Minister, what would be the first 3 things you’d do?
Well, I'd give myself absolute legislative powers and thus dissolve the two now defunct assemblies. Then I'd cancel the Judiciary, and hence without the Judicial review, I'd have absolute and complete power. My third noble act of statesmanship would be to bring back the dance bars, in fact I'd make them compulsory.
But even such a powerful Prime Minister would have his limits. I don't suppose I'd be able to get my daughter into my ex-school! After all there's only so much that even God can do!

The Great Indian Love Story by Ira Trivedi

A glimpse into Delhi's low life
Sometimes Pune station is genteel and welcoming. But 2 weeks ago when I visited to drop someone off, it was so teeming with travellers, and with such a long platform-ticket queue (the machine had vanished – stolen, perhaps?) that I entered without one. But when I went again a few days ago to receive her, assuming I’d have to push and shove again, it was saintly calm and I was way too early.
Staring at the book cart near the entrance, I saw this one and couldn’t resist buying it. What a promising, if ambitious, title! Eager to get started, I decided to find a good seat and start reading.
Pune station has as many indicators as clouds in a monsoon sky, but none of them work. Nobody I asked seemed to know when my train was due or on which platform it would arrive. Calculating the average of various guesses, I hiked up and down and found to my pleasant surprise that platform 2/3 had several rows of comfortable-looking empty seats. I sat down and started reading but that distinct and rather fruity railway-toilet smell began to haunt me. I moved to various seats up and down the platform but the smell followed me everywhere. It was a familiar feeling from the long and tedious train journeys of my childhood on wooden-slat berths and one-rupee chaya-coffee and the hot Kerala, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharshtra winds blasting through the compartments and occasionally aiding in sunstroke. So instead of making me vomit, I started feeling nostalgic. It was a bit like having an old and sweet but very annoying friend (or cousin) sitting behind you, trying to read over your shoulder.
However, that was not the reason I wasn’t very impressed with this book. I read more than half of it while waiting for a train (which mysteriously crept in and emptied itself out, unannounced, on a dark platform, while other trains’ arrivals and departures were being heralded in loud, continuous klaxon wails).
When I got home, I made sure I read to the end before I went to sleep because this is just not the kind of book I would give a second chance to. It is well written and paints a vivid picture of a certain section of Delhi society. These people are very wealthy, and they spend their money on large, ostentatious homes, and nightly parties where part of the entertainment is the abuse of expensive and mind-altering substances. However, bringing this alive briefly in your mind is the book’s only success. Otherwise, I could only see flaws. The plot is weak. Some of its links are entirely unconvincing. The narrator starts out as a character of the book – but then suddenly disappears, and ends up as a voice that abruptly winds up the story at the end.
I'm not complaining because this book is not great literature – after all, it did help me pass a pleasant hour on the stinky railway platform – but because it does not even do justice to the simple and popular genre to which it belongs.
Ira Trivedi has used the device of getting various of her characters to tell the story, but this doesn’t make any of them more real to us and in fact opens the way for far too many loose ends.
Before I wrote this, I came across an internet article (inappropriately titled "Writer Ira Trivedi takes a look at Delhi’s high life") in which Ira Trivedi claims that her book is about “India trying to come to terms with western values”.
I feel sorry to admit that I don’t even agree with that. The book is about people who are simply following a lifestyle and a tradition that they have always done. Over centuries they have been cruel and exploitative, whether as landlords or as administrators. Over centuries they have ill-treated and objectified their women, forcing them into subservience of every kind, and brutalizing and killing them when they pleased. They have always favoured intoxication over sobriety.
To me, many of the characters in the book were like pigs in a pen – snuffling and grunting and eating their own faeces. A book whose characters disgust you is not always a bad book – many wonderful books have completely disgusting characters who add colour and charm to the tale. But not this one.
Then, this book calls itself a love story. Surely love means more than just a feeling you carry within yourself? Surely it’s inclusive of the other person or thing and involves your care, nurture, understanding and giving of focussed attention to the loved person or thing? So to me, The Great Indian Love Story was not about love.
It’s also not about India – only a tiny and horrid part of it. And, sadly, there is absolutely nothing great about it at all.

Kama Kahanis - the new Indian Mills and Boon

Kissing and sighing in the good old days
I read these historical romances for Sunday Mid-day. One of them (Ghazal in the Moonlight) was quite decent but I think I might have outgrown the genre.
Here's what I wrote in the 4 Oct 2009 issue:
“His restless gaze settled on a bewitchingly beautiful girl, not older than seventeen. She was angelically exquisite, from her radiant honey-coloured skin to her dark eyes, rimmed with kohl and speaking a language all their own.”
I really can’t be a hypocrite and pronounce grandly that I object to books constructed with sentences like these. As a genre, such books are not literature – but they don’t pretend to be. When critics complain that their plots are repeated, the language daft and the endings always happy, publishers will reply smugly that it’s the predictability and happy endings that draw the fans – and the language suits them just fine, too, thank you.
Looking fondly back to the days I myself blissfully employed books of this nature to relieve the tedium of Physics class, I could even claim quite placidly that they don’t really turn their readers into quivering neurotics by creating unrealistic expectations or lowering their self esteem.
So I won’t complain about sentences like “You scorn at everything we do” and the use of words like “wager”, or ask why we’re saying “bua” on one page and “paternal aunt” on the next – and say instead that if the purpose of the Kama Kahanis had been to teach their readers history, I’m afraid I’d have to be rude and point out that they’d failed rather badly.
The Zamindar’s Forbidden Love and Mistress to the Yuvraj both read like small-town one-set amateur productions with a few dubious historical elements randomly thrown in. Ghazal in the Moonlight does it a great deal better, actually transporting you to another time with much more visual imagery and absorbing detail. How accurate it is I can’t say – though I can fairly observe that Ghazal is so much more mature than the other two in terms of plot, language and romantic escalation that it’s unfair to even classify it as part of the same series.
In any case, the Kama Kahanis only use the historical background as a means to provide an added edge of romance, a device that was also useful considering the archaic language and concepts used in the books.

All three freely use words such as “quivering”, “impulsively” and “achingly” when referring to the girls, while the men bark with laughter, cock their heads and twitch their devilish mouths (the rogues). Because, though many things have changed, and the heroines here fight duels to win the bag of gold and walk jauntily past tigers to prove a haughty point, they continue to be virgins pure. The men on the other hand are still swashbuckling, experienced studs.
Most interesting is to observe how the romantic-novel formula works in an Indian context. While the publisher coins the catchy phrase “chaddi-ripper” to describe the books, the dress code is (exquisite) period costume of every hue and fabric. Interestingly, the men here are more aware of their own feelings than I remember them ever being. I’m not sure whether this is cultural or a function of the present.
Most hilarious and incongruous of all was the ending of Zamindar in which (unmarried) Madhu and Som have worked themselves up into a frenzy and are now on the verge of Doing It, not fretting in the least that the door is open and the young servant boy might walk in at any moment.