Author: Namita Gokhale
Pages: 195
Price: 350
Publishers: Penguin


This was the first time I was reading a book by Namita Gokhale, better known for being the co-director of the very popular Jaipur lit-fest than her authorial endeavors. She's written 10 books, which I had no idea about. But after reading her latest one I think I know why I had never heard of her as an author.

I see the book’s inane title, Priya flashed brightly on the cover and wonder if the rest of the book is going to be as unimaginative. Its tag line below further reads -'In Incredible Indyaa' – an obvious smart-alecky attempt at taking a dig at the obsession with numerology among socialities. The author tries hard to satarise a certain class of people, with their pretentions and superficial airs -the irony being that the author cannot prevent her own writing from being impossibly artificial and stilted.

You deseperately hope for the narration to improve and not give itself so much airs. "Get real", you feel like screaming. The characters are not fleshed out and come across as obnoxious caricatures. Besides the author's own personality seems to pervade heavily on the way these people speak. The result is not pleasant. The men don't sound like men. For example, the 40 something protagonist’s teenager son speaks dialogues such as these, “ Honest! That’s what her feminist-sheminist mother said. And her father got really upset, he even tried phoning Pitaji. He didn’t get through – all the Pas and secretaries saw to that. And then I sort of surrendered, and agreed to marry Monalisa. Her parents got uber excited. I think they had dreams of Band Baja Ghodi and Disco Bhangra and all that! Or Some Bengali fancy-dress tamasha” Phew!

Ghokale's book is a sequel of sorts to her earlier novel, Paro, about a free-spirited, promiscuous woman. Priya has a presence in that book too. She is the more timid, staid one. She grows up as a middle-class girl in Mumbai, marries Suresh
Kaushal, who in a few years turns into a successful politician and is currently one of the ministers. This change in fortunes is quite sudden and Priya’s lifestyle is impacted by it. She suddenly finds herself in the midst of political and Page 3 glitterati and has new challenges to face every day. She has twin sons, Luv and Kush. Luv is more artistically inclined, the author insists, while Kush is the more
pragmatic one, with aspirations of following his father’s political footsteps. But their characters are etched with no subtlety at all. What should be conveyed in the narration with crafty irony is done blatantly with dialogues that sound tasteless. For example, the author wants to assert Kuch’s clinical, mercenary approach to things. So when he gets a marriage proposal, he meets the girl and discusses her on the breakfast table next day with his parents. His announcement is, “I’ve assessed the Sethia chick...It’s like a merger or an amalgamation. One has to study the
fundamentals.” This is plain nasty writing and one would be hard-pressed to find anyone talking like that. The attitude may well be a reflection of Delhi’s opportunistic social culture, but this comes across as laughable amateurish.

You have husbands having extra-marital affairs. Priya herself has an old flame whom she goes gallivanting with . There’s a Page 3 social climber type thrown in, who talks about Botox and refers to Priya as Mrs Menopause. There is a ridiculous story about Luv and his love entanglements. Then just like that Kush turns out to be gay
as well, and Priya –his mother is most sanguine about it. She's turned new-age in a flash you see.