Synopsis:
In a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi's posh Hailey Road, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur and his wife Mamta spend their days watching anxiously over their five beautiful (but troublesome) alphabetically named daughters. Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children's hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the Judge's favourite (though fathers shouldn't have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her state-sponsored propaganda, but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes. Spot-on funny and toe-curlingly sexy, Those Pricey Thakur Girls is rom-com specialist Anuja Chauhan writing at her sparkling best.
Review:
So I have come across a lot of book reviewers (even professional ones) describing this as a modern Indian retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Now after blazing through a good many number of pages, I realize how blasphemous and inappropriate this comparison is. The purported Indian Mr Darcy, Dylan Singh Shekhawat, is an investigative editor who has the gall to refer to a news reader of the 80s as a 'maal' (derogatory hindi word used to describe sexually attractive women in everyday parlance) in an official column he writes for his friend's newspaper. (Which journalist worth his salt even writes such horrid Hinglish in print?) Imagine a modern Mr Darcy as a newspaper columnist writing a review of the latest news program on some channel in which he mentions how the host of the show (Elizabeth) has an 'amazing rack'. Charming right? If that doesn't turn you off or make you roll your eyes in disbelief, wait for him to compare the women he casually sleeps with to the layer of grease on junk food. An absolutely intolerable and noxious character trait to spot in the hero of a romance novel written by a woman to boot - disrespect for women bordering on misogyny. Most of the other characters are over-the-top hysterical, two-dimensional, and unfunny caricatures while the prose is bloated and florid at best. Perhaps Ms Chauhan had a Bollywood adaptation in mind when she wrote this which is good for her since it translates into a shitload of money. But that makes this book even less readable. P.S.:-1 extra star for the inclusion of the anti-Sikh riots post Indira Gandhi's assassination as a subplot. That added a much-needed layer of credibility to the narrative.
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