One Indian Girl is nothing special. Written by a man but
narrated as a women, the main character is heavily idolized and the internal conflict
she goes through doesn’t evenly match with her external performance. Chetan
Bhagat has written this novel to show the world where he stands on the issue of
feminism and it is written as a Bollywood script so surely he aims to make a
movie out of it too as he is doing with his other novels. Apart from that, this
novel is beautifully crafted piece of work which takes you to a journey of
love, hatred, seduction, jealousy, stress and many beautiful and heartbreaking moments
in a woman’s life and her way to deal with it. The novel highlights the gender
discrimination avertedly citing many of the social taboos in existence in
Indian society like, the want of a boy child in the family, the “must marry”
rule for a girl, higher education and high paying jobs are only for boys and
girls should devote herself to her family and kids than work and money. This
novel like his previous ones also portrays sexual details as an essential element
and the changes in cities and scenarios which brings change in the character’s
life also add freshness to the story every now and then. The characterization
of “Minnie me” as Radhika’s alter ego adds fun in her otherwise boring monologues.
I also realized some inspired storylines in the book, like the relationship
between Neel and Radhika at the beginning resembles to George Clooney and Anna
Kendrik from “Up in the Air”, also the breaking up on text message is similar. Debu
being and notorious ex coming to Radhika’s wedding and trying to convince her
to elope with him is a common scene in lots of Bollywood movies. In a nutshell,
sometimes boring and unnecessarily emotional, sometimes funny and beautiful moments,
“One Indian Girl” surely takes you one a ride full of love, emotions, craziness,
confusion & heartbreaks and will end up turning you into a feminist.
Story (Spoiler Alert)
The start of the story sets in Goa, where Radhika, an
investment banker in Goldman Sachs, is getting an expensive destination wedding
in Goa with Brijesh, software engineer at Facebook. The story begins with
marriage chaos, starting with unavailability of rooms in the hotel for all the
guests. The writer, portrays the main character as a strong independent lady, analyzing
and solving the problems by herself and also narrating the story. She is
different from the women we see every day and she is very successful so the writer
warns the readers assuming to be of patriarchal mind set may not like her. The programs
in marriage ceremony, meeting of brides and bridegrooms and the awkwardness of
an arranged marriage is beautifully crafted and gives a good start to the story.
Followed by bachelor and bachelorette parties and all the craziness is fun. Then
comes Debu into the story, Radhika’s ex-lover from her New York days. He flies
to Goa and starts stalking her in her marriage. She finally agrees to meet him
in the gym and they talk about their New York days.
Radhika after completing her MBA joins Goldman Sachs, New York.
The new city is very lonely for a low self-esteemed Radhika until she meets
Debu, in a friends get together. They both become friends soon as Debu uses his
charms praising Radhika for her beauty and smartness and desperate Radhika
falls for it in no time. Being sister to an extremely beautiful Aditi, Radhika
has been always over shadowed and now when she finds a man praising her, she
wants nothing more but Debu to make a move towards her. They soon start dating.
And one day when she invites Debu to her apartment in excuse to see her sister’s
picture they end up having sex. The writer details all the foreplay and intimateness
which is fun to read. Radhika soon gets a permanent position in the distress
debt team, the toughest section in the Goldman Sachs and gets busy with her
work. Soon they realize they have very few time for seeing each other, so they
decided to move in together. Debu, working in an advertising company earns relatively
less and stays with two other roommates’ moves with Radhika in her apartment.
Everything is fun at first, sex is awesome but slowly things start to crumble. Radhika’s
mom starts arguing with her for her marriage while Debu wants a stable career
for him first. He starts cutting off expenses and ignores relationships and
marriage talks with Radhika. Finally Debu gets a big promotion and Radhika
throws him a huge party hoping to bring positivity in their relationship. Soon
after, Radhika gets a huge bonus of $150K apart from her salary which shakes
Debu. He starts comparing and get annoyed to the fact that she earns so much. Their
relationship only worsen when he doesn’t show up on her office party and leads
to an argument about his job and seriousness towards the relationship. Radhika shows
her desire for him to propose her but she stalls saying that he wants to be
secure in his job first. One day when Radhika is having a work related
conference call, Debu over hears her and criticize her work which leads to
another argument where he says that she can’t be a good wife or a mother and
hints for break up. Radhika tries to save the relationship with all her might but
Debu states the fact that he wants his wife to be a housewife and will only
accepts Radhika if she leaves her job. She disagrees with Debu’s view towards
working women and leave for work. That same day Debu breaks up with Radhika
over a text message. She cannot endure the break up and starts trying desperate
moves to get him back but she only gets hurt with every move she try. Her
condition only worsen and she finally realizes that being with Debu is better
than any career or money. So she decides to quit everything and but flowers and
ring to propose Debu. He already moved out so she goes to his old place and
with a plan to give him a surprise appear at his bedroom door without warning
only to find Debu sleeping with another girl. She feels pathetic and low, she
drinks till she pass out and cry whenever sober. She files resignation but viewing
her dedication and excellence in her work, Goldman Sachs decides to transfer
her to Hong Kong instead, as it would help her resolve her situation. She tries
getting back with Debu till the last hour but he keeps ignore her, so she toss
the phone into the river and leaves New York for good.
The story shifts back to Goa, where Debu begs Radhika to be
back with him. He even proposes her the idea that they can swap the grooms and
the wedding need not to be cancelled. She tries to ignore Debu and get more
close to Brijesh, but cannot focus completely. They go on a bike ride, drink
beer, smoke weed and get into trouble when the police catches them with weed. During
all this craziness, a new character is introduced, Neel. Neel starts texting
her, leaning about her wedding and flies to Goa that same day and they soon
bump into each other.
The story then again sets in past, this time Hong Kong.
After arriving Hong Kong, Radhika gets herself fully resolved into work to
avoid Debu’s memories but soon get nostalgic when the work is over. So when
Neel, a senior partner in her department offers her to work with him in a
secret project in Philippines, she accepts it without thinking twice. They slowly
bond and Radhika finds a getaway in Neel from Debu’s memories. Neel also turns
every stone upside down to comfort Radhika. He even cancels a great business
prospect with Japanese investor for a joke they make insulting Radhika being a
woman in distress debt department. As the Philippines deal close, they open up
with each other. Neel shares about his unsatisfactory marriage life and she
shares her heartbreaking New York love story. And in all those emotions and shots
of champagne they have sex. And this time too, the writer has detailed every
bit of foreplay and sexual intercourse. Radhika feels extremely guilty for
sleeping with her boss and decides to pretend it never happened. Later when
Neel confesses that it was one of the most special moments in his life, she
shows her indifference. Neel soon gets her into another project with him. In
between Radhika meets with Neel’s wife and children. While Radhika is still
struggling to get over Debu, Neel confess his love towards her in a text
message. They start to sleep in their every business trip and Neel got her into
a lot of trips with him. He confessed his love again and again but Radhika
never reciprocates her love. One day Neel come over to Radhika’s apartment to
stay with her where she confronts that he is using her just for sex. They have
an argument and Radhika ends up saying that she loves him too. She takes a
short vacation and travels home to India, where her mother compels her to agree
for a marriage and they agree to wait a year more. She shares the idea of
marriage with Neel, but he opposes that. He supports her carrier and their
affair to stay as it is. But when Radhika shows her desire to be a wife, a
mother, Neel replies that she is not meant to be a mother, which breaks her
heart and she kicks him out of her apartment and cries all night. She applies
for resignation but Neel convinces her to take a transfer to London and she
agrees with a condition that he won’t be in contact with her again. Radhika
moves to London and soon her mom visits her there. Her mom hunts boys for her
and shortlist some only to be rejected by Radhika until they come across
Brijesh’s profile. She first talks with him in skype and later meet in New
York. The only thing she hates about Brij
esh is his name and her mother insists
this to be a good match and she finally accepts.
The story returns back to Goa, where Neel is apologizing to
Radhika for his behavior in the past. He shows his divorce papers with his wife
and proposes Radhika to marry him. He says that he has a chartered plane ready
and they can escape any time she wants. She asks for time to think and returns
to wedding where she finds Debu who informs her that, he has already talked
with his parents and they are on the way. Though emotionally shaken by all
those events happening around Radhika tries to focus on the dance practice for sangeet
ritual but cannot focus and she breaks down and starts crying instead. It’s
already over her endurance limit. She decides to talk with Brijesh about this
and proposes him to cancel the wedding. Brijesh request her to think it over
and leaves her. She thinks all night and come up with an idea. She decides to
bring the boys face to face. She texts Neel and Debu to meet her at 5 am in the
café. Neel and Debu try to compete with each other and convince Radhika to
choose one over another but Radhika says that she won’t choose either because
deep down they have another face which will show up in future and hurt her. She ask them both to leave and then meet
Brijesh and tells him everything that is happening around. Brijesh is stunned
hearing all that but agrees to put away the past. But Radhika insists on
cancelling the wedding. She finally talks with her family and then with Brijeshs’
which gets totally awkward and chaotic. Finally Brijesh helps her out and the
wedding is cancelled.
Radhika then travels around beautiful cities and after 3
months catch up with Brijesh in San Francisco. They talk about their life since
then and Radhika even offers to help him with work. They decide to go for
Arijit Singh’s concert later in the evening.
(Do comment how you think about it.)
