The Expression Hub

Author: Chetan Bhagat

Genre: Romance/Fiction

” A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other.”

Anonymous

Hope you all are keeping yourself busy with something or the other during this period of crisis. Well, a huge thumbs up and a salute for that. Even I am trying to keep myself busy so that no negative thoughts enter the mind. After all hasn’t Winston Churchill aptly said, ” When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” So keeping myself occupied with doing some or the other activity. This one was supposed to be written a long time back but thanks to my awesome time management skills ( pun intended) I got the time to write this now. Well, never mind because it is better late than never.

So, presenting you my pick in the category of books: Two States: The Story of my marriage written by Chetan Bhagat. Chetan Bhagat is an author of Indian origin who has studied in the so called elite institutes of our country namely Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Management. He has written a few books apart from this one which had topped the best sellers when they were released. This book is also not a new one just a old one. But I recently read it as I had watched the movie. So thought which might be better: the book or the movie? Thus ended up reading it.

The book is a story about two people belonging to two different states of India: Krish who is a north Indian, a Punjabi to be specific ( believe me I hate tagging people so apologies for the same) and Ananya who is a Tamilian Brahmin . Two different people with two different family backgrounds and culture. One has a pretty orthodox family and the other one has less restrictions compared to the earlier. These two meet at the Indian Institute of Management who become friends first , then fall for each other eventually. However they have an uphill task in hand- to convince their parents for letting them get married. So they plan a series of meetings for their parents hoping that they will agree. Do they succeed in convincing their parents? Or do they have to make up other plans to convince them? After all it takes a lot of efforts to convince someone when asking for permission for important life decisions like marriage right?

The book was an interesting take on the topic of inter state marriage, a topic which is still considered to be a taboo in a country like ours. This is because one has to adapt to different culture, different rituals . So people end up preferring marrying people within their communities(casteism an age old practice which still hasn’t lost relevance).But I do feel that such practices do make us appear a bit narrow minded . We call ourselves modern and civilized yet practice such practices. But are we really ? Maybe a thought needs to be given on the topic . So yes the book does try to address the issue in a light- hearted manner. So maybe if you are bored , have nothing to do or just want to convince your parents to marry a friend of yours if he/ she belongs to some other state, community or culture maybe you can read and convince them.

Rating : ** and a half stars

” We divided ourselves among caste, creed, culture and countries but what is undivided remains most valuable: a mere smile and the love .

Santosh Kalwar

Que : Where does Ananya win the approval of Krish’s mother’s relatives ?

a. At Sabarmati Ashram

b. At the graduation ceremony of IIM

c. At Krish’s cousin marriage

d. At a vacation in Mumbai