|
|
Going through the book is like
reading a compilation of the whole year's page three in the
newspapers of Delhi. Unfortunately, the events and times that
the author refers to are already outdated. Thinly disguised
identities that must be most obvious even to the uninitiated
reader, litter the pages. The book begins with the murder of
Rita Caur; singer in an illegal bar in Delhi called 'The Neem
Tree' owned by a restaurateur-socialite, Monica Mastani. The
issues here are not the murder or the conscience of a community,
but the story of 'Glamour, Guns and Gin' that the paparazzi
gleefully pounce upon, while they reflect on imponderables like
'The Night All of Delhi Left Five Minutes Early'. Rumours do the
rounds, gossip abounds and the hypocrisy of the socialite is
exposed as they all suffer collective amnesia when it comes to
getting involved.
In addition to the
completely recognisable protagonists of the above mentioned
drama, obvious references have been made to Rohit Bal,
Raghavendra Rao(royal designer Ranmendra Pratap Singh), Ritu
Berry (' talent less designer from Delhi'), Tarun Tejpal (Mr.
Dekhbhal from Blahindia dot com), Nishit Saran ("the
Harvard-returned film-maker who announced his presence in Delhi
with a gay film about himself"), Amar Singh ('the party
terrorist'….Uncouth portly politician with friends like the
mega star who with his wife have been playing host and hostess
at the politician's house")
Nobody has been
spared. Apart from veiled references, there are direct
references to the Who's Who of Delhi…Menaka Gandhi and her
sister Ambika, Dumpy Ahmad, Ambika Pillai, Feroz Gandhi. Many of
these references are coloured with a subjectivity that Gahlot
hasn't been able to or hasn't bothered to disguise.
The book is
completely in-your-face and in parts, riotous, as Aby, the
society columnist of National Express (not very subtle
because we know that Gahlaut is an Assistant Editor with The
Indian Express) stumbles from one society 'do' to another in
quest of scoops and stories. She comes across some amusing
situations and is known for getting her names, facts and figures
wrong.
The text is full
of tongue-in-cheek one-liners that do endeavour to bring about a
certain degree of gravitas in a book that is out-and-out devoted
to the sensational and the frivolous. For instance, "
Journalism's equivalent of writing a person's epitaph before
he's actually had a chance to die" and " No place is
utterly strange really, and no life more interesting or
ridiculous than any other" and " Turn a half lie into
the full truth with good storytelling"
The novel is a
paean to the trivial and its importance to the society animals
who come across as a very strange breed indeed, for their sole
aim is to see and be seen at the right places with the right
people. Any real achievement, it would seem from the book, is
secondary to what is said of them by the hacks of page three and
their standing in the cocktail circuit. A high degree of
visibility is essential for this breed as he\ she makes his\ her
appearance in The Jaipur Polo Grounds, in farmhouse parties
thrown by the glitterati, at exhibitions and sponsored fashion
shows, at the right hotels, dressed in the right couture,
sipping the right wines, talking to the right people. And all
the while they're watched and written about by the page three
hack, whom they love to hate. As for the reader of this
novel-he\ she has got to be an avid page three reader to be
really able to comprehend and appreciate the book. One must
admit that it is fun to read the book once. The second time?
Whoever reads yesterday's news today?
|
AMONG
the Chatterati makes
no bones about what it is. On the cover itself the author
specifies that it is the diary of a page-three hack Thus, the
author in effect declares that if the reader expects anything
apart from purely masala fare, he has picked the wrong
book. In fact, quoting Voltaire before the book begins, she
acknowledges her belief that 'The superfluous is very
necessary' and then proceeds to write a whole novel to support
that view.
