Born in Barelley, Anuj Tiwari, is an IT Engineer by profession, with a full time job. This pastime author launched his second book, titled It Had To Be You, on Good Friday. At the launch he made a number of confessions and professed to do in writing what Emraan Hashmi does on screen. He was clearly at odds expressing himself in the language of his craft; it is to his credit and that of his publishers, Rupa, that over 190 pages have been churned out by him, twice over. His first book, Journey of Two Hearts, traverses over 200 pages.
‘It had to be You’ is a Bollywood script right from the word go. A jilted lover, a wedding and a half, office politics, frustrated male fantasy, attempted rape, prospective in-laws, tips on how to please them, death, mortality, guilt, shame etc. etc. etc. It alternates between maa, sleaze, and godliness. A very true picture of urban India complete with interfering neighbours. And of course, everybody is referred to as either ‘aunty’ or ‘uncle’.
The author makes no bones about the fact that though a novel, hardly any imagination went into the making of It Had To be You. An oxymoron of sorts: fiction without imagination. The protagonist is his own namkesake: Anuj. He insists that his colleagues, friends, family, find place under changed names in his semi-autobiographical novelette. To drag private into full-view and wash dirty linen in public is becoming an urban trend: it is perhaps the Face Book phenomenon.
In any case, all the characters are real, if not likeable. So are the places and situations. Rahim chacha, however, deserves a separate mention. Here, Anuj, seems to have put in a genuine effort to evolve him: by first adding layers of mystery and then gradually demystifying him. His abrupt disappearance from the book is, however, a bit disappointing.
The nineties were charged with soaps of the likes of the ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ steaming onto our television screens. A certain faction may find the book rather revolting, in what Oscar Wilde may describe as “the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass”.
To add to the rage of realism are questions from interfering ‘aunties’ such as: What’s your salary? Dad’s rhetoric: Is love everything for you (Anuj)? Are we nothing? Anuj’s own lament: Why do we have to wake up this early? I-T S-U-C-K-S.
Hindi-Urdu poetry, couplets in English, throughout the narrative, make up for a Hinglish reading waiting for a Bollywood producer.
To delve any further into ‘It Had To Be You’ is uncalled for. One would do well to remember Sir Fancis Bacon’s advice: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
‘It had to be You’ is a Bollywood script right from the word go. A jilted lover, a wedding and a half, office politics, frustrated male fantasy, attempted rape, prospective in-laws, tips on how to please them, death, mortality, guilt, shame etc. etc. etc. It alternates between maa, sleaze, and godliness. A very true picture of urban India complete with interfering neighbours. And of course, everybody is referred to as either ‘aunty’ or ‘uncle’.
The author makes no bones about the fact that though a novel, hardly any imagination went into the making of It Had To be You. An oxymoron of sorts: fiction without imagination. The protagonist is his own namkesake: Anuj. He insists that his colleagues, friends, family, find place under changed names in his semi-autobiographical novelette. To drag private into full-view and wash dirty linen in public is becoming an urban trend: it is perhaps the Face Book phenomenon.
In any case, all the characters are real, if not likeable. So are the places and situations. Rahim chacha, however, deserves a separate mention. Here, Anuj, seems to have put in a genuine effort to evolve him: by first adding layers of mystery and then gradually demystifying him. His abrupt disappearance from the book is, however, a bit disappointing.
The nineties were charged with soaps of the likes of the ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ steaming onto our television screens. A certain faction may find the book rather revolting, in what Oscar Wilde may describe as “the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass”.
To add to the rage of realism are questions from interfering ‘aunties’ such as: What’s your salary? Dad’s rhetoric: Is love everything for you (Anuj)? Are we nothing? Anuj’s own lament: Why do we have to wake up this early? I-T S-U-C-K-S.
Hindi-Urdu poetry, couplets in English, throughout the narrative, make up for a Hinglish reading waiting for a Bollywood producer.
To delve any further into ‘It Had To Be You’ is uncalled for. One would do well to remember Sir Fancis Bacon’s advice: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
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