A bumpy road to arranged marriage

Broadly, literature can be divided into fiction and non-fiction. The former is when the book happens inside you. You literally come up with it from scratch. One man’s imagination is another man’s novel (think J.K. Rowling). The latter is when it happens outside you. Things, life, incidents, experiences, happen to you and you write about them. One man’s experience is another man’s novel (think Chetan Bhagat). The trouble with the latter is things happen to all of us. We often find ourselves saying “oh this is such a filmy incident” (most of us want films made of our lives — because people that watch far exceed those that read).

Do You Know Any Good Boys is one such from the stable of the latter. As far as the Indian offerings from this stable go, IIT is one hot topic. Anyone who has gone through or didn’t manage to get through engineering is writing a book about it. So, simply on premise, the book works: It is a fresh topic. There aren’t too many books about the shenanigans of arranged marriages lining up our bookshelves yet.

It is about a girl — in this case, the author — Meeti Shroff — who became Meeti Shroff Shah — and she thought of spinning that transition into a book. In India, marriages can be divided into love and arranged. Meeti Shroff, because she couldn’t or didn’t find love in the corridors of college or office or common friend parties or wherever else people find love these days, finally and reluctantly opted for the arranged marriage route. As always, her parents suggested it. As always, at first, like hundreds others, she rejected it. But as it happens a lot of times, the process is quite embarrassing, entertaining, amusing, insulting, bewildering — not necessarily in that order — but it is. All of which makes for a great story.

The trouble with Meeti’s book is it doesn’t make for a good story, let alone a great one. Being from advertising, she’d know her TG (target group) well. Who this book is targeted at is unclear. Who’d want to read this story And why To a teenager, this book makes little sense because they are too far-off from this. To a young adult, there is almost nothing in this book you haven’t heard before. After you cross a certain age, you know someone involved in the whole arranged marriage process (or perhaps you are involved in it yourself). Each person claims to have a story to beat the others.

The kind of bizarre people you meet (or sometimes don’t, when the person doesn’t show up at all) are very entertaining to an onlooker. It is soul crushing for the person playing the game, of course. But the point is, with this topic, there is pretty much nothing you haven’t heard before.

So, when a book about it comes along, you hope to find something you didn’t know. Or you hope to find something that the author knows, which you can use as tips or help in your meetings. This book does none of that.

What it does is take the reader (the braves ones at least) through the journey of an arranged marriage. What happens, the sequence it happens in, how weird it is, etc. It shows us the various ways Indian parents have devised to get us married (matrimony sites being the latest addition. Frankly, Indian parents didn’t need another way in their arsenal). It introduces us to all the people involved in the game.

For good measure, Meeti also adds experiences of her friends, cousins and whoever else she can find, whenever she feels she is running out of steam or instances to throw in or build chapters.

It also talks about how Meeti suddenly meets “Mr Right”. And that’s also something you’ve always heard (even Meeti had) — you just know when you meet the person. You can’t explain it. And in the book too, that’s what happens. One fine day (or, one fine chapter), Meeti meets her man. Having ploughed through so many chapters and so many words, you feel almost cheated that it ends so abruptly (you are glad it ends, of course). In spite of having read her trials and tribulations and failed attempts and meeting idiotic guys, you don’t feel happy for Meeti (in the book) when she meets her guy. You don’t feel euphoric for the protagonist. That’s because you never feel sad for her either — the writing hasn’t made you feel anything throughout.

Do You Know Any Good Boys is neither a “how-to” book nor is it a “what-to” book. It merely, tepidly chronicles the journey of Meeti (and millions others who couldn’t find a publisher or didn’t have the time to sit and write down their experiences).

There are a few chuckles the book provides. A few analogies those are fresh.

The writer does have a few hilarious instances and girl-meets-boy set ups too (the girl meets boy without the boy deserves a special mention). But overall, when it’s all said, written and read, you are left wondering why people who write based on experiences can’t have better experiences You end up being convinced you can write better because you’ve had better experiences. You end up asking: Do you know any good writers

Omkar Sane is an author, film writer and a Mumbaikar