Reading and watching Chetan Bhagat

My head was beginning to hurt reading too many improving books - as P. G. Wodehouse would have called them - and it was time for some lighter fare. A neighbor of mine recommended Chetan Bhagat; apparently he is what twenty-somethings are reading these days. So I decided to reconnect with my younger self and read his latest book, the hugely entertaining Two States.

Within 5 pages I was transported to my college years; Bhagat's simple no-nonsense style and acerbic bluntness fit the gen X (or is it Y?) narrator's sensibilities like a glove. Well it better, since it is semi-autobiographical. It is the love story of a boy and a girl whose families in a certain way represent opposing ends of the Indian cultural spectrum; a live-life-to-the-full Punjabi family on one side and a serious geeky Tamil Brahmin family on the other. Cross-cultural weddings are ripe with humorous possibilities and Bhagat takes full advantage. The book works equally well as a satire (of the corporate world, north and south Indian stereotypes) and as a family relationship drama. It is also probably the best service to national integration since Bharathiyar's "Sindhu nadhiyin ..". If these two families can get along, surely anyone in India can with anyone else (like for e.g. Andhraites with Telengana-ites; sigh) .

It is a screenplay ready to be made into a movie and I can't wait to see how the movie will do in Tamilnadu. Bhagat holds nothing back in his digs on all-things Tamil (or more loosely South Indian). He needs every word of the apology he makes in advance in the preface: "you only take digs at people you care for"; he is married to a South Indian and I suppose he has a certain right.

Apparently this is not even Chetan Bhagat's best book. I hear good things about his earlier book - Five Point Someone, a film version of which (3 Idiots) has recently released and is a big hit. I have not seen it yet. Another one is One Night at a Call Centre (film version "Hello").

- Balaji