100 Shades of White
After reading Chetan Bhagat and Khushwant Singh, my opinion of Indian authors was something in the range of ‘pathetic imitators’. They suck. They are so bad at it that they shower misery upon book-lovers! Every page is a torture full of illogical bullshit which makes you wince as you turn another page. Khushwant Singh thinks that if he writes about SEX – his books will sell like hot cakes! What’s even more pathetic is that people like him! If it has to be about various kinds of sexual intercourse, then why doesn’t he just launch the ‘Indian harlequin’! i’m not kidding, he could effortlessly be the brand ambassador of the Hindustani Mills & Boons! Lets have it the Indian way! Lusting after Baais and beggar women.. Touchin them and having lewd fantasies! I mean, whats wrong with these people!
Then there is our very own incest expert – Salman Rushdie! Man, does he love it or what! And nobody does it like him. But then, amidst all these losers, there are a very few authors who stand out as the champions of Indian reality! I don’t read indian authors but recently a friend suggested me ‘Preethi Nair’. I went to the library and picked out her first novel, ’100 shades of white’. It is simply beautiful. True, she talks a lot about how the Indian tradition sucks but the manner in which she challenges the farce of it is spellbinding.
Her writing style is simple and she easily expresses complicated emotions in just a few sentences. She narrates the story of a mother and daughter who are forced apart by circumstances ~ emotionally. And in the end you realise that neither of them are wrong. They’re both right in their own way. They have their own difficulties. She weaves a tale of courage ( of how Nalini faces the completely alien culture, language and ultimately succeeds), and then there is the food factor! The way Preethi has described the delectable pickles and curries! They not only are mouth-watering… but soul-stirring too. They rouse so many different emotions in you that its just…. beautiful!
So if you have been tortured by shitty Indian novels(so-called glamourous-Booker-Pulitzer-whatever-the-hell-prize-winners, read Jhumpa Lahiri) and you need a change, this is the book for you.
. Heck,it almost got him a booker !
). I sincerely hope each one of you enjoys 100 Shades of White.
“100 Shades of White”