Passion, hunger and drudgery

Those Pricey Thakur girls (HarperCollins, Rs 350) by Anuja Chauhan is the latest offering from the queen of chick-lit. If you are the sort of reader who enjoys a Bollywood inspired climax — where the suave hero jumps from the sixth floor to save the aunt of his love interest — then this book is the perfect pick for you. The protagonist, Debjani Thakur, alias Dabbu, is a television anchor at “DeshDarpan” who tries to champion the cause of street mongrels and dreams of a man who is brave and honest. Enter Dylan Singh Sekhawat, the dark, brooding investigative journalist with a flamboyant past, who finds himself in prison because of a “larger conspiracy”. The Thakur girls reside in make-believe worlds of their own. Debjani, often dubbed as the “dumb doll”, acquires sudden fame when she concocts a news story on national television to declare Sekhawat’s innocence, in a desperate attempt to prove her love for him. She miraculously escapes criminal prosecution for this. Chauhan’s narrative is pacy and interspersed with dollops of cheesy humour. The tribulations of an investigative journalist makes for an interesting sub-plot.

The Sergeant’s Son (Rupa, Rs 250) by Ashim Choudhury is a poignant tale of the unfulfilled aspirations of a middle-class boy whose family travels from Barrackpore to Bombay to Allahabad. It chronicles the upbringing of the sons of the Biswas household. Sergeant Samar Biswas, an inconsequential employee of the air force, struggles to make both ends meet. His third son, Kalu, who is named so because of his dark skin, always tries to ‘fit-in’ with the surroundings — be it home or school. He dreams of becoming an artist and is constantly rebuked by his father for this. The societal norms tie him down. He realizes after his first solo exhibition that art alone cannot sustain him. Thenceforth he succumbs to a life of sheer mundaneness.

The Walls of Delhi (Hachette, Rs 350) by Uday Prakash is a collection of of three stories translated from Hindi by Jason Grunebaum. The first person narrator establishes an immediate connection with the readers as he seeks to lend a voice to the “drudging, untouchable, poor, unemployed, dissatisfied, anxious and hungry”. This is the common thread that binds the three stories. The title story, “The Walls of Delhi”, is the tale of Ramnivas, a sweeper who has a windfall, which gives him a momentary release from his humdrum existence, only to lead to tragedy. The two other stories, “Mohandas” and “Mangosil”, follow in a similar vein, highlighting the struggles of the marginalized in society.