Yashodhara Lal has penned a novel that is surely going to promote the habit of read-n-trash… oops! read-n-recycle sounded so much more diplomatic and mild and forgetful and so virtuous! But a novel that has Hinglish, sometimes in a rather disconcerting text full of all-caps, words like ‘gud mawrning’ an over-dose of unconvincing incidents, and too less of quotable sentences, delectable phrases, and jogging ideas, has to be ready to face criticism.

If the first paragraph has already put off a lot of potential readers of this novel, I am not to blame. Those were the sort of people who wouldn’t anyway have bought this book… and those of you who are still reading this review, let me warm you up by saying that the book does have its great moments:

  1. I liked the disarming smile of the writer on the inside back-cover of the novel.
  2. I loved the cover graphic and the colours used… though the font looks muddled and there was absolutely no need to stuff all the other texts there besides the title of the book and the name of the author.
  3. I loved the over-all production, the paper used, the soft-cover that will sustain all the twists and turns of a restless reader, and the very readable font-size.
  4. I loved the way the author divided the novel into three zones.
  5. I loved some of the convincing incidents in the novel. (Well, I didn’t say all the incidents were unconvincing, did I?)
  6. I liked the easy writing style that flows on without getting either deeper or rushing like a killer whirlpool!

The writing style in the novel is exactly what you feel when you’re perched on top of a lurching elephant – a strange queasy sort of ecstasy combined with giggling fear. There is a distinct notion of the unreal in the incidents and you are not convinced, and then you feel like ‘a giraffe on skates’ or like what the protagonist Vijay felt ‘sitting on the toilet with his pants around his feet, and the by-now familiar deer-in-headlights look on his face’… The story, of course, is simple enough. You have a girl and a boy who decide to get married. The blurb says: ‘Yashodhara, a quick tempered gal from the big city, is hitched to Vijay, a laidback desi boy from a small town…’ the blurb goes on to say that the novel is a ‘fresh and honest take on marriage and parenthood’ and it is a ‘story of self-discovery that will have you laughing out loud – and sympathizing wholeheartedly with its quirky and likeable acts of characters.’

‘Chaddi chahiye, jamai babu?’

The blurb claims that the novel will have you laughing out loud. Well, with phrases like the one in bold and that I’ve used as a sub-heading for this post, you would surely be cluck-clucking and tsk-tsking and maybe laughing out loud at the writer perceives real writing is all about. There are so many language howlers all over that there will be times when you might even turn the book over to confirm if it is published by Harper Collins.

You have this strange khichri-language used without a thought and this does tend to get on your nerves. Why must a reader be subjected to ‘Wo-ich toh main bhi boli’, ‘arrey’, and ‘nahinnn!’ if they are not necessarily adding to the strength of a story?

Heartbeat

The heartbeat of any creative work of fiction includes an uncanny penchant to make even the most mundane moment worth remembering. This can be done by using cleverly constructed phrases or reaching out to readers through the inclusion of little snippets, incidents, or happenings that not only make the story move ahead on a firmer foothold but also give the readers something to stop and think about. Such incidents need to be convincing… they can be imaginary or have fantasy woven around them – but they still need to be convincing enough. Such incidents cannot afford to be forgettable little dullards whose presence hurts the overall narrative or be there without serving any purpose of entertainment or thought-provocation.

Most of the incidents included in this work are either similar to the meaningless banter in a Hindi movie or resemble the hero and the heroine going round a tree singing a song that might as well not be there. Such incidents make me as a reader, restless… and I was restless for most of the time I was reading this work.

The way Vijay tries to get rejected by all the prospective brides that he has to go and meet is, at best, bizarre and created because the author wanted to sound creative enough. Look at the ‘Naam hain Vijay… Deenanath… Chauhan. Maalum?’ episode and you’ll know what doesn’t fit in with two people who are supposed to be from premier institutes of the country. Frankly, I did not find much of IIM-A in Yashodhara, the heroine of the novel… and not much of an IITian in Vijay as well.

Yes, I did relish the ‘wifely Buntvinder’ incident, the way Vijay relishes the aloo-gobhi parathas, and the delicate realization that there was a child finally discovered through ultra-sound:

Thump-thump-thump-thump, it went, and my heartbeat quickened in response. Something so concrete, so steady and so real, from a tiny peanut-shaped being who weighed barely a hundred grams. Vijay and I exchanged a look and I knew his expression, with its delighted and rather silly grin, mirrored mine. 

It was confirmed. There really was a baby in there.

I wish Yashodhara had focused more on people discovering little joys and then put them into words that multiplied their actual impact. A writer really needs to do that to have any lasting relevance. I wish there were more pages with magical writing like this one…

‘Honey, that’s my special romantic look. You forgot?’ 

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I guess it’s been a really long time. But anyway, I don’t feel romantic. How can I, after putting our baby to bed for about three hours – all by myself.’ I flopped onto the bed, exhausted. 

He wriggled over next to me and said, ‘Well, maybe this will change your mood.’ And he switched off the light. 

The room was flooded with darkness, and I found I was looking up at a sky full of stars and a beautiful crescent moon. 

Vijay had covered half of the ceiling right above our bed with glow-in-the-dark stickers. The twinkling stars and the bright crescent moon on the black ceiling gave the eerie yet romantic effect of a night sky – if not a real night sky, at least a planetarium-type night sky. I stared up at it in utter delight, and noted that he had thoughtfully arranged seven of the stars into the Big Dipper. It was slightly awry, but it immediately caught my fancy and became my favourite part of the sky. 

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.

Conclusion

Well, the work, I must admit, had the potential to be much more than it turned out to be. The writing style was more like two of the sections in the novel – ‘rough road’ and ‘disaster zone’… and I’d say that reviews like this one must act like the ‘caution’ to any writer if she happens to still have the inclination to write more.

'Just married: Please Excuse' -- a review

‘Just married: Please Excuse’ — a review

Details of the book:

Title: Just married, Please Excuse
Author: Yashodhara Lal
ISBN: 978-93-5029-227-3
Price in India: Rs 199/- (in 2012)
Pages: 255
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India

 

Book reviewed under a indiblogger-HarperCollins arrangement.

 

Arvind Passey
03 October 2012