‘I’ll make my sisters squirm like well-salted earthworms.
I won’t sell. Even my jutti won’t sell.
And if I die na, then even my gosht won’t sell!’
- the late Binodini Thakur, arguably the least pricey Thakur girl, on the matter of selling the house at Hailey Road.
Waiting – and a Twist:
Anuja Chauhan’s fans – including myself – have been waiting for The House That BJ Built for a looooong time. Well, at least ever since 2013, when it was announced through a sneakily clever teaser at the end of Chauhan’s most popular novel yet, Those Pricey Thakur Girls. (Little did I know in my excited awaitment that it would end up being released on the exact same date as one’s own book, much like a Salman Khan starrer raining on, well, a book, but then again I clung to THTBB to comfort my own bookish anxieties. So there.)
The Thakurs
Those Pricey Thakur Girls was a charming romantic comedy set in Delhi, in a late-eighties/early-nineties India – of Doordarshan news hour and old Ambassador cars and no readymade jeans to be had for love or money. Though TPTG is essentially the story of Doordarshan’s latest most lovely newscaster Debjani urf Dabbu, with her perfectly enunciated Modern School English, and the firebrand investigative journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, who decides to deliver justice to the victims of the ghastly anti-Sikh riots orchestrated by Congress thugs, the entire madcap clan of Thakurs is introduced in it.
BJ or Baoji and his sweet-tempered wife Mamtaji live in a beautiful if slightly shabby old house on Hailey Road, inherited from BJ’s formerly notorious (gambling-whoring-wild-oat-scattering) father Pushkar Narayan. They have five pataakaa daughters, named alphabetically: Anjini, most beautiful and most incorrigible flirt; Binodini, great miser and besotted with her serial new-business-starting-the-second-the-old-business-has-failed husband Vickyji; Chandralekha, disowned after elopement with an Estonian; Debjani, newly employed in Doordarshan and Eeshwari, the high-schooler.
Next-door to them live BJ’s serial womanising and highly vain brother, Ashok, his pugnacious pug-looking wife Chachiji and law-flunking bodybuilding son Gulgul, who has a great deal of information on HUF – or Hindu Undivided Family – property disputes, thus foreshadowing lightly the drama to come soon.
The House That BJ Built is a jump sequel, set 20 years after the love story of Dylan and Dabbu, and concerns, amid the drama of selling the house on Hailey Road, matters of ishq and vishq. Anjini’s stepson Samar has grown up to become a hotshot Bollywood director (though currently in the doghouse for badmouthing industry bigwigs in a drunken mini-rage) while the late Binodini’s daughter Bonu Singh runs a ‘garment fabrication unit’ in the upstairs of the Hailey Road house, with a pack of tailors who can produce copies of the latest Bollywood outfits in a matter of hours. Ballsy Bonu, who, unlike her father, has shown a dab hand in business, has always had a crush on her step-cousin, the smouldering often offhand Samar, as he returns to Delhi with a bit of a director’s block (the working title of his new film is Tharki Thakur).
And…
Sparks fly. And how.
The Winning Formula
It must be pointed out that Chauhan’s heroes are now beginning to seem very like each other – Nikhil, Zain, Dylan and Samar, all blending into one central uniquely Chauhanesque dude, all swashbuckling, wry, save-the-day ish. However, given the two-year gaps at which the books appear, I’m guessing the readers are not quite complaining. That apart, the book rocks. While Dabbu in TPTG had been a bit tepid, Bonu Singh is spectacularly badass.
“She could’ve been facing legal action – again. This has happened twice before, a fact she omitted to mention when she gave him her little two-crore turnover speech. Bollywood designers had complained that their designs were being lifted and they were losing serious business, especially in the Dubai market. Bonu had to shut down her website twice and relaunch it under a new name, the first being Vikram&Binny and the second, Fashion Vickypedia.”
What really sets Chauhan’s books apart, in addition to her trademark humour and her absolutely sparkly Hinglish prose that captivates ear and heart all at once, is her skill at juggling with several plot elements. Like the original queen of chick lit and whacky women, Marian Keyes, Anuja Chauhan’s novels have several complications flowering from the central conflict, to get resolved only at the very end, with hundreds of masaaledaar twists and turns that keep one turning the pages. The House that BJ Built is no different; thickly plotted with kissaa after kissaa over the fabled five hissaas.
So, while the boy-girl drama unfolds, there are husband-stabbing tailors, dodgy brokers, shady Delhi lawyers who charge three or four lakhs per hour, filmi designers with filmy morals, and many manipulating mafia types. They fill every page with laughs. Eshwari’s childhood classmate and neighbour Satish (Tam-Brahm) Sridhar has returned as a hi fi construction company head honcho, with a fancy office in CP. Will Steesh and Eshwari find closure? It is an important question. Then there are the other four sisters. Twenty years ago they were the pricey Thakur girls; now, much as they would protest at this, they are the eccentric Thakur mausis now, albeit as funny as ever.
Verdict: Vintage Anuja Chauhan, perfect for a hot summer afternoon on the weekend, post-brunch. Best served with a tall glass of iced lemonade – and perhaps, even, the quiet convivial company of a sister, best friend or a favourite niece to whom you can read bits aloud.
The House That BJ Built, Anuja Chauhan, Westland, Rs 350.
Devapriya Roy’s new book The Heat and Dust Project: The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat, co-written with husband Saurav Jha, is the story of an eccentric journey across India, on a very very tight budget.
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I won’t sell. Even my jutti won’t sell.
And if I die na, then even my gosht won’t sell!’
- the late Binodini Thakur, arguably the least pricey Thakur girl, on the matter of selling the house at Hailey Road.
Waiting – and a Twist:
Anuja Chauhan’s fans – including myself – have been waiting for The House That BJ Built for a looooong time. Well, at least ever since 2013, when it was announced through a sneakily clever teaser at the end of Chauhan’s most popular novel yet, Those Pricey Thakur Girls. (Little did I know in my excited awaitment that it would end up being released on the exact same date as one’s own book, much like a Salman Khan starrer raining on, well, a book, but then again I clung to THTBB to comfort my own bookish anxieties. So there.)
The Thakurs
Those Pricey Thakur Girls was a charming romantic comedy set in Delhi, in a late-eighties/early-nineties India – of Doordarshan news hour and old Ambassador cars and no readymade jeans to be had for love or money. Though TPTG is essentially the story of Doordarshan’s latest most lovely newscaster Debjani urf Dabbu, with her perfectly enunciated Modern School English, and the firebrand investigative journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, who decides to deliver justice to the victims of the ghastly anti-Sikh riots orchestrated by Congress thugs, the entire madcap clan of Thakurs is introduced in it.
BJ or Baoji and his sweet-tempered wife Mamtaji live in a beautiful if slightly shabby old house on Hailey Road, inherited from BJ’s formerly notorious (gambling-whoring-wild-oat-scattering) father Pushkar Narayan. They have five pataakaa daughters, named alphabetically: Anjini, most beautiful and most incorrigible flirt; Binodini, great miser and besotted with her serial new-business-starting-the-second-the-old-business-has-failed husband Vickyji; Chandralekha, disowned after elopement with an Estonian; Debjani, newly employed in Doordarshan and Eeshwari, the high-schooler.
Next-door to them live BJ’s serial womanising and highly vain brother, Ashok, his pugnacious pug-looking wife Chachiji and law-flunking bodybuilding son Gulgul, who has a great deal of information on HUF – or Hindu Undivided Family – property disputes, thus foreshadowing lightly the drama to come soon.
The House That BJ Built is a jump sequel, set 20 years after the love story of Dylan and Dabbu, and concerns, amid the drama of selling the house on Hailey Road, matters of ishq and vishq. Anjini’s stepson Samar has grown up to become a hotshot Bollywood director (though currently in the doghouse for badmouthing industry bigwigs in a drunken mini-rage) while the late Binodini’s daughter Bonu Singh runs a ‘garment fabrication unit’ in the upstairs of the Hailey Road house, with a pack of tailors who can produce copies of the latest Bollywood outfits in a matter of hours. Ballsy Bonu, who, unlike her father, has shown a dab hand in business, has always had a crush on her step-cousin, the smouldering often offhand Samar, as he returns to Delhi with a bit of a director’s block (the working title of his new film is Tharki Thakur).
And…
Sparks fly. And how.
The Winning Formula
It must be pointed out that Chauhan’s heroes are now beginning to seem very like each other – Nikhil, Zain, Dylan and Samar, all blending into one central uniquely Chauhanesque dude, all swashbuckling, wry, save-the-day ish. However, given the two-year gaps at which the books appear, I’m guessing the readers are not quite complaining. That apart, the book rocks. While Dabbu in TPTG had been a bit tepid, Bonu Singh is spectacularly badass.
“She could’ve been facing legal action – again. This has happened twice before, a fact she omitted to mention when she gave him her little two-crore turnover speech. Bollywood designers had complained that their designs were being lifted and they were losing serious business, especially in the Dubai market. Bonu had to shut down her website twice and relaunch it under a new name, the first being Vikram&Binny and the second, Fashion Vickypedia.”
What really sets Chauhan’s books apart, in addition to her trademark humour and her absolutely sparkly Hinglish prose that captivates ear and heart all at once, is her skill at juggling with several plot elements. Like the original queen of chick lit and whacky women, Marian Keyes, Anuja Chauhan’s novels have several complications flowering from the central conflict, to get resolved only at the very end, with hundreds of masaaledaar twists and turns that keep one turning the pages. The House that BJ Built is no different; thickly plotted with kissaa after kissaa over the fabled five hissaas.
So, while the boy-girl drama unfolds, there are husband-stabbing tailors, dodgy brokers, shady Delhi lawyers who charge three or four lakhs per hour, filmi designers with filmy morals, and many manipulating mafia types. They fill every page with laughs. Eshwari’s childhood classmate and neighbour Satish (Tam-Brahm) Sridhar has returned as a hi fi construction company head honcho, with a fancy office in CP. Will Steesh and Eshwari find closure? It is an important question. Then there are the other four sisters. Twenty years ago they were the pricey Thakur girls; now, much as they would protest at this, they are the eccentric Thakur mausis now, albeit as funny as ever.
Verdict: Vintage Anuja Chauhan, perfect for a hot summer afternoon on the weekend, post-brunch. Best served with a tall glass of iced lemonade – and perhaps, even, the quiet convivial company of a sister, best friend or a favourite niece to whom you can read bits aloud.
The House That BJ Built, Anuja Chauhan, Westland, Rs 350.
Devapriya Roy’s new book The Heat and Dust Project: The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat, co-written with husband Saurav Jha, is the story of an eccentric journey across India, on a very very tight budget.