Sreemoyee Piu Kundu’s perspective is unconventional, her language is poetic and sensuous. The humour is high brow and the narrative is replete with originality and philosophical ponderings on life, love and their mysteries, says Sanya Dang
BOOK : You’ve Got the Wrong Girl
PUBlISHER : Sreemoyee Piu Kundu Hachette,Rs350
The novel starts with a clichéd setting two strangers, a wedding party in progress, a mellow moon soaked night, hushed conversations, the magnificent Taj Mahal somewhere in the backdrop. The story of Dushyant’s life is also the story of his novel, Kinda Clichéd. His novel might be clichéd but Sreemoyee Piu Kundu’s novel is a quest for the ‘unclichéd’ in every way. It’s strikingly different, refreshing, an atypical romance at its very core. Even though the narrator is Dushyant, it sometimes feels as if Kundu is directly communicating with her readers. Especially when she writes, “You worry too much about how the story will end, when it’s actually just started. Just like an impatient reader.”
She reverses typical traits of a clichéd romance by making the woman propose (generally a male prerogative); the women characters are also bold, assertive and authoritative whereas men are meek and helpless. Here, the hero needs to ‘be saved’ instead of the ‘damsel in distress’ being rescued by her Prince Charming/Knight in shining armour.
She flips the narrative of Kalidasa’s magnum opus, casting her hero in a modern avatar as a new age confused metrosexual man in search of his identity and one true love. This characterisation is in sharp contrast to the typical swashbuckling hero of most love sagas. She goes beyond the well established Chicklit genre by getting inside the mind of a male protagonist. This technically makes it a lad-lit, but through a female perspective.
The language is lyrical, sensuously metaphoric, poetic and powerful. It is never crude or crass even when describing the love scenes which are not euphemistic. The humour is classy, never low brow or resorting to the scatological. The narrative is set at a heady pace and never gets boring. The sensuality of language is evident in lines like “Emptiness wrapped itself around the place like a shroud” and “Her bare back was like a river brimming with secret tides.”
She also showcases the irony of Dushyant being a writer of romances, yet not being able to express his true inner feelings to the girl he loves; which may apply universally to the men. His quest for his lost beloved takes him on a wild goose chase finally culminating in Sonagachi, the in(famous) red light district of Kolkata, a bold move by the author who brings in such seriousness in a romance. It isn’t a superficial frothy tale of love and makes us think about people born with different destinies (like the children of the sex workers in Sonagachi).
The way Kundu outlines the existential crisis a modern man goes through, being as emotional and impulsive as a woman, is portrayed beautifully, as is the dilemma of choosing to be a certain kind of man. The ‘feminine emotions’ of this New Age hero being hitherto concealed or not allowed by his social fabric. In the following lines, Dushyant reflects on ‘being a man’ in this complex love game: “What if men and women weren’t that differentIJ Would the game have been simplerIJ The results differentIJ The end happierIJ Is it possible to win in loveIJ...Why must finding love have to be so complicatedIJ”
It raises significant questions in the minds of the readers like, can we still chase an illusionary ideal of happiness and romance or do we become skeptics as wellIJ
Some dialogues are so hard hitting that you read them and smile at the unexpected dose of reality. Hearing the harsh truth from an illiterate cab driver enroute to Taj Mahal shakes up Dushyant: “All men are gadhas (donkeys), sahib. Some build a mahal, while others…others come in search of one...This love business, sahib, it makes fools out of the best of men.”
The most heartfelt advice comes from the protagonist’s mother “A woman’s heart is complex, so don’t think it is going to be easy. Bestsellers are easily forgotten...But not love stories. The real ones. The ones that go on and continue to inspire.”
The narrative is interesting, full of unexpected twists, getting the message across to the reader without getting preachy. It also teaches us some important lessons on marriage, commitment and love while re-writing the world’s oldest love story. High expectations raised by the brilliant narrative are not fully met by the dull climax. I felt the book ended too soon and the climax was not baffling enough. This is probably the only shortcoming. I would like to conclude with a line from the novel, a belief which is universally desired yet so striking in the context “Everyone deserves a love story.”
Sreemoyee Piu Kundu is the rising new star of Indian Chicklit (or should we say lad-lit) of which Anuja Chauhan is the bestselling undisputed queen.
The reviewer teaches English literature at a school in Delhi