Chic-lit or Chic-shit

There have been very few times that I have really got worked up over a book. This is one.
A few days ago, I picked up this book called, "Imaginary Men" by this lady called "Anjali Banerjee". The blurb told me that it falls in a genre called "chic-lit" (Literature for those cuddly things in frilly skirts you find in malls).

I thought the story would go the usual way: Girl very lonely, pressure from family, girl with broken heart, in walks a prince, censored love scene, everyone lives happily ever after.
After reading too much of The Battle of Stalingrad and getting bad dreams about the Mumbai Underworld, I thought this would be a nice change.

Guess what?

The story DID turn out to be exactly like I mentioned above. But with a twist.
Look at how the book starts:
The heroine Lina begins:
"I'm allergic to India
I snort and sniff through my sister Durga's wedding, my eyes watering from Kolkata pollution, not because Durga is marrying the Bengali version of Johnny Depp. Not because I am the eldest sister, twenty-nine and still single.
Sweat seeps through my choli shirt, in this bright turqoise sari, I feel like a giant blueberry.... A few bachelors prowl in ill-fitting suits, hair slicked back, cell phones plastered to their ears. I keep my gaze averted. I won't talk to any of these geeks."

And this is how the story goes all through this book. India is like this. Indians are like that. I land up in India, I suffer from the traffic, the pollution, the nosy relatives, the house-hold astrologer, the T.V. which runs shows which are rip-offs of the "Brady Bunch". I have no privacy, there are so many mosquitoes, I don't want to do the house-hold chores...... The litany is simply endless.

I turned back to the end-paper to read the profile of this lady and it says that she was born in Kolkata but went to the U.S. as an infant and grew up in Canada and California. She simply has not lived in India!!! Her idea of India is as quaint as it is unreal. She calls her characters Lina, Durga and Kali. The handsome guys in this book are quaintly called Raja Prasad and Dev Prasad (Have you EVER run into anyone with names like these). They also go into jungles to hunt on an elephant and have an army of servants in tow to keep the mosquitoes away. According to her Hindu marriages ceremonies finish with the bride and the groom taking "Seven STEPS" (as opposed to seven pheras).

I don't think this lady is qualified to write about India. She is simply milking her Indian name to come across as an authority on something she does not know. She wants to give an exotic setting to her romantic comedy.
These are the sort of people who perpetuate the myth of our country as the land of snake-charmers, Sadhus, cholera and dysentery.

Besides I don't think she has a very good notion of her own country (now I mean the US). According to her, if your sister is in need of a shoulder to cry on, the only thing you can do is to drive across the state and have an emergency jogging session in the Golden-Gate bridge park!!!!

Now comes the funniest part.

The heroine Lina is a match-maker by profession. She has an interview with this Bengali financial analyst. According to him (Lina says),

"I am active runner (sic). I enjoy sports, meditation, golf, travel and gardening. I like the outdoors in general..... I want to settle down with attractive and motivated woman(sic again..), a professional girl, beautiful inside and out, with similar family background who can complement and enhance my family.
My father is a well-reputed family physician. Retired, of course. My grandmother is an intelligent and pious lady. My family prefers a girl of Brahmin roots."
(Here Lina writes, "Stuffy upper crust")
"I prefer woman nineteen to twenty-fourish, no older."
("In other words, his personal flight attendant").
"I am a hard-working professional, building my career in the finance industry pursuing CPF course.... I have a Master's Degree..."
"Your annual income?"
His face reddens. "Fifty thousand to Seventy-five thousand"

Now we come to the lady Lina herself.
She is a wheatish complexioned, twenty-nine year old matchmaker. She has a scrawny build. And she works for a company called Lakshmi Matchmakers (And therefore earns nothing worth shit). I do not know much about how she looks but she used to have a boy-friend (another quaint name here) called Nathu who died in a car-crash. She has a gay guy called Harry as a friend. And nothing in this book makes me think that she is in anyway intelligent and well-read. In fact she comes across as a rather shallow and dogmatic creature.

And look at the guy who ends up finally pursuing her:

This guy called Raja Prasad. He is a tall, dark and handsome prince (are'nt they all). He has muscles all over his body (probably in his head also if he is chasing a girl like Lina and not some princess). He is (of course) rich. He runs a granite factory, three orphanages and sundry other charitable institutions in India. Plus he spouts sundry astronomical fundae five minutes after meeting Lina. To raise funds for the orphanages, he come to the US every now and then and while he does that, he stays in the best room of the Hilton and get chauffeured around in a Rolls. He has been engaged when he was a baby to this princess called Sayantoni. He has three palaces in India and they all simply crawl with servants.

After reading all this I could not help but laugh. The author seems to think that this is a match made in heaven! And look at how this all ends:
Lina cannot leave the US. Raja cannot leave India. So we are at a dead-lock. Raja finally gives in and moves to the US because he feels he needs to know her better.

In the end of course we have our Lady move to India. She lives in a palace, gets a retinue of servants and lives happily ever after.

Give me back my "History of the Battle of Stalingrad" Again!!!
And Madam...please please stop writing. Take matchmaking as a profession, but spare us this shit!