Book review: Kanika Dhillon’s 'Bombay Duck Is A Fish'

Book: Bombay Duck Is A Fish
Kanika Dhillon
Westland
Rs317
195 pages

Young single girl embarks on her dream career while Murphy’s Law works overtime to turn it into a nightmare. There’s a vaguely sketched love interest at the workplace and the merest whiff of a personal life, but about 90% of the novel is firmly focussed on the career. Oh, and for some inexplicable reason, Shah Rukh Khan is omnipresent (gosh, perhaps he really is God?). This is the synopsis of both Kanika Dhillon’s Bombay Duck Is A Fish, and Naomi Datta’s The 6 PM Slot. Welcome to career lit!

Dhillon’s novel could just as well have been called A Girlie Guide to Bollywood. It’s a racy and witty lowdown on peer politics, star egos, sleaze, love rats, spot boys, junior artistes, ‘gora’ extras, etc.

Which really doesn’t leave much time for the story. When we first meet Neki, the main protagonist, she’s mournfully sipping wine and browsing through her diary in which she’s faithfully recorded all the disasters she’s faced in her career as assistant director and her personal life.  She’s also seriously contemplating leaping off the terrace. The real tragedy is, I couldn’t care less whether Neki lives or dies. She’s been so busy fighting fires in practically every single paragraph of the novel, I haven’t had the time to bond with her. Besides, it makes no difference anyway because it’s the satire that makes the novel work. Young Bollywood hopefuls should read this, but their parents absolutely must not — or else said young Bollywood hopefuls may be forced to become kindergarten teachers. At gun point.

Tania Datta’s novel is a rather amusing guide to the world of television — and not particularly girlie. Since it’s not a first person narrative, it gives us a broad view of the small screen through a large cast of colourful characters that include PPT-obsessed executives, a temperamental angst-seeking creative head with a wacko hairdo and a grammatically-challenged TV host with thunder thighs. 

The only colourless character is the lead protagonist, Tania, who is regarded as “inoffensive but unimaginative” by her bosses — heck, she doesn’t even have a weird hairdo. When Tania is given the opportunity to sex up the 6pm slot by producing a show called Love Calls, we heartily agree with her bosses — she’s so passive, even magenta dreadlocks wouldn’t help. Sad, because she could have been hilarious and memorable had Datta put in a little more effort to develop her character. Midway through, Datta attempts a quick fix by giving Tania a sense of humour and irony.

This, however, doesn’t ring true — it’s as incongruous as pairing strawberries with hummus. By the way, there is a plot in case you’re wondering, but it’s flimsy and arrives way too late. It could have been super, because it’s an interesting take on how lines between entertainment and news channels blur to create reality TV.

It could have been a really good novel, but it reads more like a promising second draft with room for improvement.  Even so, it’s got some nice things going for it. I particularly love the wicked description of the megalomaniac editor of a news channel whose mood decides the mood of the nation. His favourite line is, “India is outraged”. Erm, no prizes for guessing who that is. Honestly, the biggest difference between the two novels is the treatment of Shah Rukh Khan. Dhillon’s reverence for him is akin to how most people feel about Gandhiji, while Datta displays playful irreverence.