2 States - A Book Review

Shuffling from my seat, I came out of my trance to see few Filipinos staring at me and pondering at the red colored cover page of the book I was reading. I realised that I had been giggling a lot in that 20 seater Jeepney. “Well you know this guy in a costume called as ‘veshti’ is running out of his wedding ceremony while his father-in-law is running behind him” I thought of offering an explanation. But ‘aah!’ whom am i kidding! They wont understand what it is all about. It is not their story. It is a story from my homeland, and my country. It is a story from a country where political beaureacracy governs family relations. It is a country where there is a constant fight, a fight to preserve your community’s dignity, a fight to preserve your own dignity, a fight to withstand your cultural principles and finally a fight against all of these fights. “2 states” , is a tongue in cheek story about all of these fights.





Krish and Ananya, meet at IIM – A, fall in love and then decide to get married. But the Amrish Puri here are their families. Sounds like a typical 90s bollywood movie right? Yeah, even i thought of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, DDLG etc. But the twist here is that the families are against because both the they belong to different communities. Krish the Punjab – da-puttar is loathed a lot by the Tamilian tigers of Ananya’s family. Krish and Ananya have to mould their plausible resolution into a marriage where the Malhotras and the Swaminathans congregate without a dissent. In the process, they go through vicissitudes of disagreements, family fights while struggling with the fine thread of their own relationship.
Again, sounds like a typical bolywood movie, well indeed it is! “2 states” is a complete bollywood style entertainer. Where it would score above any typical bollywood story is the nature of the story telling process. Chetan has very well managed to stick to the topic and write about the ‘2 states’. We get to see Chennai, its culture, the people, the places and their own reasons for hating north Indians. We also get to see the Punjabis justifying their hatred towards the Madrasis. The writer in the entire story has very well managed to debate on both the fronts and then emerge victorious with a nice chocolaty climax.

Ironically, Chetan claims this to be his own life-story. Well, his life in IIT has been in such a way that we have Amir Khan acting on him now. I wonder who is going to play him in “2 states” now. Well I have read this line somewhere, “If you want to be remembered after you are dead, either do things worth writing, or write things worth reading” And Chetan has managed to do both very well.