"One Indian Girl" - Book Review

Well, my mom is the best cook in the world.. Of course everyone thinks their mom is Tarla Dalal.. So do I.. And staying away from one's mother sort of makes one realise the value of food cooked by your mother.. So coming to my mom's cooking, while she is a superb cook, all her dishes are prepared with 'less' salt basically to suit my dad's palate who hates being served food with too much salt.. And whenever I visit my parents, my mom cooks all my favourite dishes (without salt).. So the scene is something like this.. I'm hungry and my mom serves me lunch.. And I'm just waiting to savour the food.. It's only when I have put the first morsel of food in my mouth that I realise that the gravy though superb is having less salt.. After grumbling to myself I go to the the kitchen and add some salt in my food and then continue eating..

This was exactly my experience after reading the first few pages of Chetan Bhagat's latest novel.. I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of his latest book and hoping it would be a better read than his last book 'Half Girlfriend' .. But alas I was thoroughly disappointed with the novel.. Well, I guess between judging reality T.V shows and appearing on news channel debates, Mr Bhagat can't seem to spare the time to write a decent novel.. So what he leaves his readers with is a sub standard effort that doesn't even deserve to be called a novel.. It looks more like a holiday assignment from an English Literature student who I'm sure would do a better job than Mr Bhagat..

I'm disappointed with the novel.. But I'm more offended with the premise on which it is based.. Sir, do you mean to say that Indian girls are undecided about what they want from life? So the relationships the protagonist is involved in make for novel material because she's an Indian? Jeez! Which century are you living in? There are so many people in live in relationships today.. That includes people all over the world (Indians included).. Your earlier novels were good because each one was based on an issue the youth could identify with and were quality books.. This one is lackluster and just shows your indifference towards your readers.. There's too much detail about the protagonist's relationships.. Well, if I wanted to read about kissing and other related stuff I would have preferred a Mills & Boon or a Danielle Steel novel..

So here are some pointers for you Sir.. What 'Indian' girls actually want is to be known for their talent and intelligence.. And not for their choices in relationships.. Marriage while still a strong institution in India should not be used as a yardstick to judge women.. A woman's decision to not get married or to get married at an age when she's comfortable with should be welcomed with as much support and enthusiasm as is shown to women who do decide to take the plunge at what we call the 'right' age to get married.. And just to be safe, stay away from 'women centric' topics for your future novels.. You suck at them..

A quick sum up then.. For all Chetan Bhagat fans, you can give this one a miss.. For other voracious readers, if you're not reading anything right now you could give this a try and would probably finish this book in a day or a day and a half (max).. For film makers, please don't make this into a movie.. It will ruin the actors career.. (the ones playing the lead roles, I mean) .. and finally Mr Chetan Bhagat -get your shit together.. or very soon you wont be one of the 'rats' running the rat race with other young 'Indian' writers like Amish, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Rashmi Bansal and so on..