Book review

(Times of India Crest Edition, February 26, 2011)

TENDER HOOKS, by Moni Mohsin

Sometimes a book comes along that cannot be slotted into any particular genre with any definite description. It is more than the sum of its parts, as Aristotle is erroneously credited with having said, and as a whole brings in a host of experiences that go beyond just an ordinary piece of literary creativity. This one, by British-domiciled Pakistani author Moni Mohsin, is usually classified as chicklit, but could be much more, as it entertains, amuses, enlightens and, in a strange way, educates. Along the way, it does get tedious, tiresome, long-winded, but it is good for a light-hearted giggle right through it all.

Mohsin has her finger firmly on the pulse, the idiom and the snob values of wealthy society in Pakistan – in Lahore, in this particular case. Her heroine, Butterfly, is a woman who knows her place in her context, someone who is sure of her socio-economic class, her social position, her self-importance and her family. She has a loving husband whom she adores but never really understands, except instinctively, an adolescent son who is her world, her life, her jaan, a large and often irritating family who wants more of her than she has mindspace to give, and friends with whom she believes she must not just compete and win over, but help, with no patronising nose-in-the-air flavour to it at all, of course.

Butterfly has a small problem that she needs to handle: her cousin Jonkers, fairly recently unclasped from the avaricious albeit loving arms of a slutty secretary-wife, who was “making sex appeals to him”, has to be married quickly. But the girl has to be fair, beautiful, rich and from an old-established family of the highest class, as would be suitable, at least in his mother, Butterfly’s Aunt Pussy’s mind.

But as she flits in and out of GTs (get-togethers), wedding receptions, kitty parties and girl-‘seeing’ sessions, our heroine has one aspect of the whole matter on her mind – the threat is that something dire will happen to her darling son unless the deed is done successfully. A small accident at school makes her convinced that this will indeed happen.

But somewhere along the way, conforming to the way things are done becomes less important and what Jonkers actually wants and likes seems a good idea. In sorting matrimony, social priorities and her cousin’s life out, Butterfly learns more about love, her own life and husband’s feelings and, as a bonus, local politics and protest and confesses that “I’m tau very glad that the Talibans are being given a good and proper beating up by the army. They were giving us no ends of trouble. Blowing themselves up in full bazaars at the least evocation...”.

Written in a wicked, tongue-in-cheek and entirely giggle-worthy idiom, a style that comes straight from the occasionally skewed and always busy mind of the star of the show, Butterfly, reading this book brings to mind people we all know. I see my adoptive aunt, sitting in her living room with her group of friends, playing cards and having a wonderful gossip...