Overall Rating: 7.0/10.0
I finally managed to get down reading and now reviewing “2 States” the latest novel penned by Chetan Bhagat. This is a book about the “love-life” and the marriage of a Punjabi boy and a Tamilian girl, who met each other at IIM-A. Of course, as per Chetan Bhagat, this book is a work of fiction, but the fact that it is inspired from his life can be gauged from the fact that his wife is also from Tamil Nadu and they met at IIM-A. The witty part however, is the fact that this piece of literature is dedicated to Chetan Bhagat’s “in-laws”.
The Story
Like all his previous books, this book too is supposed to be a book with a “Happy Ending”. The lead characters Krish Malhotra (a Punjabi Boy) and Ananya Swaminathan (a Tamilian Girl), who meet as classmates in IIM-Ahmedabad and the end result comes from the title itself, i.e. the boy marries the girl.
The storyline of their meeting and falling in love moves very fast indeed. The boy and the girl have a rendezvous on the first page in the first chapter itself, they become friends by the second chapter, kiss by chapter 6 and sex by chapter 7. The real story starts when their parents meet for the first time during their convocation, jolting them out of their dream-world and the things start going sour. So, in a book which has 63 Chapters, the “I love you” happens in the first 1/9th part if you may, and that is when the reality mentioned in the starting of the book makes sense.
Love marriages around the world are simple:
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. They get married.
In India, there are a few more steps:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love girl.
Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to love girl's family.
Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.
Needless to say, there is the typical Chetan Bhagat style of writing where the lead characters are rebels and try to break the rules of their society. The book seems to be a “continuation” of Five-Point-Someone with “Hari”, now in light as “Krish”. There are references to having an affair with Professor’s daughter during his undergraduation at IIT-Delhi. Moreover, there is also a mention during Krish’s interview with CitiBank regarding a missed semester, during his undergraduate studies, which Krish corrects as calling it “Research Semester”.
The book depicts Ananya, who is a Tamil-Brahmin eating non-veg and boozing, which is against her social culture. In a very light fashion, Chetan Bhagat also shows the fact how some of the students take up careers without their actual interest just for the sake of money. It also shows the Indian mentality on topics like pre-marital sex, nuances of regions and religions and the social stigma of inter-caste marriages.
The book is based on a concept that has been covered countless times in innumerable Bollywood movies (it reminded me of Dil-Wale-Dulhaniya-Le-Jayenge). The funny and yet heartening was the fact that when Krish proposed later in the book, asking Ananya’s hand-in-marriage, he proposed to the entire Swaminathan family and bought rings for all of them. On the whole, it is a sweet story, where the kids though madly in love, don’t just elope together and respect the feelings of their family members; and yet, they also don’t their parents influence their choice of their life-partner.
Final Verdict:
To quote something that I figured out over time, Chetan Bhagat’s books always have something to do with numbers in the title. I even found a similar discovery from someone else on the Internet.
Five-Point Someone
One Night @ The Call Centre
Three Mistakes of My Life
Two States
Final Verdict:
To quote something that I figured out over time, Chetan Bhagat’s books always have something to do with numbers in the title. I even found a similar discovery from someone else on the Internet.
Five-Point Someone
One Night @ The Call Centre
Three Mistakes of My Life
Two States
Nevertheless, the book doesn’t meet the expectations to make it reach a “Four” out of 5 on the rating, so probably, his next title needs to have a “Four” to complete his set of 1-5. It’s not a literary classic and not reading the book won’t make you feel as if you are missing something. However, with its witty jokes, though sometimes regional, the book never turns boring, if you pick it up to read. To summarize, since the book just costs Rs. 95, which is lesser than a single movie ticket in the Multiplex, it is well-worth the money.
1 comment:
It’s not a literary classic and not reading the blog won’t make you feel as if you are missing something. However, with its witty jokes, though sometimes regional, the blog never turns boring, if you pick it up to read.
:)
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