Book Review: The Second Coming

Book: The Second Coming

Author: Shubha Menon

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 202

Price: Rs 250

Bridget Jones has an Indian avatar. Called Mini, short for Mrinalini Mehta, she's "40-ish" and works for a wedding planner in Delhi, cheesily called Soul Mates, where she cooks up frothy, elaborate weddings. But her preoccupations remain the same - men, romance and the struggle to lose weight. Married for over a decade to steady, ho-hum Shyam, or "Sicko Shyam" as he's saved on her phone, Mini is not like Bridget, on the lookout for the rich, handsome "love of her life"; her quest is for Dream Lover - DL for short - who will sweep her away on his black charger, rather motorbike, and "make passionate, romantic, fervent love to her".

But the quest for lust, like the path of true love, never did run smooth.

Mini meets Rustom, the suave, sophisticated, chivalrous, handsome boss of the office in Mumbai where she is sent on a month-long assignment. Rustom is, on the face of it, the answer to her dreams and Mini wastes no time in attempting seduction. She joins a gym, goes on a diet - which is difficult given that her favourite de-stresser is eating, preferably a gooey chocolate - and gets herself a new wardrobe, makeup and hairstyle.

Debutant writer Shubha Menon must be congratulated for not agonising too much - given Indian sensibilities about adultery - over the sex. Mini and Rustom do go to bed and from all the button-popping grasping they get up to, it seems that at least in that one aspect, her dreams do come true. Except that Rustom doesn't turn out to be quite the romantic lover that romantic Mini had envisaged for herself but someone who has his own axe to grind. And so back she goes to Shyam who by then has managed to salvage some last vestiges of romanticism, even though he's not stopped snoring at night - Mini's main grouse against him.

Like all specimens of its genre, chick lit - Indian publishing's best-selling in recent years -- this is a book that wears humour on its sleeve. It's a satire, a spoof on the idea of romance, especially Mills & Boon novels. So everything's exaggerated and incongruous, and up for a good joke - even the potentially sad bits about the very real crisis in the Mehtas' marriage.

Take the hilarious incident when the elastic band of the slinky, shimmy skirt that Mini had bought to woo Rustom gives way - thankfully, she is in the loo, but it doesn't help much because she could remain there all day. Outside there is a polo match going on, played by kings and princes, among them Soul Mates' client who has invited them to look at horses that could be used in the swayamvar-themed wedding that Mini has planned for his wedding. In the end, Mini ends up using her mobile phone charger as a drawstring, but as luck would have it, the horse chews up the cord!

Written in a zippy, glib style, The Second Coming is a merry romp, a slapstick aside on marriage. Interestingly, even while it deals with a radical theme like adultery, it ends up reaffirming the institution of marriage, of traditional gender roles, where the wife cooks and keeps a tidy house, while the husband provides a comfortable income, pays the bills and fixes the car. In the end, Mini can only go this far, and no further.