"Two states" and Me

I was at Mumbai airport waiting for my flight to Canada. So to pass my time, I went into bookstore and started searching for something I can buy or just spend some time and come back. I was going through book titles, some known, and some unknown. Price was major criterion for me to buy a book :-). There I saw "Two states". I had already read previous books by Chetan Bhagat. As most of us, I liked “Five point someone” and didn't like next two that much. I bought “Two states” with hope of changing this trend.

I turned first page and read the “dedicated to”. It is "To my In-laws" :-). It was the first smile that book brought on my face. It just set the mood for the reading. There after, I knew somehow that I am going to love this book. It was almost like, I decided that I am going to enjoy each and every moment of this performance by Chetan Bhagat. I am going to smile, enjoy and applaud each and every good moment in the book. I wasn't disappointed.

To tell a story in one line -
Boy and girl meet each other; fall in love, convinces their parents and get's married.

It moves through IIM-A, Chennai and Delhi. As usual, the boy is intelligent, good looking. Girl is beautiful, talented. Chetan Bhagat moves with his usual mix of witty lines, funny incidents and romance. But the real fun starts when their parents meet each other and at Convocation they find out the path ahead is not going to be easy. The reason - well .. Boy is from Punjab and girl is from Chennai. One from state in North; other from state in South, representing two different cultures in India. After much consideration and against wish of his mother, Boy gives preference as Delhi and Chennai both. Company asks him to join office at Chennai. There he finds the task of convincing girl’s parents might be tougher than what he thought. Then he tries hard to convert the negative approach into positive and finally succeeds. Task for Girl who does not know to make Roti is much more difficult but the situation in one of relative’s marriage gives her one chance and she scores. So now everything is set. Girl and Boy love each other. Boy’s parents like girl. Girl’s parents like boy. Now next step is both side of parents should like each other. Here comes the major problem between parents and their relation almost comes to end. Here comes Boy’s father, who is shown in negative image till that point suddenly turns the plot and makes way for happy ending.

I don’t want to give details and spoil your fun in reading and enjoying. Writer narrates in such a way that it creates series of scenes in front of us. There are many funny scenes in the book. My most favorite one is when boy runs from marriage hall and his father in law has to bring him back. There are many places where writer points out drastic difference between thinking of people from these two states. As it is based on Chetan Bhagat’s own marriage, I could not stop myself from thinking about different scenes trying to differentiate between fiction and real life scenes. What part of this story would be fiction and what not?. Overall I enjoyed the book a lot and I congratulate Chetan Bhagat for again proving that he is magician of new generation when it comes to art of light hearted story telling.

It is not review of book. It’s my experience with the book. Every book gives us different experience at different times and in different situations. I hope, you would also like this book.