O. Henry or Kunal Basu – same thoughts centuries apart?!

When was the last time you tried to hide (literally) the ending to a short story so that you can relish the penultimate paragraph to the fullest? When did you last feel nostalgic about being part of a story, empathetic to the extent that you want to deep dive into the characters and live in that era / time to see how they are continuing with their lives? And did you ever feel that you should definitely meet the author and quiz him, and applaud him for his unique writing style?

Maybe O. Henry or William Sydney Porter was one such person. To actually have such pathos and elegance of contemporary living, his short stories had a mix of overpowering love, sacrifice, and fantastic emotional exchange (both between the characters, and between the characters and the reader). The mere difference is Kunal Basu doesn’t give a stark anti-climax as O. Henry. Well, you can safely say that I never hoped I will be able to come across a collection of short stories, which will sweep me off my feet, in our era.

A long hiatus to writing, a book review on ‘The Japanese Wife’ was very much required for me. It is one of those times when, even in dire adversities, you need to express the happiness that you encountered. And I would like to thank Kunal Basu ten-folds for such enthralling exuberance (regret the alliteration) in his short stories.

None of the feelings in my first paragraph are imaginary. I have this weird (and painful) habit of reading a paragraph multiple times if I love the language before moving on. With ‘The Japanese Wife’ it became worse. Usually we tend to get involved with a novel, but to achieve that in a short story is truly commendable. Whenever I realized that I am about to reach the end of one of the 13 stories, I used to hide the ending with my palm and re-read the penultimate paragraph to my heart’s content.

With his vast knowledge of various locales, you won’t just wonder at his exquisite language but will also feel like asking him if he has actually lived in Russia and China, and in a particular era. You will want to know if he has come face to face with Hitler, with the students’ revolution in China, if he has encamped with the poachers in Sunderbans, if he has seen his own past-life, and experienced the pain of a spouse having an extra-marital affair with an American. And these are just snippets of his exquisite collection of short stories. Based out of Kolkata (hence almost all the anecdotes have a Bengali protagonist), he has definitely traveled far and wide to provide such vivid description of the places.

The ending to each narrative was a sweet shocker. And almost all of them gave a hope – to live your life on your own terms and to stand up against a difficult situation. There is an almost unimaginable twist to each and EVERY tale in the very last couple of sentences, and that is when you get the urge to read the story all over again, and desperately want to know how it feels to dream big and have the courage to reconcile to your fate. You will want to know how one becomes a widow to a husband she has never met, how to cope with the knowledge that the love of your life (whom you married) has brain tumor, how extreme lust can be misused to lead to your death.

Again, I was desperate to watch the movie (as I do with all remakes of the books that I read). Aparna Sen is a talented director, and with a versatile star-cast, the movie is really well made. It takes you to the old Bengali movie sophistication of Satyajit Ray’s era. It was a bit slow, considering Aparna Sen translated a short story to an entire movie script. But the visuals from the infuriated river Matla during extreme monsoon are a treat for the eyes. And the evergreen Mousumi Chatterjee was as loveable as ever!

I will suggest the cynics to stay away from the book. The less-sensitive don’t deserve to partake of such emotional upheavals. Well, the choice is theirs to take.

As for me, I intend to pick up Kunal Basu’s other reads, just for his sheer writing style. And hopefully pave my way around to meet and chat up with him someday ;).

Nobody’s purr-fect...

And Chetan Bhagat definitely isn’t one! Well, what did you think? I am going to whine about my life story too? Naaah! There is time for that.

“Two States” – as his new book-cover cries out – is about his struggle to marry the girl he loves. If you remember well, his character is the same person from Five Point Someone – Krish (the loser who falls in love with the professor’s daughter).

In the newest release, the loser turns over a new leaf. He becomes an IIMA graduate, with one of the highest packages in his batch with Citibank, and has a sky-high dream of quitting his job to become a writer.

Chetan Bhagat has been famous for his witty and simple way of delivering his thoughts, a kind of manifestation of how a common man thinks. The success can be measured in terms of the number of directors jumping at his stories (true, no genuine concepts with our Bollywood nowadays)!

But who am I kidding, even though there is no great literature or whatsoever, I have actually ended up reading all four of his books! It can be slapstick humour, or a snail-paced monotonous biography, his stories does pick up pace at the later stages. Though “One night at the call center” was complete bogus, I did enjoy the rest of his books.

Enough of analyzing Bhagat, now back to the book at hand. “Two States” is about the girl from Chennai and the Punjabi munda from Delhi. The initial chapters are snail-paced, as I said. The writing style similar to his other books, at one point of time I was wondering why the hell I actually picked up this book. The culture difference is quite stark, with the garrulous, property-laden North-Indians and the hyper-educated, “The Hindu”-loving South-Indians (for the dumbstruck ones, no it’s the newspaper The Hindu, which it appears from reading the book, is the staple breakfast in Chennai!).

But as I entered his Final Act (which says – Delhi & Chennai & Delhi & Chennai), I actually had bouts of tears and giggles! You can call me over-engrossed or over-indulged with books; I do tend to empathize with characters. And with Bhagat, it is like a conversation with the next door guy, who is venting out to his close friend. Anyways, the book begins with sweet / half-matured / peer-pressured / impulsive / over-spoilt love, which inculcates into a long-drawn struggle of different cultures, misunderstandings, too much of effort and patience to pacify all parties, leading to a short-stint of break-up before things fall back into place.

I was really flabbergasted with one thing – if the book is actually a reality-narrator then it is quite over-whelming to know that Bhagat’s Dad is the way he has portrayed. Maybe that is the first question I will ask him if I ever get to interact with him (high-hopes there!). Whoever has read Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s “You Are Here” will know how blatant and frank one can get in her blog / book. Bhagat’s style is similar and he has definitely marketed himself well, IIM graduate after all!

One more thing kind of struck a chord, his decisiveness and aim since early on in life to become a writer. A goal that was so adamant that he knew he had to save some money before he could sit down to write full-time. Does give some hope to folks like me… Snort!