2 States - good or bad?

I just finished this one and I had to write about it. To be honest, I didn’t like his last two books. The first book was fresh and gave a jolt to the English-writing-Indian author-reading community. ( as you know, the literary world is full of such minor communities. They will stick to their niche space and not venture much out so that they can be termed as "critics"). Whereas his second one was a breezy one, I felt repetition in the characterization and general flow of the story. To be honest, I liked the third one. It was a beautiful attempt at a good theme but I was rather frazzled by the almost cinematic second half.

To be honest, I almost gave this one a pass. I picked it up when I went in search of some serious literature. ( Sundara Ramasamy… a tamil author that one must not miss… I was in search of his book " Oru puliyamarathin kathai".) After half an hour of intense searching and being interviewed by the Chennai Live team, and being looked upon very funnily by the people who were out there at Landmark. I guess it isn't every day that they see a young hippie looking guy browsing through the Tamil literature section. The guy at the help terminal almost did a flip flop when I asked him in a well-practiced North American accent for an author by name Sundara Ramasamy. His eyebrows did a vault that any olympian would have been proud at their heats and it went even higher when I slowly read out the name "Oru Puliyamarathin Kathai".

Anyway getting back to "2 States". I picked the book up, then thought of the last debacle and wondered whether I should practice austerity especially when I am in the situation wherein it is no longer by choice. So I decided to skip it and almost made it to the billing counter when I once again saw another display area with the same book. (thanks to the marketing/ sales guys who came up with that). This time I picked it up, went to the price tag, saw the small amount and decided however crappy it might turn out, it was worth it.

But after having sat through today entire afternoon finishing this one, I have to say it was a good read. Although the initial pages started out as his first book did, in a campus scene( from IIT to IIMA… Man I am jealous of the narrator.) gave me jitters that this was going to be a similar exercise as his last one.
But the pace picks up and he beautifully captures the ongoing battle between north and south and the characters that you can typically identify in both states. It might get a bit filmy, but people who have really managed to see both sets of people can identify with the characters and the justice that they think they have on their side. No one is at fault here and yet everyone is wrong.


Grab a copy. Just Rs 95. ( and no, Chetan doesn’t give me a part of his royalty for this)