Two States by Chetan Bhagat. Hilarious to read. Happen to read the book after strong recommendations from few friends. You feel that you are one of the tense lovers. You relate so many things from your own life also. Being a Tamilian (not South Indian or a Madarassi), you happen to travel the same auto, walk through the second longest beach, have a coffee in the same only one coffee shop in the Chennai, eat the same tasteless snakes and lot more. But unfortunately, I consider that I know few things about being Punjabi as well as impartial writing/narration/critic.
The very first page, reduces the hope upon the writer to invest more time on quality but on clearing his stand (PS to the Dedication). Even more the writer takes pain in writing that he loves the South Indian much, dragging his wife to a witness. The writer says South Indian is a generalized word so he will avoid using that, unfortunately he ends saying by using that. Being ‘Generalized’ in things is very easy for one can comment anything he wants.
Let me explain this.
“People of Pollachi (My home town) are really good, striving to be developed, adjusting to all sorts of advancements. They have good tolerance and also taste for the good food. They love peace and calmness. They are religious also with rationale view to the society. I simply love them”---- you say this in the first page.
“Pollachi does not have an A/c theatre, may be people don’t like comfort.”
“There is no amusement park. I don’t know what in the name of God, does a person do to pass their time?”
“OMG, there is no Coffee Shop in Pollachi.”
“I asked for spoon from the hotel waiter, and he gave me an out of world look!!”
“People out there eat using their hand, S%*T.”
If I say all the above in the consecutive pages, do you think that I have been impartial? I would not say so. The very thing of expressing that the people of Chennai using lot of bad words (really hurting words have been published in two places), they being unhygienic shows how bad is the taste to express about one’s own country people. Usage of generic statements, about the people of the group to which you don’t belong, shows the writer in poor taste. Being aware of the Punjabis life style (to certain extent), they have understated in the book. A ‘Book’ has to continue in same tense, flow, person and pulse. If not the readers will not be comfortable. Atleast I was not. Taking the chance/voice of others to say bad things about somebody doesn’t express you in a good light.
Leaving aside the community aspect, the writer is not able to convince, this story to be real, as the prologue states. Also You feel, that the characters are not defined well. The lady lover's character was not supposed to do certain things or expected to say few particular words. One cannot avoid the feeling, "Hey, i think i have seen a movie, like this book/based on this book!!"
On the whole, it was not an happy reading.
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