2 states and 1 UT

After a long time, I am reading - or rather trying to find some time. Every day, for half an hour, I read, aloud for most of the time, McEwan's Amsterdam and Banville's The Book of Evidence. It reminds me of Carlin's grandfather (I think), whom he spoke of, who wrote all of Shakespeare to savour him all the more.

It was McEwan's Atonement perhaps more than any other book which triggered my reading five years back. I have heard some people associate these novels with cold intellectualism but it is the bungling and erring human element which more than anything underlines them. Of all the mediums, literary fiction alone has the power to capture to the finest detail the almost invisible littleness of moods and whims, the stray kindnesses, the random cruelties, the imagined offences, the memories of beauty (I lift this phrase from Amsterdam) which make us more than the grand milestones of even the good (auto)biograpies.

Talking about books, apparently Chetan Bhagat is now onto his fourth novel - sure to stay on the top of the charts for a few months.

With the pace with which he is churning books (where does he find those eight hours?!) and the rate people are reading there would come a time when all the bookstores will only be filled with CBs and all the gRls and boyZ wLl b hnGng arNd thr, drooling from the end of their mouths. It will be a time when the show with the highest rating would be Rakhi Sawant picking her ass, Salman Khan's movies will be considered too arty and KJohar will be up for the Dada Saheb.

The synopsis for the book, 2 States, goes like:

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.

Luckily I was wearing my shades as the flash of genius and wit nearly blinded me here.

Actually, there are still more steps, CB.

Girl's family runs a video store. Boy's family pierces nipples.

Girl's papa is a closet homosexual. Boy's mama is klepto.

Girl's papa rapes boy (in a Union Territory). Boy's mama steals the used condom.

Girl's family films the rape. Boy's father buys the video.

Girl's mama shags the boy's father as he watches the video. Boy's mama steals the VCR.

But...

Girl and Boy still love each other. They get married.

Though the girl insists on playing the male lead, using a strap-on dildo.

The novel ends in the evocative and romantic scene of their wedding night. The girl takes a woeful look at the ripped O of the boy (pictured poignantly as lying on his back and spreading his hairy legs, the red welts where the brute had gripped and pinned him still showing, for the girl), clucks her tongue and shakes her head; the beautiful mane the boy had first seen in the second chapter, and described as a mass of silk curtain ( another original CBian metaphor), bouncing lightly on her shoulders.

'Well', she reaches for the strap-on, 'I am sorry for what my father did to you.' Strap-on in place. 'You should have seen what he did to my Sanskrit tutor.' The girl edges to the bed and the boy, his eyes widening in horror brings his legs back together (too late!) and pleads in sobs. 'But know what -', the girl grips the boys legs and tears them apart, 'It is too beautiful a hole to let the turds have it alone.' The girl pushes and the boy howls.

And they lived happily ever after.