One Indian Girl-Chetan Bhagat

This story is a part of every woman in India. It very subtly but strongly brings out the deep rooted psyche of every typical Indian, it’s not always their fault, but that’s what they have grown seeing around, and our ideology is intertwined with our society and culture. The book very beautifully and satirically brings out the stereotypes and hypocrisy of our society and how our society judges women at every stage of their lives and most of the time, not intentionally. Radhika Mehta, the protagonist is an intelligent, sharp and hardworking woman with a “no nonsense to be taken” attitude but there have been situations in the book where she had to stoop down either because of emotional bonds and out of love, or because that is the culture of the society you have been brought up in (which can be really senseless sometimes). She earns a lot of money, has an opinion on everything and had a couple of relationships; all these three are like a wicked witch’s potions formula for us Indians, of course as we are a bunch of hypocrites. We want our daughters to excel crossing all barriers and horizons but being in limits, like there is everything provided to women but with terms and conditions applied. You should earn, but in limits so that your husband’s ego can be satisfied. You should travel the world, but wear clothes as customary to our traditions. You have all the freedom but of course, with a time deadline.

Radhika a successful investment banker has, out of constant bickering of her mother , finally decided to get married to a stranger through a matrimonial site, and all her family and the bridegroom’s(Brijesh) have gathered up for the pompous wedding to be held in Goa. But out of nowhere, her past lovers show up suddenly realising how much wrong they did letting her go, and want her to elope with her. All this starts a chain of confusions and dilemmas with detailed past flashbacks for Radhika , who gets terribly caught between her past and her present. The story has been very interestingly lined out through how women have to choose always, like its mandatory for them and not for the men. Women can take a job or look after the kids, women can be a bad or a good Indian girl, women should know how to cook or wash clothes or well, maybe both. Well this book raised a very serious question as in why don’t men get a choice, why don’t they have to choose? Like the book says- ‘let’s talk about giving a choice to a man – sex or career? Choose a career and give up sex or vice versa.’ Sounds ridiculous? Then why does an extremely talented earning woman with a happy family as well sounds ridiculous?

The book gives a very new throwback to the concept of feminism as a whole, which definitely touched a chord in my heart. It will definitely make everyone of us think, is feminism today even going in the right direction it is meant to go towards? Are we all really providing equal rights in the name of equal rights to both the genders? Maybe we have to review the meaning of ‘Feminism’ in our minds all over! The book tickles your grey matter in a satirical and humorous way, and is a definite read. I will give it a 4/5.