Oscar Wilde had famously said that life imitates art rather than the other way round. This idea assumes worrying significance as one ploughs through Zarreen Khan’s Koi Good News . In the over-the-top, Bollywood-ian universe that the protagonists Mona and Ramit inhabit, everyone seems to have forgotten that we have progressed beyond the Stone Age. Age-old clichés and stereotypes are masked in humour, that ultimate tool of deception, used to sell everything from deodorants to everyday sexism.
Mona and Ramit are a young couple, married for four years, and childless — which automatically makes them the target of the “Koi good news?” bomb hurled by nosy relatives and “well-meaning” strangers. They have just moved into their new house in a posh neighbourhood and everything is hunky dory in their privileged lives.
Why, they even have glamorous neighbours who look like Milind Soman and, you know, the sexy and successful career woman who wears stylish clothes and has sex in the living room.
Of course, our heroine hates her. But the best part about the new move — Mona has managed to find a maid who is “punctual, clean, well-networked and hasn’t stolen anything in three days.” Slow clap.
Our protagonists soon get pregnant, after a night of drunken sex, it appears. Wild! The rest of the book is about poor Mona’s journey through pregnancy, as she battles mom and mom-in-law and all their love and food and unsolicited advice.
It’s hard to connect with the protagonists when they behave like spoiled brats, and not like the 30-year-olds they really are. Ramit is a caveman who expects his wife to pick up after him despite being brought up by a headstrong working mother.
Mona is petty, and cannot get over her sister’s lifestyle choices or her neighbour’s life. Is it easier to empathise with a woman when she is a ‘victim’ rather than when she is in control of her life?
One hopes that the reader is able to recognise the regressiveness for what it is. And please stop the underwear and condom jokes. It’s 2018, remember?
Koi Good News?; Zarreen Khan, HarperCollins, ₹250
julie.m.v@thehindu.co.in
