Love in the US of A

Shit Happens! Desi boy in America
By Karan Puri. Prakash books. Pages 160. Rs 125

What happens when a true-blue desi boy goes to the melting pot of cultures, the United States of America, and gets to live the Great American Dream. Karan Puri’s rites of passage book has shades of autobiographical details and it is the honesty and sicnserit with which he narrates the story of Anurag is touching. For a first book the narrative is fast-paced and does not flag. The reader is pulled into the trials and tribulations of the protagonist Anurag Sinha, a painfully shy and introverted geek whose moment of glory comes when he wins a scholarship to Rochester.

The nosey relatives and typically overbearing parents do not give our hero the space to bloom. Bullied in school and shrinkingly self conscious with girls, Anurag thinks that America will be different. But shit happens all the time! The title of the book is offputting but since the story is well told and quite a breeze, we trapise along with our blundering hero as he finds his feet. Be it the culture shock of arriving in the Big Apple and the series of gaffes and finally being struck by the cupid And falling for an American girl Lizzie and befriending her boy friend Aaron, who his also his room mate in Rochester, Anurag’s voice is authentic. So you cry and laugh with him and share his revulsion (manifested in actually throwing up) when he mistakenly has beef.

Beneath the first-person narrative are asides and observations on the cultural variations and distinctly Indian or American traits are brought to the fore in a hilarious manner. Not very high on style, the book is a good first-time read. — AN

HOME