Mundane mood off stuff
Wanted to do a light read as part of travel so who else better than Sujatha. Amongst his available titles ‘Pirivom Santhippom’ sounded familiar and as it had already come as a movie named ‘Ananda Thandavam’, I was more intrigued into reading it. First problems first, as soon as I started reading and the character Madhu got introduced, riding a bicycle, and playing with his brother, my mind immediately imagined Tamannaah in that role, and it was hard to shake off. That for me was a big hindrance to my imaginary world. This is in fact without watching the movie which I found too silly just by looking at a couple of scenes.
Coming to the book, first of all, it lacked a characteristic Sujatha charisma. Guess he’s at his best while writing short stories, where his style is phenomenal but here except for an excerpt at the beginning where he mentions about how he bathes with Madhu, washes his hair with Madhu, rides Madhu etc. there was hardly any Sujatha flavor to it. He’s a kind of artist, like K Balachander where people would love to see the makers nuances amidst the story and its characters. As the book didn’t have any of it till the end, it was the biggest disappointment.
But on a different note, if an author could curb his instincts and could write a book without any of his nuances, that’s a thing to appreciate too. Personally, if I could write two books in a completely different flavor without any of my audacity seeping through, I’d have been super happy. In fact, I’m super happy how my books have turned out to be which doesn’t have even an iota of semblance. So, from a peer point of view, it’s a great asset but I’m always a reader first so that’s where it was meh.
The story starts quite casually with Raghupathi coming to his hometown after attending an interview. His dad is an engineer in countryside. Probably the most charming character. He meets the family of his dad’s superior who are a typical high-class people. Given the timeline of the novel, probably Sujatha wanted to depict them as a Bourgeoisie class, which didn’t come out as convincingly as he would have thought. Their naïve (or in my words irritating, may be because I imagined Tamannah there) daughter Madhu, is Raghu’s love interest. Their relationship grows without any hindrance and it gets too hard to believe. So as the saying goes, if it’s hard to believe, better not believe it. The same thing happens and there is some twist.
The situations post that are quite obvious and mundane. He goes to Chennai, he’s asked to come back to hometown where he sees the naïve girl is ready to marry another guy from the US. After that it’s all about US bitching and how the US guy turns out to be a bad guy and how Raghu gets a hot girl and still loves Madhu rather purely. Too much of suspension of disbelief to be honest.
First the characters. Every one of them is irritating. Raghu is a sorry loser right from the word go. He neither gets the girl, nor has sex with her when he gets a chance. The situation repeats again with the second girl, Ratna. If it had been a movie at least it’d have been nice to see the locales but being a book, I couldn’t even see Vegas and Disney land. I’d have been happy if at least Raghu had had sex and repented rather than being a silly old good guy. If this story had been written by Chetan Bhagat he’d have at least made for a good masalified page turner but this one severely lacked even in that. I was not expecting a Karan Johar type of story where Raghu becomes successful businessman at the last and gets the girl of his dream or at least the other girl but I expected some different thought process in the story rather than reading something which looks like how fifty plus uncles talk about America.
In the end there is a note by Sujatha about how people didn’t like Madhu dying but as mundane as an ending it could be, I didn’t have any sympathy towards her. My ending would have been like Rad convincing Madhu about how it’s all normal and while Raghu returns to their home, he should have seen Madhu and Rad making love. That would have been a sight to behold. Afterall a loser like him deserves such an ending.
I hope this ends up being the only novel of Sujatha I hate. Because there wasn’t any takeaway from the novel. I generally don’t feel bad for reading even a bad novel, but I seriously wish I had not read this one.
constantscribbles 