Feb 03, 2014 07:29 AM
8957 Views
(Updated Feb 03, 2014 10:08 AM)
This book true to its name(DRAMA QUEEN) evokes bizarre emotions! The build up to the book release, the high profile author, buzz in the media and the possible scope for sensational revelations is enough to arouse curiosity even in lazy readers like me.
Suchitra Krishnamurthy is a film actor who had a sensational release with Shahrukh Khan many years back in * Khabhi Haa Khabhi Naa.* People sat up and took notice of a pretty petite youngster who breezed through her role with confidence coming in from her successful brush with TV inChunaoti.
Suchitra has also dabbled successfully in various forms of creative art like painting, singing and of course writing. It is evident that people tend to now recognize her more for once being married to director Shekhar Kapoor who made the brilliant Bandit Queen andMr.India and then went international.
It is not for us to conjecture on what went wrong between them, but her latest bookDrama Queen does on many occasions touch upon a residual bitterness evoked in a comical fashion with references to her inadequate alimony.
Humour: That then is the intended mood of the whole book as Suchitra goes on a wild trip down recent memory lane with herself, relating in fascinating detail her various trysts in life, her ‘Bindaas’ attitude drawing shocked reactions from her mother who incidentally becomes almost the main protagonist when she starts bouncing off all her travails using her like a mirror to review her own behavior.
She does deride herself quite a bit and she does sound pretty serious when she writes about a proposal to Ram Gopal Verma and his reaction to it. I thought it was more an effort to get it( the incident) out of her system and end the sense of humiliation which she must have felt after what she must have later realized it as a not so desirable act. Writing and mocking herself, relating the various anecdotes is probably a sort of cathartic process for her.
The book begins very promisingly. It does hit you like having strayed into a long catty Facebook conversation of friends. You do break into grins frequently at descriptions of some situations where she wants to get rid of some ‘nose in the air’ society’s clownish friends or marvel at her detailed description of the tryst in the director’s office, her frank confessions of her actual relationships with her friends and family though you start squirming when she enters into pet fornication territory which I thought was out of place.
The books keeps you on a attention leash till half way as you already have a clear picture image etched out of the protagonist and her parents but one starts drifting when the narration tends to get repetitive with nothing new happening.
The book tends to lose you when you start asking yourself, “Yeah got this, what next?“ and then there is no answer. The book will appeal to all gossip hungry readers whose avarice extends to seeking bliss in voyeurism through words that describes the author’s otherwise private space.
It is brave writing exhibiting the talent of a woman uninhibited by her circumstances and may appeal to readers having a curiosity about the afterlife of a wonderful petite actress who disappeared from the scene and has reappeared on the creative canvas once again to make a mark.
(My rating is 2 1/2 stars though there is no option for that in the review columns.)
