BOOK REVIEW OF NOVEL HALF GIRL FRIEND

Bikash Choudhury

One rainy day in the month of September one full page advertisement stared at me on the face; the advertisement was bold one for a product of less than $3 USD. Dropping the suspense let me say that was a pre launch Advertisement place by e-tailer FlipKart for the new novel written by the famous author Chetan Bhagat with innocuous title ‘Half Girl Friend’. Instantaneously, I reached for my laptop to book a copy of the fiction just to satisfy my curiosity of experiencing the services of an online sale than any craze of reading another pulp fiction from Chetan Bhagat stable; though, I have consumed reading of his previous titles. I actually found Chetan Bhagat as a smart and shrewd business man in Publishing Industry than a fiction writer of eminence. However, one has to concede that Mr. Bhagat understood his customer-readers (target audience) as no one does in his genre of writing. It is only Bhagat who could coin a new word ‘Half Girl Friend’ in the Chambers English Dictionary. He knows too well about the implicit and explicit desire of boys and men to have a girl friend and the curiosity of girls/women to know about their spatial & not so spatial perception of boys about them and also to remain attractive and desirable. Two million print runs of the inaugural edition of the novel ‘half girl friend’ proves that the author has hit the bulls eye on selecting the title of the book and what a consummate business man that he is; however, no body has guts to challenge his ability of narration about intimate affairs as some time he could beat the infamous Viagra in straight sets 2-0 multiple times. May be performance enhancing drug Industry could take a lesson or two from the infamous author how to design their drug and how to promote their use. If Kamasutra were to be written all over again in this century; then, undoubtedly Chetan Bhagat would be its author. Those young men and women watch pornographic films with a guilty consciousness can migrate to read ‘half girl friend’ as it is written in very simple prose with dexterity and sophistication unlike the crude methods of pornographers. Half girl friend is good read on a long journey; though the plots are very predictable. Author has borrowed the flash back technique to some extent from the novel ‘The Guide’ of R.K. Narayan. For a change or out of greater ambition the author has interwoven himself as a compassionate character in the novel that young audience would very much like ‘consultant on love & romance’. May be the author would provide a new Idea in the oldest business of the world.

 E-mail: streben.market@gmail.com Twitter: @ideasofhope Mobile: 09853426657

Flat # 105 Kalpataru Nivas Apartment, Swarnapuri, Patia, Bhubaneswar 751024