Odd way of getting even

Some Women Will Never Change by Mehernosh Kapadia. Published in 2011 by Cyberwit.net, HIG 45, Kaushambi Kunj, Kalindipuram, Allahabad 211011. Pp: 188. Price: Rs 300.

Mehernosh Kapadia’s second novel Some Women Will Never Change centers around a one-time successful Bollywood star, Sultan Khan, and an ex-Miss World, former actress, now successful businesswoman, Ashoo Rabbani. As Sultan’s career has been declining at a tremendous pace and has almost reached an all-time low, Ashoo’s is spiralling upward at the same pace and the entire novel deals with Sultan’s revenge and his attempt to get even with Ashoo.

This novel is peopled with totally unlikeable and unsympathetic characters; hence, it is difficult to get involved with their destinies and the reader often could not care less as to what happens to them. The protagonist Sultan has borrowed money from the Don of Dubai and the movie he subsequently produced was a total disaster. He has forged Ashoo’s signature to obtain money and has now washed up in a seedy hotel in Athens trying to make a dodgy financial deal for the creation of "Studio Kingdom the largest and latest equipped.” While in Athens, he sees Ashoo and decides to make her invest in this deal.

Enter Benito Luciano, equally down and out, who has been a gigolo all his life. In addition to English and Italian, he speaks German, Spanish and French fluently — all learnt in restaurants where he usually served as a waiter and not at a posh public school in England as he would like others to believe by sporting a Harrow tie. His role is to seduce Ashoo and to ensure that she invests in the Studio Kingdom.

Mehernosh Kapadia: implausible plot

Ashoo is beautiful, rich and runs her business empire with seemingly great skill and intelligence with the help of two boring but reliable Parsi henchmen, Mr Baria, head of legal, and Mr Wadia, head of finance and commercial. She is a nymphomaniac who has just lost her extremely wealthy husband. She immediately sees through Luciano’s scheme with a mere glance at the papers he provides her with and unknown to him she has the entire proposal vetted and the title deeds pertaining to the location of the Studio examined. In spite of this evidence it seems ludicrous for the reader to accept that she continues to be insanely in love with Luciano and believes that he loves her in return. Though it is not necessary for financial prudence and emotional stability to go hand in hand, Kapadia just does not convince us that a woman like Ashoo could behave in so implausible a manner.

But implausibilities in the novel abound. Jimmy Johnson and Williams, who are the proponents of the scheme, pay Luciano 10,000 Euros to seduce Ashoo and make her cough up the required investment of 50 million dollars. This amount is spent in no time and Luciano once again appears before these seasoned criminals to ask for another instalment of 10,000 Euros. What seems improbable is that they would pay this large sum without asking for the least explanation of how the earlier amount was spent. It just does not make commercial sense; and Kapadia should well be aware of this as we learn from his personal details at the end of the novel that he is an MCom, LLB (G) and a member of the Association of Company Secretaries and has worked for some of the best corporate houses in India.

The proposed kidnapping of Luciano stinks of amateurism and even when the scheme is hatched and brought to the knowledge of the reader, one has no doubt that it will fail. Even the suspense of the dénouement of the kidnapping is aborted by Kapadia. Luciano gets into trouble with the Austrian police over a car parking incident and Sultan comes to his rescue. Kapadia comments that "Sultan made a stupid mistake” and on the next page describes the policeman "as having an excellent memory.” The reader is sure that this will be Sultan’s undoing later on in the novel which is exactly the case.

The novel is full of grammatical and typographical errors and erratic punctuation. The word "jelled” is misused instead of "gelled.” Occasionally in direct speech, there are no open inverted commas though there are close inverted commas. If you search for a footnote for the asterisk on page 61 after the word "detective” this would be a futile endeavor. When Ashoo advises Luciano to be patient, the words read, ‘Patients love” instead of "Patience, love.” Even Kapadia’s own personal details are not spared and we are provided with a list of "novel wirtten” by him and one of the titles of his novels is I want yo to watch my wife. However, one of the most amusing errors is a sizzling hot scene in a swimming pool where Ashoo wraps her "logs” around Sultan. The list is unending. This totally careless proof reading which the reader encountered in Kapadia’s earlier novel Society is repeated here and if some women never change will some men at least learn?

Firdaus Gandavia