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Book review: ' My Way is the Highway'

The cover gives it away — fair waxed legs, shiny silver chappals, red jeep and nature beckoning in the background.

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Name: My Way is the Highway
Author: Urvashi Gulia
Publisher: Penguin Metro Reads
Rating: **

The cover gives it away — fair waxed legs, shiny silver chappals, red jeep and nature beckoning in the background. Oh yes, yet another chick lit lover’s dream come true. But, well, not everyone can be Helen Fielding or Lauren Weisberger or Sophie Kinsella. And Urvashi Gulia is certainly not one of them.

She did start off on a racy note though. Protagonist Mansha Sharan aka Manki (what’s with the weird name?) is a sprightly hardcore TV reporter, who lives alone in Delhi, works overtime, hates her boss, has a block against bhaiyas, overdoses on cuss words, has an insane capacity for alcohol, coffee, tea, cigarettes and omlettes. Oh, hang on, she also has a penchant for naming anything and everything. She calls her jeep ‘Iqbal’, her Maruti 800 ‘Dugg-Dugg, her phone ‘Ting Ting’ (seriously?). Just so you know she’s on the ‘wrong side of 25’.

Get past her peculiar traits and you are launched into her back story — her boss makes her life unbearable, her exclusive story gets passed on to somebody else, she slams the door on her boss and walks out. One impulsive moment later, a frustrated Manki decides to take off on a road trip, a la Eat Pray Love. For a girl so ambitious, her bunking work, ditching important stories and avoiding incessant work calls, seem a tad inconsistent with her character.

Indeed, the rest of the book is a page turner — the narrative linear. Through her eyes, you see the expanse of nature, scrutinise traits of people she talks to (mostly on phone — smart literary device), and recognise her fauji brattiness that she imposes upon the reader for the rest of her soul-searching journey. Less than halfway into the book, Manki meets ‘cute’ Delhi dudes who she goes camping with, who teach her fishing, and of course eventually falls in love with one of them. Sure, predictability is part of a chick-lit plot, which is why perhaps the peripeteia comes as a pleasant surprise. Manki controls her fate, and despite her instinctive disposition, her slamming door act doesn’t result in self-destruction. Happy ending is a must-have for Urvashi’s novel. And she doesn’t disappoint there. If only you could feel the same intense sense of satisfaction that the finally-free Andrea Sachs felt when walking out of Miranda Priestly’s office in The Devil Wears Prada. Manki falls short in a repeat act of sorts in this one.

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