Jul 19, 2013 06:09 PM
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Complete/Convenient by Ketan Bhagat
I had just returned from a meeting with a visiting NRI wife when I picked up Ketan Bhagat’s Complete/ Convenient. As I started reading it, it seemed nothing but an extension of the tales of woe I had just heard from the said ‘wife’ except that Bhagat’s book was from the standpoint of the husband.
Complete/Convenient begins with the protagonist, Kabir being assigned a job in Australia, following which is his hasty marriage to his sweetheart Myra and their subsequent relocation to the island continent. The wedding event is filled with incidents of sparring between the two families, the description of which is straight out of a Bollywood movie .The first three quarters of the book is tiresome reading as it seems to only deal with Myra and her ma-in-law’s conflicts. Just when you are about to give up in desperation, Ketan finally brings up issues which have some substance….mainly, the mental conflict faced by NRIs on the eternal question of whether to settle down in the adopted country or return to India. His description of Kabir’s angst over being left out of family affairs is well captured and his turmoil over his loyalties to his family versus that to his wife is also brought out well.
The author repeatedly refers to Kabir washing dishes to show his loss of Punjabi manliness and the ‘kameenapan’ of ‘NRI life’ where you ‘could play golf, drive swanky cars and yet have to wash your dirty utensils’. I fail to understand Ketan Bhagat’s thinking here and why he believes that is the worst that can happen to an Indian man.
Has Mr. Ketan Bhagat never heard of Mahatma Gandhi, who was broadminded enough almost a century ago to ask people to clean their own toilets to teach them a lesson in humility? The lesson in respecting manual work appears to have been lost on both Kabir and Ketan Bhagat.
Office politics, the characterisation of his sister Kiran and his father are fairly well developed by the author. The tagline of ‘there is more to men than bromance’ however seemed rather irrelevant and the title of the book is uninspiring.
Comparisons with his more famous brother are inevitable and at the cost of being politically incorrect…I will continue to do so. Ketan’s preface gave me an impression of a ‘Robbie’ complex (of Everybody Loves Raymond fame’) and his characterization of Ramesh and pre-marriage Myra seemed heavily drawn from characters in the movie version of brother Chetan’s Five Point Someone.
Both brothers, I must admit have a knack for good story telling and that is probably the only thing going for Ketan. While Chetan appears to be more versatile and his writing is simple but at least grammatically correct, Ketan’s fails miserably on the language front although his story does seem to have greater focus.
On the language front, Ketan PLEASE, please get your copy proof read. The book has errors which would definitely reduce any English aficionado to tears. Typos and grammatical errors abound. Beer is spelt bear, Singapore is Singapore, a car involved in an accident is an ‘accidented car’ and a million others ….Puhleeze, spare us, Ketan. If a printed, I am assuming edited version, has that many errors, I suggest you either employ a new proof reader and editor or switch to writing in a language other than in English.
Honestly, I read the book only because the author was Chetan’s brother. While Chetan has created a niche with his simplistic, non pretentious writing style (and most importantly, he appears to have a better editor), Ketan needs to work much, much harder on his English language skills and most importantly create an identity for himself.
His writing appears to ‘draws inspiration’ from Chetan’s style and the lack of anything new to offer is a serious drawback. While it could be argued that being siblings their writings would have similarities, Chetan got first dibs on it, so hard luck Ketan…
On the whole, a story better suited for a soap on Star Plus than a refreshing read for a discerning reader.
