Mar 25, 2006 05:49 PM
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(Updated Mar 25, 2006 05:49 PM)
What sells most? Definitely not potatoes and tomatoes, or saris and skirts. It is S E X. This three-letter word finds a lot of buyers.
There is one lady who knows how hard sell basic instincts. Her name? Shobha De! One of the most over-hyped authors of India. As a columnist she is good, but as a novelist she is ummm… aaahh … ouch (hold your imagination guys and gals, I’m not writhing in orgasmic frenzy but simply expressing my deepest feelings for Shobha Dahling’s writing skills).
Starry
Nights is Shobha’s second book. I’m sure she had written the story with an eye on the market instead of any real desire to tell a story.
Starry Nights does have a story to tell. Sort of a kind, you know. It is about Aasha Rani, a top actress of Bollywood who sleeps her way to glory. I actually wonder why people use the word sleep around for having sex. Imagine the plight of the partner if you actually went off to sleep during an intimate session. Anyways, enough of corny humour. Now, let’s get back to the book. Aasha Rani’s amma is the proverbial bitch. She wants her beti to be a top actress. So, Aasha Rani starts staying awake all night with fat financiers, shady art filmmakers, chota-mota producers, bhai-logs (underworld dons you nincompoops), top heroes … she also does it during the day time with a female journo Linda (yes, she’s even a lesbo). Aasha Rani falls in love with a top hero who later on dies of AIDS … she then marries a foreigner who makes out with her sister while she huffs and puffs in the loo of an airplane (is it really possible) with a stranger. At the end of it all, Aasha Rani encounters a deep void in her life.
It is said that the portrayal of Aasha Rani and her lover Akshay was based on the real life love-affair of Amitabh-Rekha and Dharamendra-Hema Malini.
There are some reasons why I didn’t like the book.
The plot is wafer-thin.
The characters are not well rounded.
There is no development in the plot; it is static and predictable.
The treatment is highly unrealistic.
As far as the plus points go:
The style is racy.
Shobha has the ability of manoeuvering her readers. However bad her books might be, one never leaves them in between.
It is erotic. To say that the book is steamy would be an underestimation. Starry Nights is a celebration of sex, Jackie Collins ishtyle. In fact, one could be tempted to refer to it as a sex manual. Sexual positions are described in detail – fellatio too is not left out – Aasha Rani’s lesbian encounter is too explicit and has the ability to raise your blood pressure. Her encounter with the stranger in the loo, though too unreal (the circumstance), is innovative.
Shobha is not a writer, but a businesswoman. She knows what to sell and how to sell.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, I would. Why? Simply because it is filthy and inconsistent writing at its racy best. Read it, have some fun, and then throw it in the bin.
