Leeching on love

Gone are the days when Parsi fiction was the sole domain of the Parsi novelist. Recently Amitav Ghosh created the very convincing character of Bahram Modi in The River of Smoke and now Vrushali Telang has published He Loves Me Not with a cast of motley characters both Parsi and non-Parsi.

This is Telang’s second novel, her first being Can’t Die for Size Zero. Earlier a reporter for CNBC TV-18 and NDTV, and producer for MTV shows, Telang subsequently took to the written word as a screenwriter, columnist and author.
Telang’s new novel is located in Narielwala Mansion, not a Parsi residential estate as the name suggests, but a sprawling housing society in Worli. Here, we are introduced to 61-year-old Dinshaw Cooper, an inhabitant of C-2, who lives with his aged mother suffering from amnesia and his son, Jimmy. Dinshaw has yet to recover from the elopement of his wife, Havovi, who left him 18 years ago in favor of his ex-boss, Mr Mehta alias "saala paadmaroo (foolish fart).”
Jimmy is the conventional teenager, good-looking and good for nothing, with more brawn than brain, overflowing with dreams of success and wealth. His plans for worldly riches alter every minute: one day he wants to be a singer, the next an entrepreneur running a pickle factory, occasionally, he expresses the desire to produce Hollywood films and sometimes he dreams of being a great industrialist. Of course, he is presently financially dependent on his father. Telang portrays the relationship between Dinshaw and his son very effectively. It starts off as one fraught with difficulties and antagonism but by the end of the novel, both have mellowed and have learnt to live together with respect and understanding.
Dinshaw’s badminton partner is Porus Nasarwanji, the father of Mehroo, Jimmy’s "bed buddy.” Mehroo is a typical plain Jane whose only aim in life is ensnaring and marrying Jimmy, the man of her dreams. She is obsessively devoted to Pizzazz, the magazine she hopes will be the answer to her dreams and enable her to reinvent herself and become a "sexy new you.” She is besotted with Jimmy, who unscrupulously uses her for sex and extorts sizeable amounts of money from her for haircuts, head massages, gels and hair-spa treatments.
To make a fast buck, Jimmy gets drawn into the net of being an escort for the wealthy Ritu Nagda. She drowns him with expensive gifts, takes him for a holiday to Goa and entertains him on her luxury yacht only to drop him suddenly and forcing the disconsolate Jimmy to make the return journey from Goa by bus.
The canvas of characters is large and though Telang does do justice to some, others make brief entrances and exits without adding much to the plot or the events. One such character is Gurpreet, also known as Guru, who is in the business of making films. She makes a brief entrance and Telang informs us she prefers persons of her own sex. This is all very well; but, then Gurpreet does not have any role to play in the rest of the novel except when Mehroo has a passing thought and wonders why Jimmy had never approached her if he was interested in joining films. Similarly there is a cursory reference to Brian who is gay; once again, this character is not taken any further.
Though the initial relationship between Mehroo and Jimmy is well handled, the sudden change in their characters is not portrayed in a plausible manner. This is particularly the case with Mehroo. The progress she makes from being an introverted and lovelorn young girl — unable to say a firm no even to a saleswoman of sanitary napkins — to a confident and savvy guru is too abrupt to be convincing. These issues should have been handled in a much more skillful manner so that the book could rise above the mere boy meets girl story where the ending is always predictable. Even the final reunion of Ritu with her husband is forced and incredible and it seems as if Telang is in a hurry to finish the novel and tie up the loose ends.
However, there is an underlying serious and darker side to this effervescent, light and frothy novel which deals with exploitation at several levels: glossy magazines like Pizzazz which exploit innocent young girls by providing them with unconvincing self-help advice; rich women who exploit young boys, occasionally underprivileged, for their sexual satisfaction; fake gurus who preach semi-religious and yogic mantras using stock phrases like "healing ourselves, and awakening our pranas, kundalinis, and sushumna nadis,” and advise blindfolds to lose inhibitions and deep breathing as a panacea for all ailments.
The novel is a fast read and is very enjoyable. Telang is extremely observant in her accurate portrayal of eccentric Parsi characters. She depicts them, warts and all, but with great charity, warmth and affection.