posted by: Sherwin Coelho Oct 22 2009 @ 11:51 am

At the start of the book, Chetan Bhagat’s disclaimer reads: ‘You only make digs at people you care for’. With this, Bhagat takes the liberty to make mirthful jokes of everything ‘Tamil’.

‘2 States: The Story of My Marriage’ picks up where ‘Five Point Someone’ left of. It is the author’s account of how he met his wife. It’s told through protagonist Krish, a Punjabi boy after he falls for a Tamil girl, Ananya (author’s wife).

The story moves at a brisk pace: By page 7 they’ve met at IIM Ahmedabad, where they both study, by page 15 he’s controlling his urge to fall for her, by page 25 they’ve kissed and one page later they’ve had sex. Their entire IIM career is done in about 36 pages. Needless to say, it involves sex, sleepovers, studies and a self-satisfied, solitary existence.

But the story kicks-off when things turn sour at their convocation ceremony. Their parents meet for the first time and evidently disapprove of a relationship where boy and girl are from polar ends of the country. The rest is about how they try to win back the blessing of their in-laws after a series of futile attempts. The story oscillates between Delhi and Chennai, so expect a lot of local jargon from these two states. Like all love stories, this one, too, has a happy ending.

Chetan Bhagat probably was fed-up narrating his IIM love story again so he thought he’d convert it into a book. Anyway, he has the brand value (in India) and is one of few Indian writers to have their works catapulted onto celluloid (Remember the flop-film, Hello?). Through 2 States, Bhagat exposes the backward mentality of Indians, nuances of regions and religions and how inter-caste marriages are still seen as a social stigma.

It is made digestible with a healthy dose of colloquial humour. Example: Krish, upon visiting Ananya’s house for the first time, asks for Ananya and describes her father’s look “As if I asked him where he kept his porn collection.” In another scene, Pammi aunty is giving money to her daughter from her bosom and Krish wonders whether “Aunty’s cleavage also contained credit cards.”

2 States is an easy read. It’s not as riveting as ‘Three Mistakes of my Life’ and or as intriguing as ‘Five Point Someone’. It’s a story where the protagonists never let their parents’ decision influence their choice and where Bhagat sticks to his guns about making quick bucks and becoming a writer, which he proclaims quite proudly throughout the text.

Bottomline: This one’s just average. You won’t be missing out on a literary marvel if you skip it.

Price: Rs.95