Book review

(This was published in the Bengal Post. I do not know when, since the person in charge still has not sent me a clipping!)

BATTLE FOR BITTORA
Anuja Chauhan
Harper Collins

Many years ago, during World War II, irony and humour were not just a route to stress relief, but also trenchant commentary on the state of world affairs, politics and the world in general. In Britain, cartoonists and jokesmiths took regular and pointed swipes at politicians, political systems, rationing, shortages, soldiers, the trenches…almost anything that could possibly be mentioned, all with a spin that made it tolerable to face and reflected public sentiment. Humour of that genre – funny ha-ha and funny peculiar, famously compiled under that name in the UK in slim hardbound collectible volumes – rarely finds unrestricted and accepting audiences in this country, even though Indian politics is the stuff of any side-splitting, tongue-in-cheek or totally insane humour. It is the embodiment of a kind of laughter that comes from biting satire mixed with Bollywood-ishtyle successful slapstick of the genre of Andaz Apna Apna. This could be the time for it to all happen.

Ideally suited, in fact, to production as a Hindi movie – perhaps made by the likes of the quietly rude Gurinder Chaddha or a completely OTT David Dhawan – is Battle for Bittora, the new Anuja Chauhan book that comes after The Zoya Factor, already snapped up by Shahrukh Khan’s production house for the big screen. Politics is the hero, the theme, the villain, the supporting cast, with Sarojini (named after the lady, not the Delhi market) Pande the main actor in the chaotic drama. She has to leave her city job in an ad-agency as creator of animated kitaanus to deal with her grandmother Pushpa, aka Amma, the power that energises Pavit Pradesh, the state that Jini needs to win votes to rule. She has a battalion of advisors, from the larcenous, vodka-swilling Gudia aunty to the sneaky Nauzer Nulwallah, the underhanded Dugguji, floral Bunty, Our Pappu, Hasina behenji, the doughty Jugatram, the villainous Uncle Tawny and various others. And then there is Zain Altaf Khan, erstwhile royal scion of Bittora, who makes her blood boil and her hormones dance…

Take a dash of melodrama, a helping of nepotism, a soupcon of truth, plenty of lies, lots of cash floating around and some rural practices (honour killing, for one) and stir it all about with Dabanng-style dialect and you have a glorious Indian election. With lots of thinly veiled criss-crossing plot lines, characters that could jump straight off the ‘breaking news’ headlines and more insider information than the Official Secrets Act could consider restricting, the book is a fun read, often giggle-worthy, albeit vaguely repetitive and occasionally irritating. As a reader, you want to get to the end faster than it arrives, and tend to skip every now and then. But if you see your favourite Bollywood hero playing the role of Zain and your pet heroine as Jini in a total-timepass masala entertainer based on the story, you plug in and plough through. And you have to admit that Amma was right when, with her last breath, she says, “Don’t let that fat Katrina play us in the movie”!