Pages: 223
ISBN: 9789382473268
Price: INR 145
Marriages – that’s what a majority of Indian life revolves around, at least for mummies whose last wishes are to dangle their grandchild on their knees, at least that’s what they’ll have you to believe. Marry Go Round by Sadiqa Peerbhoy draws inspiration from this age-old fixation of Indians. This book, set in the Nawabi city of Hyderabad makes full use of this setting to produce an Indian masala book.
The book begins with Sartaj, the epitome of all Indian mothers, worrying about her son, Riaz’s wedding. Riaz, on the other hand is “chilling” in New York, taking full advantage of his brown skin to win over all the Amreekan girls. He is also indulging in the Indian elders’ nightmare: a live-in with a white girl.
Sartaj , with no help from her Shakespeare-loving, mouth-stuffing lanky husband Professor Sahib manages to get Riaz back to India under the false pretence of a heart attack. She then goes about and fixes Riaz’s wedding with Sana, daughter of the Mirza family. Meanwhile, Riaz is being haunted by his white girlfriend who has followed him all the way to India. And of course, you can imagine the confusion of errors that follows in the book. The ending is quite a surprise, and quite disappointing. That being said, I shall reveal no more about the ending.
The book uses the colloquial famous Hyderabadi slang to up its humorous quotient. That, coupled with Sartaj’s antics and reminiscence about Nawabi Hyderabadi life does well to make you laugh. The outstanding character is of course mummyji, Sartaj who, though a tad bit unrealistic does her job well. Her loud-speaker voice is always present in the book. Dilawar’s sad love stories are a riot, still making you laugh. The book is written well and does its job well. The characters are realistic and easy to connect with.
The crazy relatives, the greedy matchmaker, the families showing off, everyone has a good comic timing. There are a few twists that you do not see coming and that may or may not delight you. Overall, this is a light book recommended for a train or plane journey.
Overall Rating: 7/10
More Details:
The author on Facebook: Sadiqa Peerbhoy
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